By Janet Kornblum
Thursday, May 11, 2000
USA Today

Net users logging on to leading women's Web sites Thursday will be encouraged to leave and donate money elsewhere. Several women's sites, including Oxygen, iVillage and Women.com, agreed to direct people to a new Net-only micro-loan fund for women who want to start or expand their businesses.

Count-Me-In for Women's Economic Independence, a non-profit with corporate sponsors including American Express, will give loans from $500 to $10,000 beginning in July. It has $800,000 from several sources but relies on individual donations as small as $5 to help women, co-founder Nell Merlino says.

Merlino, a longtime political and social activist who spurred Take Our Daughters to Work Day in 1993, says that no matter what work she has done, ''money was always a problem.'' Banks, she says, use loan criteria that often eliminate women who have spotty credit and work histories because of divorce or because they've taken time off to raise children. Count-Me-In has its own credit criteria considering such factors.