Kiva, microfinance and doing Something Good

If you’ve not yet heard of Kiva, allow me to introduce you: Kiva is an online, micro-lending community that connects entrepreneurs to lenders all over the world “for the sake of alleviating poverty.” (www.kiva.org)

Kiva operates on the concepts of microfinance and microcredit as developed by Nobel Peace Prize winner and economist Muhammad Yunus.
Microlending enables people who are generally too poor to apply for a traditional bank loan, to borrow from individuals instead.

Kiva is a place where entrepreneurs can propose a project and lenders can pool their resources and lend money to those who need it to start making money of their own.

Lenders can front as little as $25, and the average loan requested is roughly $383.

Since Kiva funded it’s first three loans in April of 2005, Kiva lenders have loaned a total of $162,378,975, and there is currently a 98.91% repayment rate!

I am a lender on Kiva. I have made 6 loans of $25 each and so far four of them have been 100% repaid. I re-loan funds as soon as they become available to me, which I know immediately because I get an email anytime one of my borrowers makes a payment.

I have funded loans in groups of as big as 130 strangers, and as small as 15.
My dad and I loan together, compare interests, what draws us to loans, and where our money has most recently traveled.
It’s easy, it’s inspiring and it’s empowering for me, and I imagine the entrepreneurs I have lent to as well.
I loan on Kiva because I want to do Something Good.

Recently (September 2010) Kiva announced that they will start funding student loans! This is a brand new program and so the successes remain to be seen… stay tuned!