The Gates Foundation has awarded $1.5 million to Grameen Foundation, a microfinance organization that loans money to families, helping them escape poverty. Grameen supports the Millennium Development Goal of curring extreme poverty in half by 2015. [World Resource Institute via World Changing]

The three-year grant will support Grameen Foundation’s strategic plan to reach five million additional new families, ensure that 50 percent of them permanently escape poverty within five years of becoming a microfinance client, and champion innovations that transform the microfinance industry.