Muhammad Yunus

“Just like ice cream cones,” he said.

Why? Because he doesn’t think people, especially poor people, should have to spend their hard-earned money on a plastic cup they’re only going to throw away.

His suggestion generated wild applause in the standing-room only Lisner Auditorium on the George Washington University campus where he was speaking tonight about his specialty:  micro-financing to people in need: “beggars,” he calls them, without any hint of patronage.  His institution, the Grameen Bank, gives interest-free loans of only a few hundred or few thousand dollars to a million people to help them generate income. “They can’t use the money to buy things,” he says. “They must use it to develop a business that will generate income long after they’ve paid back the loan.”

The approach is working. Almost 100% of the loans are repaid as the entrepreneurs they’ve spawned become successful crafts people, vendors, doctors, teachers, and other gainfully employed citizens.

It’s impossible not to compare Yunus’ success to the way banks in the western world have collapsed under the weight of the ‘bad loans’ they’ve made. He’s even set up a program in Queens, New York, “in the shadow of the sky scrapers on wall street,” to drive home the point that loans – especially those made to jumpstart socially responsible businesses — can be a tool for change.

I was lucky enough not only to get a free ticket to the speech, but a copy of Yunus’ latest book and a seat in the VIP section as well (my friend Perry Hooks of www.hooksbookevents.com organized the event).

I took notes furiously for the half-hour Yunus spoke.  “Who creates poverty?” he asked. “Not poor people. The system creates poverty. Poverty is an artificial imposition on human beings. It belongs in a museum, not in our communities.”

I was particularly inspired by Yunus’ vision for entrepreneurs. “Everyone carries the gift of entrepreneurship and innovation,” he believes. “Everyone should be given the opportunity to unwrap that gift and put it to use bettering the world we live in.”