I think (hope) you’ll agree with me that this new Schwab Charitable initiative is an exciting development in the microfinance world.

Schwab Charitable, one of the country’s largest and fastest growing nonprofits and facilitators of charitable giving with over $2 billion in assets and $350MM in annual grants, announced today the launch of an innovative microfinance guarantee program. It is the first program of its kind to enable donors to set aside a portion of their Charitable Gift Accounts to guarantee microfinance loans to the world’s poorest entrepreneurs to start, maintain or expand small businesses. Guarantees are different from direct gifts to microfinance in that funds may never have to leave a donor’s account. The new program is designed to allow donors to maximize their charitable impact by putting donated dollars to use as a microfinance guarantee while they are still held in their Charitable Gift Accounts and invested for growth and future granting.

[Hat tip to Dave Schappell at TeachStreet for the e-mail he sent me this morning]