Ours is a person-to-person mission. We know which truly abjectly poor women in India receive every penny of our funds and what business enterprise each is developing to sustain her family. By November 2008 Prosperity Rings will have made possible 4,420 loans to poor and vulnerable borrowers.

Loans are given to people who have no collateral, and only to women, who are the most marginalized and who tend to put their proceeds into the household and their children. The women must qualify for loans by standards of poverty that include inability to eke out ways to feed, clothe, house, educate children, access health care or hygiene. Many are indentured laborers (servants)--including children--for a pittance. In some communities we saw indentured children pounding rocks into gravel.

After they are trained by the on-site facilitating agencies, the women form groups that are accountable for each others' loans. They receive their loans, establish their small enterprises and start their weekly repayments with interest. The borrowers support each other, not only financially, but also in times of physical and emotional crisis and events. Many become leaders in their communities and bring about changes that benefit all the residents.

Examples of businesses established include buying a buffalo to sell its milk; nets for fishing; simple machines for bottling drinks, grinding spices, or sewing; collecting fallen hair for wigs and extensions; collecting scrap/trash to be recycled; tea or petty shoppes; vegetable stands; bicycle repair; and rental of audio equipment or an auto rickshaw.

The disbursement of our funds and the collection of loans plus interest--to be recycled into more loans--is facilitated by way of SPANDANA, ANISHA, SRI, and PAT, local partners we have carefully chosen. Loans vary in amount. Please visit Success Stories for background and photographs of some of the borrowers we personally interviewed.

Besides individuals, corporations and Rotary Clubs, we now have three book clubs, a wine tasting club, a bridge group, and four reunion families as our contributors.

We encourage your small group of friends/colleagues/family/ fellow organizational members to fund and follow the progress of a specific borrower individual or group of your own.