Microfinancing

Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an article about how Seattle is becoming a hot-spot for microlending. The article briefly defines microlending as "giving $50 to $300 to entrepreneurs in developing countries". It's an interesting article that gives a good example of a woman who received the small funding she needed to start a business and has succeeded. The article also points to the face that in a world where close to 2 billion people live on less than $2 a day, $50 can go a long way in helping someone start a business and turn their life around.

See here for Wikipedia's take on microcredit. It appears microfinancing, microlending and microcredit can be used almost interchangably.