drwex | Kiva comes to America

Today seems to be a day for revisiting past themes - first a nod to reframing and now a revisit on charitable work. Back when I was looking at places to make donations, Kiva was mentioned in passing. It's a site that is famous for arranging micro-loans ($25 and up) to entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Well now, apparently prodded by California First Lady Maria Shriver, Kiva has started a program to make their loans available to low income entrepreneurs in the US. TechCrunch has a good summary: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/10/kiva-brings-microlending-home-to-us-entrepreneurs-in-need/

Obviously $25 doesn't get you as far in America as it does in a much lower income-based economy, but the principle seems basically sound: get financing to people who can't qualify through the other available means, at low enough cost that it makes business sense.