“I have just been so touched, so truly blessed, by these unbelievable women and their amazing stories,” Powell says.

At the school, a colonial-era building with plaques announcing its petro­dollar sponsorships, the delegation passes through the Mobil lobby, up the Diamond Bank staircase, past the Shell Nigeria classroom, and into a modest lecture hall. Two dozen chattering Nigerian women, the Goldman scholars, noisily greet one another, each wearing a blue polo emblazoned with the 10,000 Women logo, produced by a student who owns a T-shirt-printing outfit.

From a back office comes a large, immaculately bald Nigerian named Peter Bamkole, smiling widely. Banky, as everyone knows him, throws his hands in the air and says, “Do you see? I have 10,000 women!” He pronounces thousand without the h. Banky is, as Powell explains, a linchpin in the new program. A former oil-industry engineer, he had been studying business a few years ago when he proposed to the university the creation of a flexible certificate program aimed at small- and medium-size business owners. The program he devised, with backing from the World Bank, is the one Goldman Sachs wants to replicate. “It’s gone from being a passion to being like missionary work,” says Banky, whom Goldman has contracted to launch similar programs in Liberia and elsewhere. “My message is, ‘Right now, you don’t need to worry about credit. You need to shape up because the day is coming.’ So you see, we’re not saving souls. We’re saving businesses!”

One by one, the Nigerian women stand and introduce themselves to the smiling and nodding Goldman contingent as the cameraman swoops, the soundman adjusts his boom, and the still photographer darts in for his closeups. Each woman offers a heartfelt tale of building a business with meager savings and the often uncertain support of a wary husband. There is the woman who imports fish feed. Another makes first-aid kits for schools. There’s a plantain farmer, a human-resources manager, a fashion designer, and an accountant.

Powell smiles broadly as the women cheer one another on. They speak of change, pride, and helping their families prosper. One says, “After this program, I will not be the same! Nigeria will not be the same!” Ayo Megbope, a caterer, talks about her business and the partnering advice she receives from her mentor. “I thank God for this opportunity,” she says, flush with pride, “and I thank God for Goldman Sachs!” The Burns producers exchange sly grins: a made-for-promo-video sound bite.

Two weeks later, we are back in the Goldman tower at 85 Broad Street in downtown Manhattan. Blankfein wants to know all about the Nigeria trip. But on this August morning, talk turns to the economy. “We’ve seen the worst, I think,” says Blankfein. “But there’s no way of knowing. You won’t know we’ve hit bottom until you look back.”

No one anticipated the abyss that lay ahead. Within a month, Blankfein would be bunkered with his former boss, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and the heads of other large banks, trying to figure out how to save Lehman Brothers. On Monday, September 15, after a fruitless weekend, Wall Street woke to the news that Lehman had filed for bankruptcy. As the Dow Jones industrial average was about to dive 504 points—then the biggest one-day drop since the market reopened after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—Goldman’s philanthropy road show carries on.

Despite the turmoil, Powell and her team have flown to London for the European launch of the 10,000 Women program. Goldman mentors and their Nigerian mentees recount their tales to the assembled media. Missing from the dais at the London Business School is Blankfein, who had been planning to attend but is clearly busy elsewhere.

“The mood is different because people are worried,” Banky tells me.

In response to the deepening economic crisis in the U.S., Goldman is bolstering its philanthropic efforts this fall at home—funding homeless shelters and food kitchens and helping the Jericho Project, which will support 130 homeless and low-income veterans. It has also just finalized plans to begin a U.S.-based version of 10,000 Women by funding management scholarships for minority women at Mills College in Oakland, California.

The college is eager to immediately put out a press release announcing the new program. But Goldman wants to wait for star power: They want Maria Shriver to make the announcement, but they have to wait for an opening in her schedule.