2009-2010 Gift Catalog

Grameen Foundation

Gift Catalog 2009-2010

Give a gift to a loved one change the lives of poor women forever

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Welcome to Grameen Foundation’s 2009-2010

Gift Catalog.

Ending global poverty is a daunting challenge, but we’ve seen nearly four million families—more than 45 million of the world’s poorest people—escape poverty through access to microfinance and technology.

Grameen Foundation provides financing and technology to local microfinance institutions (MFIs) so they can make very small loans and offer the health, education, and other programs their clients need to get out of poverty—and stay out.

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This holiday season, make a gift with lasting impact—the gift of opportunity and hope to poor women and their families.

Here are just a few examples of how your gift continues to help us fight global poverty:

$27 provides a first microfinance loan. $90 expands inventory for a small shop. $250 starts a Village Phone business. $380 gives rural farmers access to crop information. $550 helps a woman buy a rickshaw to start a taxi business. $1,000 yields 20 women enough profit to buy shoes for their children. $1,500 funds a child’s education for five years.

Giving is easy!

Making a gift in honor of a special someone this holiday season is simple:

1. Choose a loved one(s) you will honor with your gift.

2. Select your gift(s) from this catalog.

3. Click the button next to the gift.

4. Make your gift online.

5. Personalize your e-card and send. Print a certificate to give to Donate Now

your loved one, letting them know a gift with lasting impact was made in their honor.

These gift amounts are for illustrative purposes only. Your gift will support Grameen Foundation programs that provide financing, technology, and other resources to local organizations that make microloans and provide other support to very poor people. If you are making a gift to the Grameen Foundation Scholarship Program, your gift will support a scholarship(s) for a needy child(ren).

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About Grameen Foundation.

Inspired by 2006 Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Foundation is a leader in the fight against poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Middle East/North Africa, and the Americas. We have helped more than 45 million poor people, especially women, improve their lives and escape poverty through access to microfinance and technology by: • • • •

Creating economic opportunities.

Building easy-to-replicate solutions.

Working with local partners to respect local ways of life.

Measuring impact and delivering results.

Our supporters share our passion and commitment to tackling the hardest problems through microfinance and technology.

What is Microfinance?

Sometimes called “banking for the poor,” microfinance is a simple approach that empowers very poor people around the world to pull themselves out of poverty. Relying on their ingenuity, skills, and entrepreneurial instincts, very poor people, mostly women, use small loans from local organizations called microfinance institutions (MFIs) to start or expand small, self-sustaining businesses. A key to microfinance is the recycling of loan dollars. As each loan is repaid—usually within six months to a year—the money is recycled as another loan, thus multiplying the value of each dollar in defeating global poverty and changing lives and communities.

What Can Technology Do? When we provide access to information and communications to the world’s poor, this technology can help create more economic opportunities, enable people to participate more fully in civic society, and connect them to the wider global community. Educating MFI leaders on the long-term strategic value of information systems and building a network of locally-based technology providers is also critical in reaching more of the world’s poor.

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What Your Loved One Receives.

When you make a gift from this catalog in honor of a loved one, Grameen Foundation will send a beautiful e-card (pictured above) announcing your generous gift.

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Just $27 can make a world of difference.

Donate Now In 1976, Professor Muhammad Yunus loaned $27 to a group of Bangladeshi women out of his own pocket, planting the seed that created Grameen Bank. This small action was a catalyst for the global microfinance movement that has since provided millions of women worldwide with the microloans they need to help start or improve their small businesses, provide for their families, and escape the cycle of poverty.

For the cost of a night out at the movies, you can make a difference in the fight against global poverty.

On the 27th of each month, we ask our supporters to make a donation of $27 to let the world know that poverty is unnecessary and one person can help change the lives of the world’s poorest. To jump start our efforts, friends of Grameen Foundation will match each of your gifts, dollar-for-dollar, up to $200,000.

Make a recurring gift in honor of your loved ones this season.

Grameen Foundation Supporters Witness Donation Dollars at Work While on a family vacation this year in India, Renu and Reuben Swartz visited Grameen Koota, our MFI partner. The family was able to sit in on a group meeting of about 20 local borrowers and listen in as the borrowers discussed their loans and made payments.

Reuben said the experience reaffirms why the family supports Grameen Foundation: “Everyone had an account book where they logged their payments and the loan officers went around the room validating the books.

When business or financial challenges were presented, the women in the group tried to help each other out. It was, in essence, a business meeting. It was a group of business owners getting together to review their business opportunities and challenges. It just happened to be in a very humble and crowded setting, rather than a corporate boardroom, but the purpose was the same. Each of these women had a great sense of purpose and pride that comes from having hope and opportunity. Seeing what microfinance does for them, not only on a financial level, but also on an emotional level, was the highlight of this experience for my wife and me; and that transformation is why we continue to support the Grameen Foundation’s work changing the lives of the poor.”

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With $90

a poor woman can make a livelihood for herself and change her family’s lives.

Bosede Ogunleye is proud to say that, with microfinance, her business now generates six times as much as it did before. Her profits provide an education for her children and plenty of food to eat.

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$250

can connect a village to the world.

By working as a “phone lady�

Marie-Claire connects her village to vital information and earns enough money to care for her children and afford life-saving HIV drugs.

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For many rural communities, walking to town or using unreliable phone service is still the principal means of communication. By improving access to information and communications in under-served communities, technology can help create more economic opportunities, enable people to participate more fully in civic society, and connect them to the wider global community.

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$380

can help farmers get the information they need to grow and sell more crops and free themselves of poverty.

Deus Kamusisha is a Community Knowledge Worker (CKW) from Bushenyi region in Uganda who recently visited a woman who was having trouble with her coffee and her banana plants. Banana rot and coffee rot were damaging her family’s plants, which worried her because the money earned from selling these crops was vital to paying her siblings’ school fees. By texting a simple query to a specialized agriculture application on his phone, Deus was able to provide advice on how to deal with these problems.

Through the CKW Initiative, Grameen Foundation is building a large-scale, sustainable network of rural information providers who use cell phones to help close critical information gaps facing poor smallholder farmers. The CKW will strengthen the infor-

mation link to poor farmers by disseminating and collecting relevant information such as agricultural advice, healthcare questions, and other information to improve their lives. Equally important, we are providing a business opportunity for CKWs who will be providing government agriculture programs, NGOs and other entities with relevant and timely information about the on-the-ground needs of poor farmers.

With your gift of $380, you can equip a CKW with a kit enabling them to disseminate agricultural information to rural farmers and collect data with photos and GPS coordinates to help stop the spread of crop disease. Your gift will help CKWs start new businesses which will in turn help to grow existing ones.

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$550 can help a

woman start two businesses and make her son’s dream of becoming a doctor a reality.

Donate Now Jayashree’s loan saved her and her family from a life of the extreme poverty that forced her to quit school when she was a child.

$1,000

helps 20 women like Antonia earn money to put shoes on their children’s feet.

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A $50 loan was Antonia Diaz Hernandez’s introduction to microfinance. With this money, she bought thread and fabric for her embroidery and weaving business.

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$1,500 grants an education Donate Now

and new hope to a child in Bangladesh.

Studies show that education can be the key to breaking the cycle of poverty. But one in five children around the world–100 to 125 million children worldwide–is not enrolled in primary school. In many countries, public schools require fees for books and uniforms that many poor families simply cannot afford. You can help children in Bangladesh break through poverty with a gift to the Grameen Foundation Education Scholarship Program. Your $1500 gift will support the education of a new student every five years. This gift will give you the chance to name the scholarship after you or a loved one, and select a student by gender, grade, and location. You will also receive a yearly progress report on the student you sponsor.

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Empower Others

50 F Street NW, 8th Floor • Washington, DC 20001 Phone (202) 628-3560 • Fax (202) 628-3880 www.grameenfoundation.org

Activate your recurring gift—monthly or quarterly—that will help us make an impact on the lives of poor women all year long.

Spread the word about the power of microfinance and technology to end global poverty. Become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Send an e-card for the holidays while sharing Grameen Foundation’s mission in a fun, creative way.

Pass the Gift by emailing your friends a copy of this catalog so they can also make their gift.