Jim Klobuchar
President, Jim Klobuchar’s Adventures
jim@jimklobuchar.com

Susan Cornell Wilkes
President, Adventures in Giving
scwilkes@adventuresingiving.com

“Evangelizing Microenterprise via Media and Community”

Presentation Abstract:
Although microenterprise is one of the most successful tools in poverty alleviation and development around the world, it is scarcely known by the vast majority of Americans, including Americans of discretionary capital and an impulse to bring better lives to the poor. We've published a book, "The Miracles of Barefoot Capitalism," for the purpose of raising microcredit's visibility, primarily among people who are willing to explore new strategies in the best use of their humanitarian capital. The book and our appearances before a variety of audiences have led to a wider exposure of microcredit in the area where we live, to a fund for notional giving that has now reached into the thousands of dollars and to media attention. We believe this experience can be replicated in other parts of the country, and in our presentation we'll discuss approaches that are available and what our experience has been with them.

View Video Presentation
Building a Larger Audience—and Treasury—for Microenterprise
Some Ideas for Marketing Microcredit
Some Sources on Microcredit
A Microcredit Contact List for Potential Donors and Supporters

Biography:
Jim Klobuchar wrote a popular column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for 30 years, has been a familiar figure in Twin Cities’ television and radio and now as an advocate of microcredit. He has twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in journalism and in 1984 was chosen the nation’s outstanding columnist by the Society of American Newspaper Columnists. He now writes periodically for the Christian Science Monitor. He is also a noted adventurer, having climbed in the Himalayas, Andes and Alps and now leads treks in the Himalayas and South America as the head of an adventure travel organization. In 1986 he was a finalist for the NASA’s journalist-in-space project that was cancelled after the Challenger accident. He is the author of 20 books including his recent on microenterprise, "Miracles of Barefoot Capitalism," which he co-authored with his wife, Susan Wilkes, with whom he has traveled developing countries the past three years viewing microcredit first hand.

Susan Cornell Wilkes has worked with foundations and nonprofits in the United States and abroad in a thirty-year career as a leader and innovator. During her extensive experience with corporate, community, private and family foundations, she founded or led numerous nonprofit organizations, model programs and private/public sector collaborations. She has served on over 20 local and national Board of Directors and traveled and worked in 31 countries and is principal of Adventures in Giving managing and advising family foundations. A native of Washington D.C. she has co-founded internationally acclaimed Up with People, Inc. Susan has twice run her own import businesses, worked in international education and economic development, and collaborated with members of the Rockefeller family to build venture capital funds dedicated to poverty alleviation in Africa and Latin America. She is a Trustee of her own family’s foundation. With her husband, Jim Klobuchar, she co-authored "Miracles of Barefoot Capitalism."