Woman who helps the poor start businesses named to Women's Hall

SENECA FALLS, N.Y. -- Mildred Robbins Leet is an unusual philanthropist. She's not wealthy. And for 25 years, she's given away just $50 at a time.

But her "micro grants" have helped transform tens of thousands of lives around the globe. They buy fishing rods or frying pans, a farm animal, a sewing machine or a barrel of seeds, enabling "the poorest of the poor" to launch their own businesses.

Leet is among 12 women inducted Saturday into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

This year's honor roll includes Gertrude Ederle, who in 1926 became the first woman to swim across the English Channel; Sheila Widnall, the first woman to command the U.S. Air Force; and Stephanie Kwolek, who formulated a chemical solution in 1965 that led to Kevlar, the stronger-than-steel fiber used in bulletproof vests.

Leet tries to find aspiring entrepreneurs among those least likely to have startup capital. They live in urban slums in India, remote villages in west Africa, a blighted island in the Caribbean.

And they make good use of their good fortune -- most enterprises are still running years later.

"Every once in a while you meet somebody and they say, '$50? Are you kidding?"' Leet said. "And you say, 'Don't worry, there are people to whom $50 will make the difference.'

Leet, an 81-year-old New Yorker, started Trickle Up Inc., a volunteer, nonprofit program, with her husband, Glen, in 1979 after decades working for anti-poverty, social justice and community development groups.

Taking $1,000 from their savings, the couple linked up with an aid worker and created 10 businesses in Dominica, a struggling Caribbean island.

Each entrepreneur who drew up a simple but promising "business plan" got $50.

If a business is still going a few months later, the owner can file a one-page "business report" to apply for another $50 check. After that, "they're off on their own," said Leet, who locates people via churches, women's groups or aid agencies.

Funded by donations, Trickle Up has spawned an estimated 115,000 businesses and disbursed more than $3 million, Leet said. There is one exception to the $50 limit: in the United States, grants can rise to $700.

"You try in different ways to reach people to help themselves -- by using skills they already have -- and they do," she said. "It's not a giveaway. It's almost like a scholarship -- you learn by doing."

Leet said the "business report" provides a measure of control -- "after a while you can spot a phony really easily." And surveys have found some 70 percent of businesses were still operating several years later, she said.

Most of the ventures are modest -- basket-weaving in Ghana, quilting in El Salvador, a home bakery in Bolivia. One woman in Cameroon started out by selling chicken eggs, but soon made enough money to buy a bicycle and later opened a small variety store.

The program got started in the apartment of Leet and her husband, who died in 1998. It now employs 14 people.

"We have far more demand that we can meet," Leet said. "But you keep going. I never thought we would go this far."

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On the Net:

Trickle Up Inc.: http://www.trickleup.org

National Women's Hall of Fame: http://www.greatwomen.org