Muhammad Yunus — A Bank That Began With 27 Dollars

In 1974 famine struck Bangladesh. Muhammad Yunus, teaching economics at university, reportedly agonized over the gap between elegant theory in the lecture hall and the reality outside. He walked into a village and found women weaving bamboo stools, borrowing material money from usurers, left with pennies for a day's work.

He tallied what they actually needed: for forty-two villagers, a total of twenty-seven dollars. He lent it from his own pocket. Thus began Grameen Bank: collateral-free microloans to the poor, especially women.

Banking wisdom said the poor don't repay; reality said otherwise — repayment far above ninety percent, borrowers building small businesses and sending children to school. Microfinance spread worldwide, and Yunus received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Twenty-seven dollars — the seed capital of a world-changing enterprise.

A sum that shames every excuse about scale: what changes the world is not the size of capital but the resolution with which you see the forty-two people in front of you.

What do you work for?