Kiva - Small Loans

http://www.kiva.com

I had never heard of this before until I read an article in Fortune Magazine about it.

This website connects entrepreneurs in developing countries with people willing to give micro loans to them. The minimum amount you can loan is $25. I decided to try it and did two micro loans.

The way it works (more or less) is someone applies for a loan of say $250. Then that would take 10 different people donating $25 each to make that loan. You can optionally donate 10% to Kiva the company or you can by-pass this amount. I kinda messed up and accidentally by-passed that when I checked out. But I'll probably do that in the future. 10% is much more reasonable then the 40% others offer.

The nice thing about this is it's a loan and needs to be repaid. Then I believe you can re-loan that money...we'll see how that goes. I found two in the Dominican Republic since I have ties there.



It's also got some really cool statistics on the people you loan to and also the local partners who handle the loans.