Charity
By Miguel Helft
From Welfare to Web

Online auction sites love stories of individuals who sell a dress or a vintage album at auction and become cottage entrepreneurs. Now auction software maker Andale wants to use those successes as a formula to vault people from poverty to profit.

In conjunction with local charities, Andale's Entrepreneur Assistance program will grant a computer, a digital camera and a $500 loan to welfare recipients. The program is inspired by the Grameen Bank, which began lending small sums to Bangladeshi women in the mid-1970s to help start small businesses. Grameen's efforts lifted thousands out of poverty, and most of the loans were repaid.

Now Andale, whose pilot program starts this spring in San Francisco, will apply that model to America's poor. "We have our own developing world within our own very developed economy," says Michael Brauner of social services agency Second Start. "Every success we'll have will chip away at that." – Miguel Helft