The Greatest Anti-Poverty Program in History

Today the Grameen Foundation is launching $27 on the 27^th. This is to commemorate Dr. Mohammed Yunus’ first micro-loan back in 1976. He loaned $27 to a group of impoverished women in Bangladesh who were living on less than $1 a day while working their hearts out. The economic system of the rural villages was designed by middle class traders to keep their village work forces in constant debt. The women that Dr. Yunus loaned his money to were making a profit of 2 cents a day. Almost immediately their profits increased 50 times to over a dollar a day. Within a few years Yunus had founded the Grameen Bank, which means Village Bank, and thousands of poor women have become self-reliant, often doubling or increasing their net income by 10 times within months of having a legitimate source of investment capital.

Today the Grameen Foundation supports over 200 micro-finance institutions operating around the world from Asia to Africa, China to the Middle East. There are now over 150 million families benefiting from micro-investment capital. The power of this business model is that it is a business. Interest is charged to support the micro banks so that they can loan more money and keep it in an endless virtuous cycle of reinvestment. Today the Grameen Foundation is operating with the wisdom of a global social enterprise by helping create software and other technology solutions to help microfinance banks operate with high efficiency. They are also creating micro-franchises so that village entrepreneurs can establish solar-powered villages while reducing the need for diesel and kerosene. They’re helping women become village eyeglass dispensers so that people over 40 can read on their cell phones and of course they have brought cell phone technology to tens of millions of people in the developing world. For the first time in history we can actually imagine a world without poverty driven by the values of self-reliance. After doing this for 30 years we now know that women are the world’s best poverty fighters because they reinvest in their children and their communities.

Today the Grameen Foundation is seeking to establish a constant and reliable source of donor income. They are asking us to contribute $27 a month every month, a little less than a dollar a day. What they hope to do with this sustainable flow of money is build a worldwide system that provides capital, education, access to basic health care, technology and leadership development to help the poorest of the poor lift themselves to a life of dignity. Their vision is a poverty free world.

I have adopted the Grameen Foundation as my central cause because I have never seen so much sustainable good achieved by integrating the best of business practices and the highest moral vision that human beings can aspire to. So I invite you to consider becoming part of this great movement to end poverty. Go to the Grameen Foundation and join up. I already have.

Grameen Bank – Good People Doing Great Things

This afternoon I was speaking to the Grameen Foundation. The Grameen Foundation who is helping spread microcredit throughout the world. As you know micro credit has raised more people out of poverty than any other program in history. Over 133 million people are now living in self-alliance because of the work the Grameen bank has done. They have launched a program called, Bankers without Borders, which is a very well developed strategic volunteering concept. The problem with most volunteering opportunities is that it makes use of our hands and our backs, not our heads or our skills. Strategic volunteering is using people that have specific skills to really make an impact, and to really make a difference. Bankers without Borders is not just for bankers, although anybody with a banking or finance background would do well to sign up because right from your own office or home you can help people who are running micro finance institutions, which are small banks come up with risk assessments, make loans, collect loans, and basically help raise their level of sophistication and change the lives of thousands of people without changing your life. It’s the ultimate, Save The World and Still Be Home for Dinner strategy. There are also opportunities for volunteers to go into the field in exciting places in Asia, Africa, and India to actually work with micro finance institutions. Bankers without Borders takes people with all kinds of skills, from marketing, to human resources, to information technology. What always impresses me about the Grameen Foundation is their understanding of how to scale up real solutions to help real people. This is not a charity that is interested in enabling people to wallow in their suffering, rather it is all about creating world wide self alliance. They have unquenchable ambition to absolutely eradicate through poverty. It’s a clear vision, and they have a clear path to achieve it. Now they have created a way for all of us to help, in any way that we can, right where we are. You can find Bankers without Borders on the Grameen Foundation Website. They are soon going to be creating a series of webinars to deal with specific topics, so that people know exactly how they might put their skills and energy to work. It always blows my mind to see good people do great things!

SELF Reliance is Your Birthright

Recently I was invited to attend the Board of Directors Dinner of the Grameen Foundation.  I was thrilled to be there.  Grameen’s Founder, Muhammad Yunus, has done more to lift people out of poverty than any human in history.  Grameen, which means village, began in the 1970s as a bank making microloans to the deeply and chronically poor of Bangladesh.  Since then Grameen has loaned 8 million women entrepreneurs money to start or expand their tiny enterprises which has triggered massive declines in poverty and huge improvement in self-reliance, literacy and quality of life.  Since then Grameen has expanded to nearly 20 social businesses offering ways for the poor to build a new economy by improving everything from health care to solar energy.  Most of Grameen’s businesses are owned by the poor they serve.  For the past 15 years they’ve been teaching others their secrets and today microcredit has helped 133 million families.  Their goal is to reach 500 million by 2015.  It’s a great business.  Loan repayment rates exceed 98%.

One country that has gotten Grameen’s attention is ours.  They founded Grameen America to help the persistent poor of our country.  Yea, I know.  From Bangladesh to the USA.  Who would have thought?  Of course a microloan in the US ranges from $3000 to $10,000, a far cry from the typical $50-$150 microloan of developing country borrowers, but the purpose of loans is the same, to achieve economic self-reliance.

You see Yunus, an economist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, is a huge proponent of SELF-employment.  He considers working for a paycheck to achieve someone else’s goals a road fraught with uncertainty and too frequently little security or satisfaction.  As a practical evangelist for universal entrepreneurship, he claims that financial self-reliance is a core human drive.  He also maintains that the entrepreneurial instinct is a part of basic human nature.  He makes this claim based on over 30 years of experience encouraging impoverished illiterate women to start micro-businesses that most often flourish into enterprises that lift entire families out of poverty.  He even has a loan program for beggars.  It turns out that beggars are frequently good sales people.  When they have stuff to sell, they sell all of it.  He calls entrepreneurship passion plus common sense.

We don’t have to be dirt-poor villagers to understand that many of the 5 million jobs that were evaporated in this Great Recession will never, ever return.  We don’t have to be psychics to foretell that the employment market will probably never return to the steady growth and security it offered in decades past.  And finally we must ask ourselves, why work for the “man”?  Anyone who hires you is making money on your talent, presumably money you could be making for yourself.  Are you living your American Dream?

Many experts say that recessions are great times to start new businesses or become an independent consultant. This is because competition during recessions tends to be weak and uninspired.  Also 80 % of new businesses are self-financed, and Internet based businesses can be started with micro amounts of money. Consulting also can be a boom area since many companies lay off too many people. If you make yourself an expert in an area that fascinates you, you will be in demand. And the best marketing for consultants is word of mouth. So if you’re willing to open your mouth and tell the world how you can make things better, you may be surprised at all the opportunity you uncover. If the poor and uneducated can become self sufficient with almost no resources, we can too.