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

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