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By Stephanie L Freid

Let's say you're a small farmer in Brazil in need of $100 to get your coffee bean plantation on its' feet and producing.  While that sum of money may seem paltry to well-off Westerners, to a small Brazilian farmer it's the barrier between vision and a dream coming true. 

Dennis Whittle used to oversee major development projects for the World Bank.  Today, he helps people like the Brazilian farmer or a Bedouin goat herder or a Ghana jewelry maker fund and actualize small business ventures.

Whittle, accustomed to doling out sizeable loans in the World Bank's name, was handed a challenge in the late 90's: 

Fund small projects.  Attempts to push small projects through the World Bank bureaucracy, however, failed.  So he called on colleagues to solve the problem.

"My colleagues and I went into a room at the World Bank one day, and said: What if we just allowed anybody to come in and just pitch their idea. And what if we made decisions on the same day?" said Mr. Whittle.

When they put the plan into action, over 1,000 groups from 85 countries submitted ideas for small businesses and non-profit projects.  500 finalist ideas were chosen and initiators came to Washington, DC, to make their cases for funding. On the final day, the World Bank awarded $5m to dozens of small start-ups.

Mr. Whittle remembers a conversation with a South African woman who did not win that day. She was not upset and in fact she was certain that many people around the world would fund her project if they knew about it.

Through this project, Whittle saw an opportunity to tap into what he terms the "secondary market" for donations. He quit his job at the World Bank and in the early part of 2001 started a private, Internet-based finance program called Globalgiving with former World Bank colleague Mari Kuraishi. 

"The website is kind of like a combination of eBay and Amazon. The idea is that qualified grassroots projects from around the world can be listed as long as they meet certain qualifications," Whittle explains.

Potential donors search through lists of small-scale projects on the Globalgiving website then choose to give as little as $10. 

Contact details are provided for garnering further details from project leaders and while the minimum donation is $10, some donors have contributed $150,000.

The Internet is at the heart of the organization's outreach, connecting entrepreneurs with private funding and the power of the Web is illustrated in Globalgiving's success. 

Aside from Internet outreach, the Washington D.C. headquartered organization differs from traditional charities like United Way by engaging donors directly with project initiators. 

Donation themes are broad, netting categories like Environment, Health, Education, Technology and Human Rights.  Specific projects include tree planting in Haiti to stop erosion, providing solar power for Andean highland Peruvians and providing transistor radios to Kenyan households as part of a free press, information exposure campaign.

Jessica Flannery of Kiva, a similar style website she runs out of California with her husband Matt, describes the thrust behind funding small business ventures on a global scale.

For example…

"Take a goat herder in Uganda. If you give him $25, that's two smaller goats. That's a great start. With $100, you can imagine more goats, perhaps a small shelter, stock up on goat feed. So, that little bit of money can really help set someone up."

Harvard Law School fellow and Globalgiving advisor Ethan Zuckerman says that while the Internet makes it easy to donate money to worthwhile causes, it also presents an alluring duping ground for potential scammers.  According to Zuckerman, the challenge in micro-charity enterprise is "identifying great projects, ensuring they are on the level and ensuring that they are using the money wisely."

As a way of addressing this issue, Globalgiving works with local groups in rounding up would-be entrepreneurs.  According to organization higher-ups, it is the best and most cost-effective way of ensuring money collected via the Internet is distributed efficiently and properly.

And the efficiency is clearly paying off. 

Globalgiving has received over $3.1 million in donations that has gone towards over 470 projects since 2001.  Corporate clients include Hewlett Packard, the Gap, Yahoo, The North Face and Applied Materials.

Based on the website credo, Globalgiving is living up to their name:  "We believe that people naturally want to help one another, that everyone has something to contribute and in mutual accountability.  We believe in Globalgiving." 

www.eolife.org An article from Essence of Life,