Microfinance USA ~ Small Loans Enable Ventures

Several stories recently on microfinance in the US, including this NYTimes piece by Kristina Shevory, With Squeeze on Credit, Microlending Blossoms...

"Before the economic collapse, microfinance -- the granting of very small loans, mostly to poor people -- was a concept most closely associated with the developing world. But tight credit and the recession have increased the demand for smaller loans in the United States, giving microlending a higher profile and broadening its appeal. Both Kiva and Grameen Bank, a microfinance group that is based in Bangladesh and was started by Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his groundbreaking work in microlending, have widened their lending to Americans."

And Jonathan Daniel Harris writes at Huffington Post, Microlending In America: Can This Third World Success Come Overseas? spotlighting To Catch A Dollar, the new documentary on Nobelist Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen organization's American ambitions...