In 1976, Professor Muhammad Yunus started the Grameen Bank with $27 out of his own pocket.
 
In 2006, Professor Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for demonstrating the possibility of eradicating poverty through micro-lending to Entrepreneurs in developing nations throughout the free world.

Today, the Grameen Bank serves more than six million poor families with loans, savings, insurance and other services. 

Yet, the bank remains fully owned by its clients and is a model for microfinance institutions around the globe.

Fast forward to Februrary 29, 2008 at 8am PST (11am EST)… this is the date SmartStartGiving.org was officially launched!

The mission for SmartStartGiving is simple, yet profound, and here it is: “Give less, help more.”

It is my aim to further the Yunus vision by utilizing the skills and tools I’ve acquired as a teleseminar teacher, trainer and student. My time is now to start Giving back.

Truth be known, my chief objective is to accelerate the eradication of poverty in developing nations with high-impact, high-frequency and highly-effective teleseminars I typically do for a profit.

However, the SmartStartGiving teleseminars will be dubbed as “micro-fundaisers.” (More about this in a moment).

All I want you to do is clear your calendar for the final Friday of each month because on those days, I’ll interview some of the world’s top thought leaders to extract their views on entrepreneurship and business growth.

Although these tele-fundraisers are free my hope is to “micro-fundraise” denominations of $10, $25 and $40 from our listeners.

All donations will be permission-based and voluntary. To maintain high “inclusivity,” I will discourage any donation over $40.

Now I have no idea how you got to this blog, however I think it is fair to assume that you are indeed a “Giver” since you’re still reading this post.

So if you like what you’re seeing so far, I encourage you to invite colleagues so they too can indulge in the Giving spirit.

If you have a schedule conflict, be assured that every micro-fundraising call will be recorded and posted at SmartStartGiving.org by the first Tuesday of each month.

The LLLP my attorney has set up is a “pass-through” company so about 97.5% of all the donations we receive will be earmarked to fully fund Kiva.org Entrepreneurial loans.

The merchant account (credit card company) automatically takes out 2.5% for processing.

If you’re an Entrepreneurial CEO, independent professional or information marketer and want to learn more about this “micro-fundraising” cause, please forward this post to others.

As an electronic marketer for over 14 years, I know that the only path to “true growth” (viral or organic growth) is through the simple act of word-of-mouth advertising.

My hope is to faciliate raising more funds for Kiva.org so together we become its #1 funding “consortium” in 2008.

Will you join us?

Since you’ve read this far, my sense is your head is now nodding and silently thinking: “Yes, Alex…”