James Davis, left, CEO of the National Institute of Community Enlightenment, joined Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus at the conference.

The Grameen Bank has started a new lending program … to beggars.

Instead of sitting on street corners asking for money, now 70,000 Bangladesh citizens can sell such small items as candy and household goods door-to-door as they beg.

A typical bank loan is $10, said Grameen Bank founder and Managing Director Muhammad Yunus. “But that $10 can change people’s lives.”

Microfinance programs like this were the topic of a two-day conference hosted by the USC Marshall School of Business and co-sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the African Millennium Foundation.

USC Marshall Dean Thomas Gilligan said that the conference is part of the Marshall School’s desire to engage international learning opportunities, but he also sees a local angle.

“We think that microfinance has the potential to connect Southern California’s entrepreneurial community with funding resources,” Gilligan said.

The conference attracted about 300 economic development practitioners, lending officers, local small-scale entrepreneurs, faculty and students. The group heard 25 experts from around the world present “best practice” microfinance and economic development programs in the United States, Africa, Asia and Latin America, often taking the practice down to the basics.

“What would your life be like if you didn’t have a bank account or a credit card?,” asked speaker Christina Barrineau, chief technical adviser to the United Nations Capital Development Fund. “Clearly access to financial services changes people lives.

“Microfinance allows citizens the ability to run with their dreams,” Barrineau said.

A dramatic example of microfinance success is Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank. Grameen has eight million depositors, growing every day, and a staff of 16,000; last year it opened 380 branches.

“When we open a branch, we don’t worry about where the money’s coming from,” Yunus said. “The first deposits are turned directly into microloans to help the poor.”

This year Grameen Bank expects to loan $750 million, adding student and home loans to its traditional microfinance loans for small businesses.

How does the bank get its message across when it goes beyond Bangladesh to the rural poor in other countries?

Yunus said, “This spreads like wildfire: the message that you are lending money to poor people.”

N.I.C.E. is helping small businesses, facilitating independent business incubators and advancing the Social Business Initiative Fund. This strategy is prescribed by Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the founder and managing partner of the Grameen Bank. This community building technique is critical for cities like New Orleans who need to create self-sustainable tools and realistic plans to build a holistic community. Site the success of Dr. Muhammad Yunus around the world.

N.I.C.E. is leading the collaborative effort to create a financial resource to help residents of New Orleans in need of financing and insurance. "Before Katrina, people in New Orleans were already expressing interest in social entrepreneurship. Not long ago, more than 500 people including the Mayor came to hear a talk at Tulane University about Grameen Bank and other social entrepreneurial initiatives. Before Katrina, people in New Orleans were organizing in group’s known as Prosperity Clubs and were exploring starting a Grameen-like program. They had just opened a new branch of a credit union in Central City. They were planning to introduce entrepreneurship into the curriculum in high schools and encourage student ventures."

Dr. Yunus continues, "My most important piece of advice: create a Social Business Initiative fund with a portion of the money being allocated for generating innovative ideas. Social businesses are business operating with social objectives, rather than moneymaking objectives. These are non-loss businesses to maximize benefits to the community without losing money.

Encourage local people to come up with business ideas for rebuilding and improving their communities that will also create jobs."

N.I.C.E. recognizes that a functional new world order is maintained through personal enlightenment that is inclusive. Might is not right, right is enlight-tenment, which advocates by example the value to collaborating, where all stakeholders participate as equals with respect, value and dignity.