Greg Van Kirk

Greg Van Kirk is changing the world one new entrepreneur at a time.

Ashoka fellow and Clinton Global Inititive Invitee, Greg Van Kirk is one of my new heros.

The work is brilliant. Create opportunities for the rural poor through microconsignment.

Loans create handicaps and barriers to success and lending has its major pitfalls. Whether it's credit card, personal loan, or business loan debt, the debt mechanism itself is often a financial trap for unknowledgeable and/or the unsuccessful. Indeed being unsuccessful with debt, businesses or loans can trap someone for anywhere between 3 for a small fixed loan to 56 years of repayment, when making minimum payments on a credit card.

Being unsuccessful financially leads to a form of poverty. If the borrower is not successful handling the debt or a new business venture, no matter where that person  lives, if they've borrowed money to begin that buisness, they have two major issues to overcome: 1, if they are unsuccessful, they stand to lose their business, which is potentially their only form of income. 2. The money is still owed regardless of outcome. 3. Upon finding replacement income, the lendee's ability to create positive cash flow is hindered because of the debt repayment.

While arguably debt is a means to an end and way to leverage the resources of someone else, it has its inherent drawbacks. Ability to payback and ability to qualify to receive funds via traditional lending models leave most poor off of the map of who receives and who does not. While micro-finance has done much to shift the thinking around lending to the poor, the drawbacks remain as payback, success models, and repayment can still create issues.

Social Entrepreneur Corps seeks to create both new change leaders who understand social entrepreneurship and also has created micro-consignment. Would be entrepreneurs are given the tools and resources necessary to sell products. If they entrepreneur is successful selling eye-glasses, solar lamps and solar ears, then they keep the profit and repay for the cost of goods. If they are unsuccessful, they are at no loss and do not begin their new venture from behind.

Watch his interview on CNN: http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2010/08/13/n_cc_microconsignment_model.cnnmoney/

Read his case for micro-consignment:  "The MicroConsignment Model: Bridging the 'Last Mile' of Access to Products and Services for the Rural Poor."

Visit websites: http://www.socialentrepreneurcorps.com/ or http://www.newdevelopmentsolutions.com/, or http://www.communityenterprisesolutions.com/