Social Entrepreneurship: Financial Literacy and
Microenterprise Resources
Kiva www.kiva.org
Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs
around the globe. Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva lets people connect
with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, individuals can sponsor
a business and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan,
typically 6-12 months, one can receive email journal updates from the entrepreneur sponsored. As loans are repaid, the loaner receives
the loan money back to reinvest in future entrepreneurs.
FINCA International Village Banking www.villagebanking.org
Village Banking is designed to reach the poorest of the working poor. FINCA clients—70 percent of whom are women—have no
other sources of working capital. By providing very poor families with small loans to invest in their microenterprises, Village
Banking empowers them to create their own jobs, raise their incomes, build assets, and increase their families’ well-being. FINCA
works closely with its clients to help them build their businesses so they can earn more, become part of the larger marketplace, and
enter the global economy. In addition to working capital, we provide them with insurance, savings plans, and other services to help
them weather crises such as illness or death in the family, or natural disasters.
Global Giving www.globalgiving.com
GlobalGiving connects donations to over 450 pre-screened grassroots charity projects around the world. It's an efficient, transparent
way to make an impact with giving. Project Leaders post their causes and details about what they need on GlobalGiving.com - giving
readers an inside look at the project's unique needs and work being done. After browsing the website, researching causes by topic or
location, and picking the one that matches interests and passions, a tax-deductible donation is made and combined with other generous
folks doing the same thing.
Room to Read www.roomtoread.org
Room to Read partners with local communities throughout the developing world to provide quality educational opportunities by
establishing libraries, creating local language children's literature, constructing schools, and providing education to girls. Through the
opportunities that only education can provide, they strive to break the cycle of poverty, one child at a time. Room to Read has
developed a holistic, multi-pronged approach to help children in the developing world gain the lifelong gift of education through
programs like their School Room (partnering with villages to build schools), Reading Room (establishing bi-lingual libraries), Local
Language Publishing (publishing high quality children’s books) and Girl’s Education (funding scholarships for young girls who would
otherwise not have access to an education.
Playpumps www.playpumps.org
Access to clean drinking water is critical for human survival and is an essential ingredient for improving the lives of those living in
poverty in developing countries. life-changing and life-saving invention – the PlayPump water system -- can provide easy access to
clean drinking water, bring joy to children, and lead to improvements in health, education, gender equality, and economic
development. The PlayPump systems are innovative, sustainable, patented water pumps powered by children at play. Installed near
schools, the PlayPump system doubles as a water pump and a merry-go-round for children. The PlayPump system also provides one of
the only ways to reach rural and peri-urban communities with potentially life saving public health messages. Classes can sponsor a
playpump or donate to the organization through this site.
Children Inc.’s Mayerson Northern Kentucky Service Learning Initiative 2009
Heifer International www.heifer.org
Heifer International is a non-profit organization whose goal is to help end world hunger and poverty through self-reliance &
sustainability. It provides gifts of livestock and plants, as well as education in sustainable agriculture, to financially-disadvantaged
families around the world. Heifer International works to ensure that the gift of each animal will eventually help an entire community
to become self-sustaining. Animals such as goats, water buffalo and camels are "seven M" animals: they provide meat, milk, muscle,
manure, money, materials and motivation. Heifer International provides a breeding animal along with the gift animal so that it can
produce offspring. Participating families are required to "pass on the gift", that is: they must give at least one of the female offspring to
a neighbor who has undergone Heifer's training.
Nothing but Nets www.nothingbutnets.net
Nothing But Nets is a grassroots campaign to save lives by preventing malaria, a leading killer of children in Africa. Nothing But Nets
is powered by your passion; it works because you do! Create a community for your church, school, team, or family and friends.
Together, you can spread the word, raise funds, and share your stories. With the money raised, the UN Foundation and its partners
work with the Measles Initiative – one of the most successful vaccination efforts ever undertaken – to purchase bed nets and distribute
them in countries and communities in greatest need. Using its proven distribution system – which in just five years has vaccinated
nearly a quarter billion children – the Measles Initiative will distribute bed nets along with measles vaccinations and other medicines
to at-risk countries. It’s an effective and cost-efficient way to get the nets to the people who need them.
Dollars for Darfur www.savedarfur.org
Sudan is the largest country in Africa, located just south of Egypt on the eastern edge of the Sahara desert. Sudan is rich in oil, but it is
not used for the benefit of the Sudanese people. Instead, while a majority of the country lives in poverty, as much as 70 percent of
Sudan’s oil export revenues are used to finance the country’s military. Darfur is an area about the size of Texas in western Sudan. The
approximately 6 million inhabitants of Darfur are among the poorest in Africa with hardly any access to roads, schools, or even water
sources. They exist largely on subsistence farming or nomadic herding. Even in good times, the Darfuri people live a difficult life;
these are not good times in Darfur. The Dollars for Darfur National School Challenge was founded in 2006 by high school students
Nick Anderson and Ana Slavin, and was administered by the Save Darfur Coalition until June of 2009. In its first three years the
program raised more than $550,000 and engaged thousands of schools.
Common Cents www.commoncents.org
Common Cents is an educational, not-for-profit organization, which specializes in creating and managing service-learning programs
for young people. Our most popular and best known program is the Penny Harvest, the largest child philanthropy program in the
United States. Common Cents grew from the desire of a four-year-old (our Co-Founder, Nora Gross) to feed a homeless man in 1991.
That need led her to ask her father (Teddy Gross, our other Co-Founder and our Executive Director) how she could help. His quest to
answer that question gave birth to Common Cents and the Penny Harvest. since 1991, children between the ages of four and 14 have
been converting their natural compassion for others into action by collecting pennies and turning those pennies into grants for
community organizations. The Penny Harvest shows young people they have the ability to change the world by introducing them to
the power of philanthropy and service during their formative years. As children help others, they develop their generosity and moral
character, and they learn through practice the skills and responsibilities of democratic participation.
Coins for a Cure http://www.coinsforacure.org/
Coins for a Cure is a non-profit dedicated to conquering childhood cancer by raising money for research, education and awareness and
support of pediatric childhood cancer patients and their families. Being a kid is hard enough without having cancer. Until a cure for
every pediatric cancer is found - Coins For A Cure will be there. Whether by helping with an existing or upcoming event, by
spreading the word to family and friends about our events or by just bringing friends and family members to our events, students can
join the fight to conquer childhood cancer as well.
Ronald McDonald House http://rmhc.org
The mission of Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) is to create, find and support programs that directly improve the health
and well being of children. Ronald McDonald Houses around the world offer families a way to stay together, in proximity to the
treatment hospital, and be comfortable and cared for during their stay. By staying at a Ronald McDonald House, parents can also can
better communicate with their child’s medical team and keep up with complicated treatment plans when needed. The generosity of
volunteers and donors make it all possible.
Lead to Feed www.LeadtoFeed.org
Lead2Feed is a service learning program that nurtures a new generation of leaders – the ones sitting in your
classroom – while working to end world hunger. Based on the best-selling book Taking People With You by
YUM! Brands CEO David Novak, Lead2Feed empowers students to act, to serve and to make big things
happen.
Children Inc.’s Mayerson Northern Kentucky Service Learning Initiative 2009