Grameen Foundation

Alex Counts. Alex Counts is President and CEO of Grameen Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on enabling the poor to escape poverty, using microfinance and technology. Counts founded Grameen Foundation and became its CEO in 1997, after having worked in microfinance and poverty reduction for 10 years. Since its modest beginnings, sparked by a $6,000 seed grant provided by Grameen Bank founder… See full bio.

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Story: This is Hosneara’s story: Hosneara is the name of an ill fated woman. Nobody chronicles the birth of her kind but she conjectured that she was born in 1971. Hosneara grew up in the midst of extreme poverty and had no opportunity to receive even a minimum education. Her emaciated look and financial constraints of her father turned out to be another negative factor to find someone to marry her. In desperation, her father married her off to an old man of 70. It was not long before her husband turned her away from his house. She did not find any welcoming hand in her father’s home either. Fate had inevitably thrown her in the undignified world of beggars. Not long thereafter she heard about the Grameen Bank’s scheme for what the Bank called ‘struggling members.’ She joined the scheme in 2004 at the North Shuhilpur branch in B’Baria. To a beggar, accustomed to counting bits and pieces and small changes, BDT 500 interest free loan provided by the branch was a big amount. The repayment terms were set to suit her convenience and capacity. She used the money to peddle betel leaves and other small items while carrying on with her old profession of begging. She also invested some money for rearing ducks and chickens. The income from these little ventures made her conscious of the indignity of begging. As ill luck it would have it, a sudden flood washed away her small business. After the flood, Hosneara rebuilt her business of peddling. In the meantime, she repaid her loan and collected a new loan from the Bank. She crowned her relentless struggle by giving up the ignominious profession of begging. Poverty has not still altogether left Hosneara but she draws satisfaction that she no longer carries the stigma of a beggar. She can now walk with her head high. (Source: http://www.grameen-info.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=771&Itemid=740)

Evidence of Impact Summary:

9.4 million poor people have been helped by Grameen’s MFI partners. More than 1 million microloans have been generated. $160 million has been leveraged to support microfinance programs in 13 countries. They have 48 partners and have served people in 27 countries.

Organization Strengths Summary:

Microfinance experts believe that what Grameen Foundation does best is focus on the “poorest of the poor.” They have a built a strong name recognition and are also the leaders in impact and assessment within microfinance.
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Areas for Improvement Summary:

At the same time, they could improve by being more open to innovation, in particular by offering more services to the poor. They should increase collaboration with other microfinance institutions, national and regional networks, and also move beyond the focus of Muhammad Yunus.
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Alex Counts is President and CEO of Grameen Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on enabling the poor to escape poverty, using microfinance and technology. Counts founded Grameen Foundation and became its CEO in 1997, after having worked in microfinance and poverty reduction for 10 years. Since its modest beginnings, sparked by a $6,000 seed grant provided by Grameen Bank founder (and founding Grameen Foundation board member) Professor Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Foundation has grown to a leading international humanitarian organization with an annual budget of approximately $25 million.

A Cornell University graduate, Counts’ commitment to poverty eradication deepened as a Fulbright scholar in Bangladesh, where he witnessed innovative poverty solutions being developed by Grameen Bank. He trained under Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the founder and managing director of Grameen Bank, and co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.

Counts has propelled Grameen Foundation’s philosophy through his writings, including Small Loans, Big Dreams: How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance Are Changing the World. Counts has also been published in The Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Miami Herald, The Christian Science Monitor and elsewhere. In 2007 he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Horace Mann School.

Counts chairs the Fonkoze USA board of directors and is the immediate past chair of Project Enterprise’s board. He sits on the Advisory Council of the Center for Financial Inclusion, the Advisory Board of the ThinkGlobal Arts Foundation, and he co-chairs the Microenterprise Coalition. He serves on the Board of Directors of two social businesses: Grameen-Jameel Pan-Arab Microfinance Ltd. and YouChange PuRong Information Advisory Co. Ltd., which promote microfinance and related efforts in the Arab World and China respectively.

Before leading Grameen Foundation, Counts served as the legislative director of RESULTS and as a regional project manager for CARE-Bangladesh. He speaks fluent Bengali and lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, Emily, and their cat, Seymour.

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