Jacqueline Novogratz is pioneering new ways of tackling poverty. In her view, traditional charity rarely delivers lasting results. Her solution, outlined here through a series of revealing personal stories, is "patient capital": support for "bottom of the pyramid" businesses which the commercial market alone couldn't provide. The result: sustainable jobs, goods, services -- and dignity -- for the world's poorest.
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Kiva. Micro-lending to some of the poorest third-world entrepreneurs at the very bottom of the "pyramid." Here's our portfolio of loans, all made within the last couple of weeks. Kiva has had such good response that they've limited it to $25/lender to accommodate all those who want to loan -- social investing can work.
Make that $25/lender/recipient.
Hm. The comment to which the "25/lender/recipient" edit above was applicable isn't there. I'll repeat it, in case I screwed something up.
Kiva. Micro-lending to some of the poorest third-world entrepreneurs at the very bottom of the "pyramid." Here's our portfolio of loans, all made within the last couple of weeks. Kiva has had such good response that they've limited it to $25/lender to accommodate all those who want to loan -- social investing can work.
Of course microfinance is not a new idea, Muhammed Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for creating it in Bangladesh in the early 1970's. It is a great idea, but is inherently limited by the size of businesses that can be created in these countries. The virtue of these small businesses is that they are too small to by stymied by the rampant corruption and lack of governmental and legal infrastructure within these countries. The problem is not everyone can be an entrepeneur and the employment opportunities for those who are not are going to be limited until larger enterprises can be created.