Two weeks ago Whole Planet Foundation announced our Changing The World, Together campaign to raise $1.5 million for 40,000 impoverished people living in communities around the globe where Whole Foods Market sources products. We are off to an excellent start with over $750,000 so far. Thank you! Don’t forget you have until March 31st to donate at our stores or online.

One of the heart-warming aspects of the fundraising side of things with Whole Planet Foundation is having the opportunity to partner with like-minded companies who are committed to planting seeds of prosperity around the world. Our Supplier Alliance for Microcredit was created with founding members Allegro Coffee Company, Back to Nature, Balance Bar, Celestial Seasonings, Earth’s Best, Ito En, Naked Juice, New Chapter, Seventh Generation, Stacy’s, Teas’ Tea and, of course, Whole Foods Market. Along with our newest member, Cascal, this alliance has pledged $1.2 million to support our microlending programs.

Getting the opportunity to meet and work with the people who make up these companies is a pleasure and a privilege. They are committed to supporting microcredit as an opportunity for poor women to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Just a quick refresher: microcredit is small loans – usually less than $200 – requiring no collateral or contract provided to the poor to create or expand home-based businesses such as neighborhood stores, weaving, sewing, raising chickens, pigs and cows, small-scale agriculture, pottery, artisan goods, prepared foods and many more.

For the last two years I’ve been working with Joe Browne and Susan Johnson, both with the sales team at Seventh Generation. (Who, by the way, is doing some great work regarding sustainable palm oil.) Joe says their inspiration to participate in the Supplier Alliance for Microcredit is due to “the tangible benefits of adopting a holistic approach to ending the cycle of women locked in persistent poverty. We believe that by employing these kinds of sustainable business practices today we will enable future generations to live better tomorrow. We incorporate social, economic, environmental and ethical factors into all of our organization’s business strategy, decision-making and daily operations. Whole Planet Foundation is a wonderful example of how we partner with other like-minded organizations.”

Last year, Susan traveled to Kenya to provide community service and witness the Whole Planet Foundation-supported microlending project in coffee-growing communities with microfinance institution partner Jamii Bora Trust. She explains, “On August 19th I traveled with the Jamii Bora Trust team to one of the new centers made possible by the Whole Planet Foundation grant in Nyeri. I met over 20 loan recipients and visited some of their businesses, met many of their children plus spent time with the incredible staff of the new center. They were so proud and appreciative that we visited and wanted us to bring back their big ‘Thank You’ to Whole Planet Foundation for the grant that made their program in the coffee producing North District of Kenya a reality. This was one of the highlights of my four-month sabbatical in Africa.”

It’s a highlight for me to see the outpouring of support – from Supplier Alliance partners to Whole Foods Market shoppers and team members. We are Changing the World, Together.

Together, we really can change the world. Actually, It’s already happening and with your donation during Whole Planet Foundation’s Annual Prosperity Campaign, we can do even more.

Now through March 31st, please join fellow Whole Foods Market shoppers, team members, Supplier Alliance for Microcredit partners and online donors to help raise $1.5 million for 40,000 impoverished people living in communities around the globe where Whole Foods Market sources products. We run this campaign each year to give back globally and empower the very poor with microcredit loans to create or expand home-based businesses such as weaving, raising chickens and small-scale agriculture, providing an opportunity to lift themselves and their family out of poverty.

Whole Planet Foundation currently funds microcredit for 57,706 clients (98% of them women) with a repayment rate of 97.7%! We support the very poor in 18 countries that supply Whole Foods Market stores with product, including Argentina (blueberries), Bolivia (cacao), Costa Rica (bananas), the Dominican Republic (cacao), East Timor (coffee), Ethiopia (coffee), Guatemala (coffee), Haiti (mangos), Honduras (coffee), India (cashews), Indonesia (coffee), Kenya (coffee), Nepal (tea), Nicaragua (coffee), Peru (onions), Thailand (rice), Turkey (spices) and the United States (dairy and produce). Including the families of our borrowers, we are supporting over 288,530 people with $6.6 million disbursed through trusted microfinance institution partners. With your help, we can empower even more people to change their own lives.

Make a $1 donation at the register at your local Whole Foods Market, and give with confidence that 100% of your contribution benefits microcredit clients because Whole Foods Market covers all operating expenses for Whole Planet Foundation. If you’re not near a U.S. store, donate online or start your own campaign on Whole Planet Foundation’s website and spread awareness to your friends and family about how together we can change the world. Check in daily for campaign progress and thank you for your generosity.

The New Year is fast approaching and you don’t want to get caught with a calendar that is “so last year” still hanging on your wall. Here to help is the third annual edition of the Whole Planet Foundation calendar featuring beautiful photographs of inspiring entrepreneurs from Peru, Bolivia, India, Haiti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Guatemala, Thailand, Nepal, Indonesia, the United States and East Timor.

This isn’t your run-of-the-mill calendar! This one not only helps you keep track of your busy life but also helps you save on your favorite products with over $30 in coupons and ALL PROCEEDS from the sale of these calendars benefit Whole Planet Foundation microcredit clients. All that for $2. Seriously, $2.

Last year, our shoppers purchased $72,000 in calendars and empowered 1,775 poor women and their family members with microloans to create or expand a home-based business and create prosperity. These women live in communities where the products you purchase at Whole Foods Market are sourced. We’re hoping to raise a bit more this year so we can empower 2,000 more women with an opportunity to change their own lives and lift themselves out of poverty.

And if that wasn’t incentive enough, our vendor partners came through with some great coupons to sweeten the deal. $3 off from New Chapter, $3 off Seventh Generation, $2 off GoodBelly, $1 off Ben & Jerry’s, $1 off Nature’s Path, $1 off Muir Glen, $1 off Whole Trade Guarantee Vegan Sugar, just to name a few. You can see the whole coupon list for more incentive.

Pick up your copy (or two or three!) of the Whole Planet Foundation 2010 Calendar in your local U.S. Whole Foods Market store through January. Thanks for your help in making this a happy New Year… in more ways than one.

Our Team Members put lots of energy into sharing information about Whole Planet Foundation with our customers. As an incentive and reward for all of their hard work, several Team Members were treated to a trip to Guatemala where they met local participants and experienced the power of microcredit firsthand. (Trips paid for by Whole Foods Market – not on the dime of the Foundation!).

Here’s a video that takes us along on a bit of their journey.

Whole Planet Foundation is funding microcredit in 15 communities around the globe that supply products to Whole Foods Market, including Bolivia, Costa Rica, East Timor, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Nicaragua, Thailand, Peru and the United States. Over $6 million in Whole Planet Foundation microloans has been disbursed through implementing partners to more than 50,000 poor women, with a repayment rate of 97%, enabling them to create or expand small home-based businesses and lift themselves out of poverty.

Stay tuned for information on our 2010 Prosperity Campaign – beginning in February.

Join Whole Planet Foundation in Peña Blanca, an impoverished, rural community in the Lake Atitlán region of Guatemala where Whole Foods Market sources coffee. To empower this community to lift itself out of poverty, Whole Planet Foundation and Grameen Trust initiated a microlending project here in 2006, and the next year Whole Foods Market Team Members began providing community service like teaching literacy skills and providing meals for the children of this Mayan community.

We hope you will get involved and support this indigenous community too:
Fund Pena Blanca school meals
Fund the Pena Blanca elementary school
Fund materials for carbon-efficient stoves for villagers

We, The Green Children, are very happy to announce the release of our single and music video Hear Me Now to help support the work of Whole Planet Foundation and raise awareness about the power of microcredit to help people lift themselves out of poverty.

After our first trip to Bangladesh, we were so inspired by Grameen Bank, its leader Prof. Muhammad Yunus and the power of small loans that we knew we had to write a song! After the song was written, we knew that a video had to be made and this was the result. It was made in Bangladesh to celebrate the incredible women who are clients of Grameen Bank (known as “the bank for the poor”).

Check out our video below and visit us at http://www.thegreenchildren.org.

Hear Me Now is also available on iTunes, and we are donating 50% of our proceeds to help fund a Whole Planet Foundation and Grameen Trust microlending project in Kerala, India, aiming to extend access to microcredit to over 22,000 impoverished people.

Help us spread a positive message: the poor don’t always need a hand out, but with a hand up, great things can happen!

Thank you so much,

Milla Sunde & Tom Bevan (The Green Children)

The Green Children, Milla and Tom, in Guatemala with Whole Planet Foundation President Philip Sansone

Over 12,000 team members have given

$745,000 through their paychecks to empower

19,000 impoverished people with access to microcredit

to change their lives.

Here’s what some of those team members had to say about why they donate.

“I’ve been blessed with so much that I feel a responsibility to share what I have with others. Giving to the Whole Planet Foundation is a way for me to do that. Even a small amount of money can make a big difference in someone’s life.”
Kim Head, Austin, Texas

“Why would you not want to be part of Whole Planet Foundation?”
Doug Straub, Colfax, Colorado

“We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.”
Morghan Dill, Colfax, Colorado

“I could either buy sushi or directly change someone’s life…I’m changing someone’s life.”

Shannon, Portland, Maine

“It feels so great to work for a company that genuinely supports our communities on both a local and global level. The Whole Planet Foundation truly embodies Whole Foods Market’s core values; I am so proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish.”
Kristen Kaza, Evanston, Illinois

“What little sacrifice I’m making by donating – maybe a cup of coffee – is helping to change a person’s whole life. It’s worth giving up that cup of coffee.”

Carl, Portland, Maine

“It feels great knowing I am helping someone with a hand-up, as opposed to merely a hand-out.”

Traci Rong, Walnut Creek, California

“It seems like such a small thing…how can you not donate to something so wonderful?”

Michelle Peluso, Paradise Valley, Arizona

Thanks, thanks and thanks again. Team members at Whole Foods Market are so open-hearted. Not a team member? Don’t worry! You can donate through our website.

I love my job at Whole Planet Foundation. Every day is an opportunity to help empower the poor through microcredit in communities around the globe where Whole Foods Market sources product. Whole Planet Foundation funds microlending projects in communities where Whole Foods Market sources coffee from communities in East Timor, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Kenya and Nicaragua; bananas from communities in Costa Rica and Honduras; tea from India and Nepal; rice from Thailand; and produce and dairy from the New York City area. Microcredit is small loans – around $200 – provided to impoverished individuals who use the funds to start their own home-based businesses to lift themselves out of poverty, like these women.

There are more than 1 billion people living on less than $1 a day (in US currency). Today through March 31st at all U.S. Whole Foods Market locations, you can empower the poor. Make a donation of $1 at the registers and help raise $1 million for microcredit. Last year, thanks to shopper generosity, we were able to expand into Africa to fund microcredit loans for the very poor in Ethiopia and Kenya. This year we are expanding to a community in Peru where Whole Foods Market sources onions, with additional potential projects in communities in Mexico, Haiti, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia and Paraguay. You can give with confidence as Whole Foods Market covers 100% of Whole Planet Foundation operating costs. Please join us in empowering the poor through microcredit, and donate $1 at a store or online as part of this annual campaign to raise $1 million for the very poor in our communities around the globe. Visit www.wholeplanetfoundation.org to learn more. Thank you.

As the Director of Partnership Development and Internal Programs for Whole Planet Foundation, Joy Peterson helps develop strategic partnerships and works with Whole Foods Market Team Members who are excited to experience the Foundation and become involved in our Team Member Volunteer Program. Joy loves communicating about microlending, service and Whole Foods Market Core Values.

Whole Foods Market Tanasbourne store is # 1 in Team Member Giving participation at 76%

That’s an amazing outpouring of care and concern and it doesn’t stop there. Since there is 97-99% repayment of the microloans, the money raised revolves, giving more and more people access to capital so that they can fund small businesses that lift them out of poverty and they pay the loan back, which gives even more people the opportunity to do the same.

Our participation throughout Whole Foods Market is up to over 17%. By the end of January we will have given over $500,000. That is over half a million dollars that our team members have given to empower people less fortunate than ourselves. Next year, even if no one else decides to join in this awesome effort, we will add another half million dollars. We are so lucky to get to work with each other in a company full of giving, compassionate people.

Ventura, community leader who has worked with Whole Foods Market team member volunteers to build stoves in the homes of indigenous people.

In 2002 I was without a job when Whole Foods Market took a chance on me. I will never forget the store leaders giving me the opportunity to show what great work I could do when given the chance. Microlending through Whole Planet Foundation is how we fund opportunity for hard working creative people around the world and give them a chance like I was given. I cannot think of a better way to share our gifts than through the power of microlending.

Recently I met women who are clients of Banrural Grameen Guatemala, one of the microfinance institutions funded by Whole Planet Foundation. Guatemala, where we source coffee, is a beautiful country with huge volcanoes, majestic Lake Atitlán and a vibrant indigenous Mayan culture that lights up the countryside. Yet so much of the population survives in living conditions that are hard to imagine. Open hearth fires for cooking, dirt floors, mud brick walls, little or no furniture, no running water and scarcity of the most basic of necessities are conditions people live with every day. The microcredit clients that I met work so very hard to get even the most basic of needs met. They are delightful and creative and joyous in ways that are so inspiring. The more that I saw of their ingenuity the more I realized how little I actually do with the opportunities given me. It takes so little to have a significant positive impact on the lives of these people who are so much less fortunate.

Not long ago a friend of mine gave me the book Three Cups of Tea and I was greatly impressed by the work that Greg Mortenson has done to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Similarly, in Guatemala I met Ventura who has worked tirelessly (along with Whole Foods Market team members) to build stoves in the homes of indigenous people, stoves that pipe the smoke that had been getting in the eyes and lungs of the families in Pena Blanca out of their homes, giving them cleaner air to breathe and less respiratory distress and eye irritation.

Family for whom the stove was built.

I believe in the difference that each and every one of us can make and I believe that we can work together to make the world a better place. Thank you Whole Foods Market team members for making a difference locally and globally and thank you Whole Foods Market for giving us all the opportunity.

Genie came to Whole Foods Market in Austin in 2002 as a bagger and has worked a myriad of positions from cashier to Store Trainer and most recently was Associate Store Team Leader in San Antonio. Having been a photographer, a personal assistant and the general manager of a small café, she brings a variety of talents to her new job as Internal Programs Ambassador. Genie has moved every two or three years for most of her life. She loves travel and takes every opportunity to be exposed to new cultures. Some of her favorite places are Bogota, Oahu, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Paris and EARTH University in Costa Rica. She speaks French and basic Spanish. Sharing the mission of Whole Planet Foundation with our team members is a dream job for her.

I was so excited when Whole Planet Foundation asked me to edit videos that were shot in Nicaragua and Honduras. I spent two years in Nicaragua as a Peace Corps volunteer, so as I watched the raw footage, I immediately thought of people and places that will always be near and dear to me. I could tell so many stories about people I met and places I’ve seen, but the tone of those stories would not be one of sadness or hardship. The stories, much like those of the Whole Planet Foundation borrowers, would be about people who are gregarious, generous and proud. The stories that we are sharing with you are stories that are all too common in Central America. It’s a wonder that many of these countries still exist given that they have faced so much adversity in the recent past, between civil wars and natural disasters. Maybe even more incredible is the resiliency of the people and their determination to achieve a better future through hard work and perseverance.

Marc is a multimedia consultant for the Whole Planet Foundation and Whole Foods Market. He started working with Whole Foods, in both still photography and video, while finishing his MA in photojournalism at The University of Texas. When he was in school, Marc worked as a photojournalist for publications in Santiago, Chile and South Florida. A native of Denver, Colorado, he spent two years in Nicaragua as a Peace Corps volunteer. He lived in the town of Río Blanco and worked in the Cerro Musún Nature Reserve. And, in what seems to be another lifetime, Marc worked in the San Francisco Bay Area as a project/marketing manager in the web development and video game industries. He earned his BS in business administration at Marquette University. When he’s not working, Marc likes to run and otherwise be outside.