We here at Grameen America are tremendously excited to tell you that we have fulfilled the Global Giving open challenge to raise $4,000 from 50 unique donors. In fact, as of this date, we have surpassed those milestones by raising $5,061 from 64 unique donors. This success was entirely due to our dedicated network of online supporters.75 percent of our donations were for amounts equaling or less than $50. This impressive number of small donations truly shows an upwelling of grassroots support for Grameen America and our mission. These funds will help us continue in our objective of helping the poorest of the poor lift themselves out of poverty.

Thanks to your support, we are now a permanent feature on the Global Giving website. As you may know this campaign was very important to us because we have passed the Global Giving challenge as we showed our outreach capacity and have fulfilled the conditions needed to allow us to stay on the website for good. This will allow us to continue to raise money through the Global Giving platform well into the future.

While we are very pleased to have reached this short term goal, we still have the long time objective of raising $75,000 so that we can disburse 50 first time loans of $1,500 each to new borrowers. These loans, along with our financial literacy and savings programs, will allow these low income entrepreneurs the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty through their own hard work. Through initiative and determination, they can create brighter futures for themselves and their families.

You can still make a difference and help us reach our long term goal by donating now at the Global Giving website. With your continued support, we can make a difference in the lives of countless people who lack not the talent, drive, or ability needed to lift themselves out of poverty but merely the access to affordable forms of credit. Our success can be their success and you can make it happen.

http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/microloans-for-50-impoverished-u-s-entrepreneurs/team/

Grameen America is participating in GlobalGiving’s December open challenge where we have until December 22nd (13 days) to raise $3,900 from 46 unique donors. There are quite a number of fund-raising websites online but few have the credentials of GlobalGiving, which has helped over 3,000 non-profits raise nearly $34,000,000 from over 122,000 donors in eight years.

One of the reason’s GlobalGiving has been able to sustain such a great track record of matching donors to non-profits is because of their open challenge system. Instead of picking and choosing which non-profits to allow on the site, they leave it in the non-profits hands to showcase their outreach abilities. Once a non-profit has fulfilled the challenge it can stay on the GlobalGiving site for good and take advantage of its vast network.

Grameen America’s long-term goal is to raise $75,000 for 50 first-time loans of $1,500 but first we must secure a spot on the website. We will need as much help as possible to fulfill the open challenge goals.

If you believe in Grameen America’s work, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!! We need everyone who follows us on Twitter and Facebook to step up and make this happen.

Although we would like to raise as much money as possible, the amount of unique donations is just as important as capital raised towards the fulfillment of full time residence on GlobalGiving. No amount is too small, it just matters that you give something so your donation can be counted.

If you cannot donate money, you can still help! Forward the link to our GlobalGiving page or re-tweeting our messages, you are spreading awareness and that is the most important factor to making this work: the more people who know about it, the better chance we have to fulfill our goal.

Together we can make this challenge a success and be able to translate the funding raised into loans for many new entrepreneurs in the future! Check our page out below:
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/microloans-for-50-impoverished-u-s-entrepreneurs/

The Grameen America Team