Grameen America Lends $2.3M

categories: Activism, Jobs & Unemployment, Nonprofits, Race Ethnicity Class & Gender, The Economy, Women

Published August 13, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT

On Tuesday President Obama awarded Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. That same day, Grameen America announced it has lent $2.3M to 1,000 low-income women entrepreneurs in NY and Omaha, and plans to expand in other unbanked communities in the U.S.

Grameen America is one of many microloan programs in the U.S. that include Kiva, Accion USA, and an admirable start-up initiative at Bentley. Accion is the biggest, having lent more than $100M to almost 20k borrowers since 1991. Microlending is an interesting anti-poverty program in its reverse directionality, i.e., its success in developing countries being imported to the U.S.

Yunus believes access to credit is a "human right" and explained his program's success, namely its high rates of repayment, as due to its attachment to the "real" economy, versus our "fantasy" finance world based on (now meaningless) bits of paper. The Nobel Laureate has a point, wouldn't you say?

(Video of Grameen America opening in NYC; NY coverage starts around 2:20)

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Author

Leigh is a PhD candidate in urban planning at MIT, and a consultant on U.S. Gulf Coast recovery. She sits on the Board of the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation in Boston, and has worked with non-profits, foundations and local governments on policies and programs aimed at reducing urban poverty and inequality.