Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Kiva.org

Looking for a new opportunity to give to others less fortunate than you? At Kiva, you can make a $25 microloan to a struggling entrepreneur in a third world country. When the entrepreneur pays the loan back - which usually happens! - you can decide to take your money back or loan it to another entrepreneur. The Kiva website lets you pick your entrepreneur and pay your $25 online with credit card or PayPal.

I mean really, how cool is that? 3435 peeps signed up to be lenders this week; a total of $979,900 was loaned - just this week! We signed up to loan money to Feride Agayeva, a 48-year old lady in Azerbaijan who runs her own home products store. Her total loan request was $1,000 to be used to buy more products for her store.

I bet you can also find someone on their site to lend $25 to. Come on, it'll do your heart good.

4 comments:

Jhangora said...

Nice initiative.Microfinance is a great way to improve conditions in the developing nations.Read about the Grameen (rural) Bank here http://www.grameen-info.org/ .

I see u registered with technorati & ur blog is worth more than mine.Congrats!

Katharine said...

This e-mail message came from my friend here in San Diego, Pat D. She hasn't been able to get her blogger comment to work yet.

"I LOVE Kiva!

I've been an monthly donor for the last 4 years. It truly is the gift that just keeps giving because as the loans are paid off you can reinvest that $ in other deserving projects. Each month I give $50.00 and as the loans are paid off I just reinvest those funds so each investment grows exponentially.
They are a FANTASTIC organization. And, I also love and support doctors without boarders too."

I'm hoping she meant "borders".

Katharine said...

Jhangora,
I checked the Grameen web site but couldn't figure out whether individual investors can donate. Do you know?

Pat said...

Wow, Pat! You are an inspiration. I guess we're going to have to up our measly little loan!