When I graduated from my socially conscious liberal arts college, it seemed like every other graduate wanted to go to South America or India and work on micro-enterprise projects with local women. One friend even found a venture capitalist in nearby Portland, Maine, that focused on raising funds for microloans to women in these countries. It was the early 90s and the nexus of feminism and microbusiness had arrived.

I was reminded of this collegial spirit the other night when I attended a 5th anniversary event for Nell Merlino's online micro lending organization, Count Me In. You may know Merlino as the founder of Take Our Daughters To Work Day, but since then she has turned her considerable energy toward seeding the ventures of women looking to turn their fortunes around through starting their own business.

Finally, a successful micro-lending effort for women right here at home. After all, women are hardly first-class citizens when it comes to securing financing, even though women-owned businesses are the fastest growing segment of small business.

Perhaps its because they often have little previous work experience to show the banks. Or perhaps its that many women lack self-promotional training. Whatever the reason, it seems that expensive credit card borrowing has become the method of choice, when that's even an option.

Impressively, CMI has a 90% repayment rate, despite the fact that almost 100% of the women the organization funds were previously denied loans by 3 to 5 banks. The secret? CMI has created a unique "women-friendly" credit scoring system that differs from the system used by most banks and other lending organizations. Merlino has also brought in many of her high-powered female executive friends - and OPEN, the American Express Small Business network -- to provide mentorship towards helping promising CMI entrepreneurs grow their businesses to $1 million in annual revenue. Currently only 2% of women-owned businesses exceed this threshold.

It may soon become even harder for women to secure first-round loans. In recent 2006 budget discussions, the Bush Administration proposed terminating funding for the Small Business Association's microloan program. This program lent $33 million to 2,400 entrepreneurs in fiscal 2004, with women receiving over 60% of the total, according to the New York Times.