One of my favorite quotes in the world is by Margaret Mead.  She said, “Never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world. Indeed, they are the only ones who ever have.”

Last week, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus came to help MicroPlace celebrate our first anniversary.  One of the messages he really brought home is how special microfinance investors are as a community.  Check out this video.

So for all you MicroPlace investors who felt like you were the only ones in the world who cared about making an investment that helps, now you know.  You are not alone.  There is a community, albeit small, of committed individuals who are there with you working to change the world.  And indeed we are.  26,000 loans have been enabled by you to date, and we are just starting.

His entire talk can be found here but I pulled out my favorite clip from the talk and it is below.  This is the part where he talk about how a microloan, although just a few dollars to you and me, is about so much more than a loan to a borrower.  It is about the transformation that comes through the empowerment it provides.  Enjoy.  And try not to get misty eyed.

And of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t show you a couple of clips from after he finished the talk and then cut the birthday cake. 

Some folks who were there put up their photos and you can find them here and here.  If you have any photos, feel free to post them in the comments section. 

In all, we would like to thank all the investors, those who made it to our celebration party and those who could not.  Without you, the investors, we would be able to accomplish nothing.

A billion people want a loan so that they can help themselves out of poverty.   Even though microloans are small - $20 or $100 or maybe even $1,000 - that adds up to a whole heck of a lot of capital in total.   Here is a clip of Tracey, MicroPlace founder, talking at a recent conference about where we can get that capital.

The other night I enjoyed some of the best views of San Francisco from the living room windows (who knew Twin Peaks was where it’s at for SF views?) when a gracious host opened their home so that Alex Counts, head of the Grameen Foundation USA, could speak about his new book, Small Change, Big Dreams.

My favorite story that Alex told us was about the time when Professor Yunus (head of Grameen Bank) thought it would be a good idea to start a cell phone lady business in Bangladesh.  The idea was that there weren’t a lot of phones in Bangladesh at this time so folks who lived in remote villages couldn’t connect with loved ones, like all the Bangladeshis who work in the Middle East oil fields on a seasonal basis.  So, Professor Yunus thought a great business would be for someone in the village to take a loan to buy a phone and then villagers could come to her to make calls for a fee. (more…)

A while back, eBay / MicroPlace hosted “Voices from the Field” for the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network.  One of the speakers, Jacqueline Mwaba from WORTH / Pact in Africa, gave a fantastic talk about women in microfinance.  You can’t invest in WORTH on MicroPlace, but the talk was just that cool that I had to highlight it here.

Jackie Mwaba - Microfinance for women in Africa

MicroPlace founder Tracey Pettengill Turner speaks at The Good Business Network , a conference about the intersection of business and social works.

Tracey Pettengill Turner speaking at a conference