Yesterday I blogged about the wonderful grassroots charity Kiva who helps bring together lenders and the working poor so they can have access to microloans to grow businesses in poor countries and live a better life.

I have today chosen a entrepreneur and business who requires a loan to expand their business.

Mwanshasha is married with 4 children, ages 15 to 26. Mwanshasha owns a small food vending store, which she started in 2007. Every day she works from 6:30 AM to 8:00 PM at her business and can earn a monthly profit of about $35 from her sales.

She now hopes for a loan to buy more food items for her business. She will share this loan with her subgroup member, Bituni, who has a business dealing in fish sales.

The Mwanshasha Group is made up of Mwanshasha herself and Bituni Iddi and they are based in Tanga, Tanazania and her primary market is the food market. The repayment term is monthly over 10 months. She wants to expand her product offering adding items such as Irish potatoes, rice, flour etc.

She wanted to raise $250 and with my $175 loan which is around £90 and three other loans from other lenders (based in the USA) she now has the full amount and this will be distributed through a field partner charity in her country. In this case it is BRAC Tanzania.

BRAC a development organization began its operation in remote, rural area in Bangladesh as a small-scale relief and rehabilitation project in 1972 to help the returning refugees to resettle and overcome the devastation and trauma of the liberation war. Today, BRAC has emerged as an independent, virtually self-financed paradigm in sustainable human development. It is one of the largest Southern development organisations working with the twin objectives of poverty alleviation and empowerment of the poor women. Through Kiva BRAC has distributed $346,925 to the working poor.

Follow me over the next few months as I blog about the progress the loan will make to Mwanshasha and Bituni.

I did a post on Kiva on my blog last year and said in it that I would make a loan to a entrepreneur on the site, well I haven’t (yet) and today at church I met a man who had loaned some money to a woman in Africa who sold rice and she has not only paid back her loan but has also doubled her turnover!

Kivais a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through loans for the sake of alleviating global poverty. Using the Internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help fund small businesses run by low-income entrepreneurs around the world.

Loans made on Kiva.org provide 0% interest to lenders. Kiva itself charges no interest from the borrower (though there has been discussion about collecting 2% interest from the microfinance institution involved in the future). Borrowers are charged some interest by the respective microfinance institution handling the individual loan, though Kiva.org claims to keep track of how much interest is charged and will not work with those charging unfair or exorbitant interest rates. Kiva borrowers have a historical repayment rate of 99.75%. Kiva is working with regulators to allow microfinance institutions to offer variable interest rates to lenders.

Visit Kiva here and check out my next post to hear about the loan I have made and the story behind the entrepreneur and I shall follow the progress through this blog on the entrepreneur and how she uses it to grow her business.

Britain’s personal debt is increasing by £1 million every 4 minutes. Graduates who leave University have an average debt of £12,363. Are you in debt? Could you work with the homeless, sick and elderly? Then you could become debt free simply by doing some charity work.

It is a new and exciting scheme called Do Good 4 Debt which will launch in January 2008. Do Good 4 Debt will work with corporate companies in the UK to sponsor people who are in debt. The sponsorship will pay part or all of the person’s debt off in exchange that they go and work for a charity for a certain period of months under that company’s name.

Do Good 4 Debt is the brainchild of Ian Wallace, a 26 year old graduate who had £14,000 worth of debts after leaving University. Ian initially wanted to take a gap year before embarking on a career in his chosen field, Law. After doing a number of factory jobs with the entire wage going on monthly debt payments he decided this was not how he wanted life to be after working so hard at his University studies. One lunchtime in the factory diner, Ian heard the factory owner on an adjacent table moaning that he didn’t donate any profits from the business to charity because he never see’s what good it does.

So Ian hit upon an idea how he could ensure companies donating to charity could clearly see the difference they were making, while getting rid of his debt. Ian wrote to a number of companies in his town and told them about his debt and that they could sponsor him to go and work with a charity for a period of 8 months, with the money going to pay his debts off.

Initially he didn’t get much response but after setting up talks with various charities and hearing about their individual projects he detailed these more in a simple brochure Ian had designed and printed by friends. Ian then got an excellent response from businesses and was able to pay his debts off immediately. He then went on to work with 3 charities in his local town.

Ian got a part time job at evenings and weekends to supplement his living while working at the charities. Upon completing his time at the charities Ian prepared a report on the time he spent at the charities and came back to the companies and presented this to all the employees, pointing out exactly what difference they had made and contributed to those charities.

Ian is currently on another charity sponsored placement in Rwanda, Africa. Ian will be returning to the UK in November 2007 where he hopes to sign up 500 candidates who are in debt and would like an opportunity to get this paid off in return for charity work.

Ian thinks this is an excellent opportunity for students who have graduated as they can have a type of gap year as well as having their debts paid off. Nothing like this has ever been done before and Ian has proved it works. It costs £16 to register as a candidate on the Do Good 4 Debt website with all the money going towards marketing the concept within the UK.

Ian has already signed up over 12 charities in the UK and two projects based in Africa. 4 companies have also signed up to look for charity sponsorship opportunities and membership of candidates has already reached over 100 already.

Do you have a great idea that would help others in need or a good cause? You really think it would help others and work but don’t want to run it as a business? Then you need a Non-Profits Tool Kit!:

1. Creating a Website
Obviously the first thing you’ll need when bringing your non-profit organization online is a web site. Grassroots.org offers free web hosting and web design services to non-profit organizations.

2. Getting the Word Out
What good is a web site that no one knows about? A great way to get the word out about your charity is to leverage the power of existing social networks. By creating profiles and groups on networks like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, you can potentially reach millions of people. Even those that don’t donate money can be educated about your cause.

3. Raising Money
One of the primary directives of a non-profit organization is to raise money. For accedited US non-profits Firstgiving makes it easy for members of your organization to set up donation pages and collect donations from friends, family, colleagues — or total strangers. Non-profit groups can also use the service to manage fund drives of their own.

4. Finding Volunteers
As your organization grows, it will be harder to keep things in order without help. Volunteers are key to almost any non-profit group’s success, but finding them isn’t always easy. VolunteerMatch is like a dating service for finding the perfect volunteers for your organization.

Neurosurgeon and entrepreneur James Doty, MD, was feeling generous when he agreed in 2000 to give a multimillion-dollar gift of stock to Stanford University School of Medicine, but he didn’t realize at the time that he would end up giving away his entire personal fortune.

Doty, who had planned to retire on his stock earnings and share his time between San Francisco, his Italian villa and his private island in New Zealand, instead wound up with virtually nothing as a result of his philanthropic commitments.

“I’m happy to give it. I’m thankful. It’s actually been a wonderful experience and has made me a better person,” said Doty, 51, who served on Stanford’s adjunct faculty for four years between 1997 and 2004.

As of Sept. 17, the school had sold all of Doty’s donated stock—398,400 shares of Accuray Inc., a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based medical device maker. The sale brought in nearly $5.4 million and amounts to one of the largest to the university to date from a current or previous faculty member. The funds will support an endowed chair in the Department of Neurosurgery and other related programs such as research on spinal cord injury and repair, including stem cell therapy. The funds also will support a collaborative project with the Dalai Lama on the neurological basis of human compassion and altruism.

“Jim is a truly remarkable individual,” said Philip Pizzo, MD, dean of the medical school. “A highly successful physician-innovator and committed academic leader, he is also an incredibly honorable individual with admirable integrity. He has continued to commit his support even though his own personal wealth has unfortunately declined. We stand in awe.”

The remarkable story of Doty’s gift began in early 2000, by which time he had accumulated about $75 million in paper profits from investments in medical technology companies, including Accuray, where he had served as chief executive officer from 1997 to 1999. He was doing some estate planning and had decided to put a substantial amount of stock into a charitable remainder trust in which the Department of Neurosurgery at the medical school was one of the beneficiaries.

But then the dot-com meltdown occurred, and the value of Doty’s holdings plummeted. All of his hopes for early retirement were dashed. He had already made a down payment on a $5 million San Francisco apartment with a view of the bay, and was in the process of buying a 6,500-acre island in New Zealand and a villa in Tuscany. He had planned to divide his time between the three homes, while also volunteering a significant part of his time as a neurosurgeon in Third World countries, he said. All those plans evaporated overnight, along with Doty’s personal fortune.

“In six weeks, I not only had lost the paper profits but was $3 million in debt,” he said. While he did not complete the purchase of the island, the villa or the new San Francisco apartment, he was able to keep an existing home in San Francisco for himself and his family.

At this point, Doty had not yet put the committed stock into the trust, and some advisors told him there was a fine legal line that could allow him to back out. A few told him he was a “complete fool” to give away his remaining assets, but he said, “I felt an obligation to do what I said, and I went ahead and did it.”

Putting its money where its mouth is on social issues and the non-profit sector, GOOD magazine donates every penny raised from subscription fees to charity. That’s already helped founder Ben Goldhirsh do good by raising more than $380,000 in just three issues!

Ben Goldhirsh founded GOOD Magazine and Reason Pictures in 2004. Starting from the back of a small office in Los Angeles, momentum has been building steadily as a growing team works to craft their vision of GOOD. Both companies seek to create entertaining media that attracts broad audiences to content that matters.

What an inspiration! Check them out here!

Professor Negroponte first proposed the laptop in 2002 and now hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines.

Previously, the organisation behind the scheme said that it required orders for 3m laptops to make production viable. The first machines should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries in October 2007.

One Laptop Per Child – OLPC was founded by Nicholas Negroponte with a core of Media Lab veterans, but quickly expanded to include a wide range of exceptionally talented and dedicated people from academia, industry, the arts, business, and the open-source community.

The Goal: To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves.

But OLPC has not survived the critics:

Intel chairman Craig Barret famously described it as a “$100 gadget” whilst Microsoft founder Bill Gates questioned its design, particularly the lack of hard drive and its “tiny screen”.

Other critics asked whether there was a need for a laptop in countries which, they said, had more pressing needs such as sanitation, water and health care.

Professor Negroponte’s response has always been the same: “It’s an education project, not a laptop project.”

The donation is thought to be the single most generous philanthropic commitment made by a Briton. The former owner of the Sports Division sports chain said it would take years to transfer all the cash, but that he was committed to doing it.

He had already committed £100m to his charitable foundation to fight inequality in both Scotland and Africa.

Sir Tom graduated from the Business School of the University of Strathclyde, then began his career by selling trainers from the back of a van. In 1984, he founded the Sports Division chain of sports shops. He built this up into a leading retailer. In 1998, he sold the chain to JJB Sports, making over £250 million.

Along with his wife Marion, Hunter established The Hunter Foundation in 1998. It has since donated millions to supporting educational and entrepreneurial projects in Scotland.

In March 2001, Hunter was a founding partner of West Coast Capital, an investment firm. Through this firm, he has become a major shareholder in a number of retailers – including USC, Office, D2, and Qube. One of his most significant shareholdings is in BHS, of which he owns approximately 8%. Philip Green owns the rest of the business.

Its very positive to see  businessmen and women stepping in to help, especially as we today hear the wealth gap is the widest in 40 years, see the BBC report.

Deirdre Bounds (founder of i-to-i), Seb Bishop and Tony Callaghan have accepted a challenge for a Channel 4 series which is to be aired in September. There challenge was to to start a business in a Ugandan village – without running water or electricity – in just three weeks.

All three accepted and built a eco-hotel. where guests teach primary school children English during the day. Airfare is taken from the £900 TeachInnUganda package cost and the rest goes back into other businesses in the community.

I think after the series airs the website will get thousands of visitors and which then convert into bookings and it is already booked up til Dec!

I will be watching! Other entrepreneurs involved are Dominic McVey, Yvonne Tompson, Pepita Diamond, Steve Morgan and Shahid Azeem.