This year I won’t be giving out more than a few tiny token presents to my friends and family, but I will be giving some of the best gifts I have ever given.   The Nobel prize winning efforts of the Grameen Bank have sponsored the poor with small loans to start businesses, and this tactic has proven to be one of the most effective poverty-fighting measures ever developed.

I hope you’ll consider gifts to Grameen or other charities as part of your happy holidays as well.     Grameen’s founder started the project with $27 business loans to poor businesses in India.      These were interest loans but historically have had a nearly 100% repayment rate.    The spectacular success of Grameen has also inspired other charities to approach development with more of an eye to entrepreneurship and small business and less of the “top down” mega project bureaucracies that have run into many problems as locals resisted them.     Small Business, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship is near and dear to the heart of many in the USA and I hope you’ll join me  in supporting Grameen with some green this Christmas.

Think about it –  $27 loans that often will positively reshape the lives of  entire families from this point forward.

More about Grameen.   If you are feeling *sassy*, you also might want to click to the right on the Grameen logo and donate via the Grameen page I just set up for a Christmas Campaign.     Frankly, if I was presented to this by anybody but a  friend I’d be a little concerned that the money would wind up at Grameen – they use a URL that is not easily recognizable as secure and connected to them.    But don’t let that deter you – just give at the Grameen Website in that case.