Business
When poor producers are organized, trained and linked directly to markets, they keep far more of what their work earns. Salt farmers who were helped this way went from receiving 5 paise to 20 paise of every rupee their salt sold for.
Services can be redesigned around the people they are meant to serve instead of shutting them out. A bank whose members could not sign their names photographed each new account holder holding a slate with her name and account number, so a photo replaced the signature.
People who each have almost nothing can still gain bargaining power by joining together, because their sheer numbers become a force that employers, officials and markets must reckon with. Poverty weakens the individual, but not a crowd that acts as one.