When Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunus took the stage at the second annual Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy in New York Wednesday night, he described feeling “overwhelmed” by the “Cinderella moment.”
As a rural Bangladeshi from a poor family, Yunus never expected to be in the same room as Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Bono, and some of the richest people in the world, he said let alone honoured in their presence.
But there he was, receiving the inaugural Forbes 400 Lifetime Achievement Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Yunus was humble, gracious, articulate as he gave thanks for the recognition. Yet the man who is regarded as the godfather of lending to the poor didn’t miss the opportunity to send a gentle, but crystal-clear message to the world’s ultra-rich. “Making money is a happiness. And that’s a great incentive,” he told the billionaires and near-billionaires over dinner in the United Nations Delegates Dining Room. “Making other people happy is a super-happiness.”
“I lend money to poor women! I give $30 loans,” he said. “And when she holds this money, she shakes, she trembles, she cannot stand still. She cannot believe anybody could give such a huge money in her hand. She never, not only she never held this money, she never saw such an amount of money in her life. And tears will roll down her eyes, not believing this is true. And then she starts feeling that if anybody has trusted her with such an enormous amount money, $30 or $35, she will give her life to make sure that trust is kept.”
Yunus also charmed the crowd with a tale of how he turned beggars into entrepreneurs. Grameen gives beggars loans of $5, $6, $10. “We tell them, ‘Look, as you go from house to house begging, for food, for some money so you can survive for the day, why don’t you carry some merchandise, some cookies, some candy, some foods, so that you have two things to sell?’”
When Grameen started its beggar lending project, Yunus expected 1,000 or so beggars to participate. But right away, more than 100,000 joined in. “Within two years, more than 25,000 beggars stopped begging completely. Because they become such a successful door-to-door salesperson,” Yunus told the dinner guests. “And my colleagues were saying, ‘How long do we have to wait for the others?’ I said, ‘Don’t push them. Begging is their core business. You don’t push them to change their core business overnight.’”
The crowd laughed uproariously. Then a hush fell upon them as Yunus delivered his charge.
