Fundraising Event Helps Women in Four Countries

One of the blessings of raising funds for micro-lending opportunities is actually being able to distribute those funds into the accounts of women businesses through KIVA and know that it will make a life changing impact on them, their children, and their communities. Today was a day of blessings as the 3 Degrees - Connected™ team contributed to four loans to help women in under-developed nations. I have included a brief note and picture about each of these businesses below.

Bujwaha Netgeta Rosemary Group located in Hoima, Uganda is raising money for used clothing sales. They have been in business for 3 years. The total loan requested was $450.00 with repayment terms of 11 months.

Yaa Yeboah located in Dorma Ahenkro, Ghana is raising money to buy more raw materials for her food vending business. She has been in business for 5 years. The total loan requested was $425.00 with repayment terms of 7 months.

Josephine Brown located in Malaubang, Ozamiz City, Philippines makes a living operating a business in the retail sector. She has been engaged in business for 3 years. The total loan requested was $125.00 with repayment terms of 8 months.

Meriga located in Adidogome, Togo earns income from selling charcoal and sweet potatoes (tubers). She has been in business 35 years and has asked for a loan to replenish her inventory. The total loan requested was $1,075.00 with repayment terms of 14 months.





As these loans are repaid, the money is returned in the form of credits into the 3 Degrees - Connected ™ lending team account for further distribution. Periodically you will see posts about the women we are helping.

If you want to see how good it feels to lend money to help women, please click on the link taking you into our lending team account. Set up your own loans through the team and see what impact we can make together. You will then have the right to select who you want to lend to as well as how to use the funds as they return to you.
http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=6818

For as little as $25.00 you can support a business through collective lending efforts. Today we chose to support 4 businesses rather than put all our money into one loan.

**We did not fully-fund these loans, but only a very small portion. It is our goal that we may be able to fully-fund a loan in the future.

Thank you for supporting our fundraising activities and happy lending!

Reading is Fundamental to Business Growth

Women's lives are pretty busy with responsibilities that include: work, family, spiritual growth, household maintenance, and the list goes on and on. It can be hard to carve out time for reading which I feel is essential to stay abreast of business strategies and new technologies. I usually operate in two modes: working and sleeping, and not too much of the latter as I age.


Who We Are:
In order to keep this forum (blog) as useful tool for those who choose to stay connected, I will try to incorporate stories that I find relevant and reliable to WBE (Women-Business Entrepreneurs). Most of what you may find here will be "secondary" research or previous published articles, more than "primary" research which is new information accumulated and written by one of us.


That being said, if anyone finds an article that they wish to share on this blog, please forward the information to me including the source and timing for the article. 3 Degrees - Connected™, as a network of women, can grow more when we begin to collaborate with one another and use our accumulated efforts to expand our knowledge.


Relevant News Story:
The following article was published by synergyblog in February 2009. It is entitled: KEYS TO THE GOLDEN DOOR: 10 Steps to Success for Women and Minorities in Business.

This is a very well-written article and provides an opportunity to evaluate your own business-building progress.

Are You Confused About . . . Social Media?

Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, Tumblr . . . have you been confused about which is the best social media site(s) to pursue? Attached is a Fox News Video where these social media platforms are being discussed. It is interesting to learn how these sites are being viewed by those who use them.



The following four social media platforms are discussed in the video above. For your convenience the definitions for these services has been copied from Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia.



Facebook – created in 2003 is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.


The FriendFeed created in 2007 is a real-time feed aggregator that consolidates the updates from social media and social networking websites, social bookmarking websites, blogs and micro-blogging updates, as well as any other type of RSS/ Atom feed. Users can use this stream of information to create customized feeds to share (and comment) with friends.[

Twitter created in 2006 is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow anybody to access them.

Tumblr created in 2007 by David Karp is a blogging platform that allows users to post text, images, video, links, quotes, and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can "follow" other users and see their posts together on their dashboard. The service emphasizes customizability and ease of use.

We Are Not Alone

Did you know that there are 10.6 million women-owned businesses in the U.S. which generate $2.5 trillion in annual revenue?


In January - March 2009, StartupNation held a contest to name the top 200 leading mom businesses in the U.S.


StartupNation is a free service which was started by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs providing advice and making connections for women in business. They teamed up with VerticalResponse which is a provider of email and direct marketing services for businesses to help them manage their own marketing campaigns. These two ventures put together the contest to highlight these top 200 women's business.


This was not a contest that I was aware of until after the fact; however, by combing the web, we may be able to assist one another locate these type of services, and/or contests that can stimulate our business growth.


If any of you are currently using the Internet and have "stumbledupon" a good site or service, please be sure to post comments so that we all can become better informed.


A link to the post regarding the contest mentioned above is listed below. Since this was considered a first annual, maybe some of us would like to participate next year. Wouldn't it be great to boast of a local business-women who has been named on the top 200 list? It appears that there are about 5 Michigan businesses represented on the top 200 list. When browsing the winners, you may even find a business owner with whom you might want to network.

Bringing Women Together for Growth and Jobs

The following article was posted authored by Michael Chin, KickApps and is very relevant in today's economy when we are all looking for ways to stimulate the economy through our business connections.


An organization called "Count Me In" http://www.countmein.org/ which is a leading non-profit organization creating a community for women entrepreneurs to support one another has joined forces with "Kick Apps" http://www.kickapps.com/, a social media platform, and launched a new online community for women to compete in a race to reach revenue goals for their companies. This race is called "Make Me a Million Business Race or (M3RACE).


I don't know how many of you are projecting your 2009 revenue goals, but maybe you would find inspiration in joining a group allowing you the opportunity to compete for $100,000 cash prize. http://www.makemineamillion.org/


I can only imagine that most women find it difficult to set personal business goals when growing their business; however, without goals to create the motivation to strive for something bigger or better, what will drive the forward motion. We all know that "FEAR" can create a roadblock to forward motion; setting goals might help us jump the hurdles that propel us toward our "first" finish line.


See the link below to this fascinating article and see if you want to join in to make 2009 revenue goals more achievable through networking.


http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20090506006031/enhttp://

Women Use Social Media

Reported on May 10th by Anita Campbell in Small Business Trends (www.smallbiztrends.com/


If anyone was wondering whether spending time on the Internet using Social Media tools is worthwhile, you may find the following article fascinating as it reveals that 42 Million U.S. Women use social media. This is approximately 53% of the 79 million adult women in the United States according to Ms. Campbell. If you are interested in finding the most effective way to use your time while engaging in Social Media, please click on the link and read the article below:
http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/05/42-million-women-use-social-media-blogs.html

GOLD Buyer - Supports Women's Cause

#1 Buyers - Coin and Gold, J. Morgan, LTD has graciously offered to help the women of West Michigan through 3 Degrees - Connected™ support the cause of women empowering women a world away.


J. Morgan LTD at 20 Washington Avenue, Downtown Grand Haven buys Gold, Platinum and Silver in any condition.

• jewelry
• coins
• old currency
• bullion ingots and rounds
• industrial scrap
• sterlingware
• dental gold
• vintage watches
• medals and tokens
• diamonds

When you bring items into J. Morgan, LTD, please mention that you heard of their services through 3 Degrees - Connected™ and ask for John. He has offered to support our cause by giving 10% of the value to 3 Degrees - Connected™ to be invested in micro-lending to women-owned businesses a world away (reducing his profit/not yours). This is a very generous on-going gift to us for doing business with J. Morgan, Ltd.

Thanks to his generosity, we will be changing the economic conditions of women and families across the globe who are less fortunate than we are.