Microfinancing is considered one of the most effective strategies in the fight against global poverty. And now, in Small Loans, Big Changes, author Alex Counts reveals how Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus revolutionized global antipoverty efforts through the development of this approach. This book presents compelling stories of women benefiting from Yunus’s microcredit in rural Bangladesh and urban Chicago, and recounts the experiences of different borrowers in each country, interspersing them with stories of Yunus, his colleagues, and their counterparts in Chicago.

Small Loans, Big Dreams: How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance are Changing the World

Business & Money

Counts, Alex

Economics

wiley

When Muhammad Yunus returned to his native Bangladesh 25 years ago with an American doctorate in economics, he set out to try and combat the entrenched poverty there. By 1995, his Grameen Bank had made loans totaling $500 million to two million borrowers, mostly women. In spite of the fact that these borrowers were the poorest of the poor, Grameen has had a near-perfect repayment rate.

Give Us Credit

Times Books/Random House

Leading a nonprofit organization is challenging, stressful work-yet it can also be richly rewarding. Alex Counts mastered the art of mission-driven leadership through decades of trial and error, as he built from scratch one of today's most admired philanthropic foundations. Now he shares 214 of the most powerful lessons he discovered along the way-life and career secrets you'll never learn in school. Frank, quirky, counterintuitive, and ultimately inspiring, these nuggets of wisdom cover the toughest challenges nonprofit leaders face, from fundraising, strategic decision-making, and people skills to surviving business travel, running meetings, and mastering public speaking.When in Doubt, Ask for More is Alex Counts's gift to everyone working in the nonprofit world-employees and leaders in nongovernmental organizations, charities, foundations, government agencies, faith-based organizations, political and social advocacy groups, and more. They'll find that Alex Counts's sage advice can help them get through the day feeling more in control while making a greater impact on the world they seek to serve.

When in Doubt, Ask for More: And 213 Other Life and Career Lessons for the Mission-Driven Leader

Job Hunting & Careers

Rivertowns Books

* ONE OF FORBES'S 12 MUST-READ BOOKS FOR NONPROFIT EMPLOYEES
* CHRONICLE OF PHILANTHROPY'S EDITOR'S PICK AMONG NONPROFIT BOOKS OF 2019
Some people are dreamers. They choose careers shaped by dreams of making the world a better place. When your dreams are that powerful, it’s easy to neglect yourself. Both lives and dreams can suffer the consequences.
If you’re one of the dreamers, this is the book for you. Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind is a down-to-earth guide to mission-driven leadership. Drawing on his decades as an acclaimed nonprofit leader, Alex Counts offers practical advice on such vital activities as fundraising, team-building, communications, and management. He shows you how to run an organization—and your own life—both effectively and sustainably, giving joyfully to those around you while also caring generously for yourself.
Candid, funny, insightful, and wise, it’s a book you’ll refer to throughout your career . . . wherever your dreams may lead you.
“A life of service to other and to society can be deeply fulfilling. Anyone who seeks to live a life informed by this insight will benefit from this exceptional, and highly readable, book.”--From the Foreword by Muhammad Yunus, co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Alex Counts founded Grameen Foundation and became its president and CEO in 1997. A Cornell University graduate, Counts’s commitment to poverty eradication deepened as a Fulbright scholar in Bangladesh, where he trained under Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder and managing director of Grameen Bank, and co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Since its modest beginnings, Grameen Foundation has grown to become a leading international humanitarian organization.
Counts is the author of Small Loans, Big Dreams: How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance Are Changing the World. Today he is an independent consultant to nonprofit organizations and a professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland College Park.
MORE ADVANCE PRAISE:
“Do you have an idea that would help others that you don’t know how to implement? Are you worn out from working in the nonprofit world without achieving results? This book will give you the confidence and skills you need to make a real difference. Alex Counts has been there and done that. Now he shares his vast experience on how to save yourself while you save others.”--Mike Enzi, U.S. Senator (R-WY)
“Alex brings us insights on social impact with thoughtful reflection and generous advice. With verve and wit, he distills key leadership lessons from his decades of service building one of the great pioneering organizations in the financial inclusion movement.”--Michael Schlein, CEO, Accion
“Remarkably candid, self-reflective, generous, and practical, this book is part memoir, part self-help. Alex is an astute observer whose amazing memory helps him recount his own healing journey in vivid detail, offering stories, lessons, and sage advice that will benefit many readers. You’ll love this book, and you'll laugh out loud as you read it!”--Susan Davis, Co-Author, Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know, Past Chair, Grameen Foundation, and Co-founder, BRAC USA
“Nonprofit leaders and managers need great mentors. Alex Counts’s new book lets you experience conversations with a brilliant mentor whose candid sharing of his mistakes and accomplishments will help you avoid pitfalls and multiply your success.”--Sam Daley-Harris, Founder, RESULTS, Microcredit Summit, and Civic Courage

Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind: Leadership Lessons from Three Decades of Social Entrepreneurship

One of today's most acclaimed books on nonprofit leadership, Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind is a down-to-earth guide to mission-driven leadership. Drawing on his decades of experience as an acclaimed nonprofit leader, Alex Counts offers practical advice on such vital activities as fundraising, team-building, communications, and management. He shows you how to run an organization-and your own life-both effectively and sustainably, giving joyfully to those around you while also caring generously for yourself.Changing the World was named one of Forbes magazine's 12 Must-Read Books for Nonprofit Employees, and selected as the Chronicle of Philanthropy's Editor's Pick among nonprofit books of 2019. Now it's available in a revised edition, including a new epilogue on leading in times of crisis, responding to the challenging realities nonprofit leaders have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind, Revised Edition: Leadership Lessons from Three Decades of Social Entrepreneurship

Microfinance—providing affordable loans and other financial services to help the poorest people lift themselves out of poverty—was pioneered by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. In 2006, the bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and microfinance has since gone on to serve over 100 million people—mostly women—on five continents.\nFirst published in 1996, Small Loans, Big Dreams is the classic account of the origins and development of microfinance, from the $27 in loans given by a young economics professor to liberate poor villagers from loan sharks to its present status as a sometimes-controversial global phenomenon. Alex Counts, a protegé of Yunus and founder of the Grameen Foundation, paints vivid portraits of the determined women he came to know whose lives have been transformed by the opportunity to launch a small business, first in the countryside of Bangladesh, then in downtown Chicago, where an experimental project brought the microfinance method to America.\nIn this new edition, Counts traces the history of microfinance, exploring the ways Grameen Bank has evolved in response to challenges from economic downturns to environmental crises. He depicts the various forms—some highly effective, others less so—that microfinance has taken in countries around the world, including Grameen America, the rapidly growing microfinance enterprise now headed by Andrea Jung that serves thousands of women across the U.S. Finally, Counts responds to critics who have questioned the value of the Grameen model and describes the lasting legacy of Yunus’s remarkable vision. Small Loans, Big Dreams shows how microfinance can play a critical role in reducing the scourge of inequality by enabling underprivileged people to participate creatively in the global economy.\n“With a storyteller’s eye for the affecting detail, Counts reveals the early years of Yunus and Grameen’s efforts, in villages and the corridors of power, to bring microloans and opportunity to the ‘functionally landless’ of Bangladesh, especially women ‘isolated from their society by illiteracy, poverty, and custom.’ Counts’s clear-eyed, practical-minded accounts are affecting, especially nuts-and-bolts accounts of loan recipients’ first entrepreneurial efforts and what lessons they (and Counts and company) learn. The case studies here never shy away from the harshness of life or the setbacks loan recipients can face, though they (and the copious new data and research Counts presents) remain persuasive: microfinance changes lives.”—Publishers Weekly BookLife (Editor’s Pick)\n“An edifying work and a thorough introduction to an important issue of social justice.”—Kirkus Reviews\n“This latest edition of Small Loans, Big Dreams offers fresh new insights on the young history of microfinance in the United States. A must-read for anyone interested in the field and its evolving worldwide impact.”—Andrea Jung, President and CEO of Grameen America\n“The appeal of this book is in the people it profiles. . . . It takes the reader deeply into the lives of very poor self-employed women who are Grameen bank customers . . . presenting them to us in a way that brings these individuals to life. We come to care about them, and that makes the book a pleasure to read. . . . Counts offers a first-hand narrative that deeply enhances readers’ understanding of microfinance’s multifaceted impact.”—Elisabeth Rhyne, NextBillion

Small Loans, Big Dreams, 2022 Edition: Grameen Bank and the Microfinance Revolution in Bangladesh, America, and Beyond

Business Development & Entrepreneurship

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