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Mildred Robbins Leet, 88, Philanthropist

Shivah Stars

by
Marc Tracy
May 12, 2011
Mildred Robbins Leet in Guatemala, 2002.(Trickle Up/NYT)
Mildred Robbins Leet in Guatemala, 2002.(Trickle Up/NYT)

Each Thursday, we select the most interestingly Jewish obituary from the past week. Today, it is Mildred Robbins Leet (née Mildred Elowsky), whose innovative Trickle Up pioneered as early as 1979 the now-hip practice of small-scale charity (think Muhammad Yunus’s microlending). Instead of focusing on big institution-to-institution gifts, Trickle Up gave microgrants as small as $50 along with financial advice to potential entrepreneurs in Third World countries like Nicaragua and India. More than 200,000 businesses have been started with Trickle Up’s aid; 80 percent of the recipients have been women.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.