Betsy Teutsch

My encore is my new book, 100 Under $100: One Hundred Tools for Empowering Global Women, from She Writes Press. It is a guide to low cost/high impact tools that help women help themselves, getting on the exit ramp out of extreme poverty, and taking their families and communities with them.

I will be working with corporate women’s leadership groups, college students and service groups explaining how people can engage as global citizens, focusing on women’s empowerment. The book’s audience is diverse, appealing to philanthropists, young and adult idealists looking for volunteerism opportunities, students and practitioners of humanitarian technology and social entrepreneurship, and regular people with modest resources who want to help women with so little.

I want to show the world all the great things that are happening globally, and encourage people to become involved as activists, designers, and supporters. As a small business owner (I have a Judaica business featuring my art and calligraphy), I was excited to learn about microfinance, encouraging women to be micro-entrepreneurs.

From my base in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I became passionate about environmental issues and started blogging. This lead to a pro-bono job with GreenMicrofinance where I learned that climate change and poverty alleviation can be accomplished simultaneously. Most of the end users are women, but they are left out of the design and distribution process.

A friend bought a copy of my book to prepare for a trip she will be taking with her daughter to Guatemala. Together they will visit four initiatives featured in the book: a farmer’s collective, a worm composting business, an NGO that invented plastic bottle brick construction and a rural solar panel installer to see their work. Another family who bought the book told me they plan to use it as a guide to global philanthropy and donate to one featured program each month – which will take them eight years! A college professor plans to keep the book on her desk for when students ask what they might do over the summer.

I encourage elders to not necessarily focus on a job someone else can give you, but give yourself a job. Once I envisioned my book, I was on fire. I was able to use the resources of the internet and social media to build a wide network, research and curate incredible photography – and the editorial work was done remotely. I doubt most people with whom I interacted knew I was 60+!