New York ? Mildred Robbins Leet is an unusual philanthropist. She’s not wealthy. And for 25 years, she’s given away just $50 at a time.

But her “micro grants” have helped transform tens of thousands of lives around the globe. They buy frying pans, or a farm animal, enabling “the poorest of the poor” to launch businesses.

Leet is among 12 women inducted Saturday into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls.

This year’s honor roll includes Gertrude Ederle, who in 1926 became the first woman to swim across the English Channel, and Sheila Widnall, the first woman to command the U.S. Air Force.

Leet tries to find aspiring entrepreneurs among those least likely to have startup capital. They live in urban slums in India and remote villages in west Africa.