About Us

Our Mission:

Two Dollar Challenge is an educational movement that engages students in the fight against global poverty. Our role is to:

  1. Show students a glimpse of what it means for half the world to live on two dollars a day;
  2. Inspire students to take action and help alleviate poverty; and
  3. Empower students with the skills and resources they need to become the next generation of leaders in the field of development.

Our Challenge:

Nearly half of the world’s fathers, mothers, sons and daughters live on less than two dollars a day. They are socially excluded, politically powerless, and vulnerable to crime, corruption, and coercion. They have limited access to education, technology, and markets. Overall they are marginalized, with few if any, economic opportunities to improve their standard of living. Poverty includes homelessness, malnutrition, lack of sanitation, and inadequate access to safe drinking water. Poverty’s physical consequences include fatigue, susceptibility to disease and early death. Moreover, the daily struggle of the poor to secure the basic needs of warmth, water, food and shelter makes it difficult, indeed makes it risky, to plan for the future. The emotional distress, depression, and anxiety that attend poverty can lead the poor to believe that they are incapable of making a difference in their own lives. For these reasons, poverty is a trap. Poverty not only limits the economic opportunities of the poor, it can handicap their ability and their willingness to take advantage of the opportunities that are present.

Our Challenge, the Two Dollar Challenge, is to partner with the poor to break the self-perpetuating cycle of poverty. The solution is twofold, through various development programs we can 

(1) expand economic opportunities and 

(2) improve the everyday living conditions faced by the poor. By relieving the immediate stresses of survival, we can help each individual see that they can take control of their own lives and act upon the opportunities that are present.

What’s New in 2010:

This year we are piloting our Preferred Partner’s Program with Opportunity International (Opportunity), a leader in microfinance.  This organization partners with communities in 27 countries and has a proven track record.  Through the partnership participants have access to resources such as speakers, experts, and best practices from an industry leader as well as an edge in internship openings and possible invitations to special events hosted by Opportunity.  This is the first of our Preferred Partner’s; we are looking for other organizations which allow students to make the most difference with the money they raise over Challenge Week. 

Our History:

During the fall semester of 2006, Dr. Shawn Humphrey from the University of Mary Washington gave the students of his Principles of Macroeconomics class a unique challenge: live on two dollars a day for a week. In the spring of 2007, that challenge became the “Living on $2 a Day” project for his Economic Development class. That project is now Challenge Week. It asks participants to choose a cause, a partner, set a monetary goal, and participate in Challenge Week.

In the first year the chosen cause was microfinance, the chosen partner was Kiva, and the monetary goal was $1,000. Using Challenge Week, this one class raised $1,600! Even today they are still extending small business loans to entrepreneurs in developing and transitioning economies (see their lender’s page). That was just the beginning. In the spring of 2008, students enrolled in Dr. Humphrey’s Economic Development class and the Economic Development Club at the University of Mary Washington partnered with Students Helping Honduras. Their shared objective was to raise the seed capital for La Ceiba; a student-led, operated and governed micro-financial institution for the communities surrounding El Progresso, Honduras. What started as a project for one class was transformed into a university-wide event. Participants from other courses and multiple disciplines signed up to participate in Challenge Week. Together they raised $6,750!

This was momentous. Challenge Week had capitalized a development initiative that concluded in tangible assistance for impoverished individuals in Honduras. Not only that, this was a student-led development initiative. It empowered a group of students at a small university to make a direct difference in the lives of others. Left, a picture of Selma, one of the first 13 people to receive a loan through the TDC funded student initiative, La Ceiba.  What would happen to global poverty if students at other campuses could use Challenge Week to capitalize their own development initiatives? To see what can happen and the impact that can be made, that’s why TDC, including Challenge Week, has gone National.

The campus partners last year were pioneers who helped TDC develop.  Dave Bruno created a video which gave a perspective of Challenge Week from Point Loma, and Colin Sloand from Lehigh added a lot to the week by creating an in-depth schedule of events – some of their ideas appear in the Campus Leader Sourcebook this year!  As a whole TDC started to carve out our name, presenting at the Clinton Global Initiative University (we’ll be there again in April, 2010) and co-hosting the Poverty Action Conference.  This conference was held at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA and was attended by more than 150 students from 16 Universities across the region.  Our speakers included John Hatch, founder of FINCA, Anne Hastings founder of Fonkoze, Kate Drushel with the Grameen Foundation, Stephen Smith, author of Ending Global Poverty among many other things, and Comso Fujiama, cofounder of SHH.