Jeff Herring, also known as The Internet Article Guy, is our featured guest for May’s SMARTSTART|Giving 60-Second Spotlight. We are grateful to Jeff for creatively using his 50th birthday to raise money for SMARTSTART to donate to Kiva.org. What a way to celebrate! Have a listen as Jeff explains what he did and why and you’ll see what we mean.

Thanks Jeff! (Visit Jeff’s web site at www.JeffHerring.com )

John L. Herman Jr. considers himself a failure expert — that is, not someone who fails at business, but someone who understands why a business fails. He consolidated the lessons learned in Hermanisms: Axioms for Business & Life.

Herman is a really interesting guy. He completed a business degree at Towson University, graduate work at Johns Hopkins University, and a stint in the US Air Force before taking on the corporate world.

His many years of experience (which exceed mine but not by much include working with a thousand companies that were losing money.

When you have (more…)

My niece has just returned to Uganda for a second season of working with a team of young people on local community projects. In her first report from the front lines she filled us in on what’s been done since she got there.

In Jinja they helped build a pig house as one of the income generation projects for a woman with AIDS. They also repaired the roof, fixed the door and patched up the mud hut for a woman named Ruth who is very ill.

So ill, last Friday night she planned to commit suicide but (more…)

Dorothy Canfield Fisher said “A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.”

Many of the entrepreneurs we are supporting through Kiva.org are mothers. They are prepared to work extremely hard to provide a better life for their children, not unlike our own mothers. Many of our “givers” are mothers too and they are (more…)

Like many of you, I enjoy being a “bedroom entrepreneur”! (That’s a fancy term for those of us who work from home in a spare bedroom converted into an office.

It has a rather nice cachet though, don’t you think?) And I know Alex likes it too; he runs his business from a converted bedroom also — a fact most of you probably already know. Let’s face it, it’s hard not to like the 17-second commute… no pantyhose or shaving required!

Of course this past month (more…)