The Good Work of KIVA

Kiva Site (Photo credit: consnam)

Continuing along with my Month of Courage is one of my favorite organizations (besides WWF and Heifer International). KIVA is a non-profit committed to fighting poverty through empowering people to start and improve their own businesses through micro-loans. Each borrower shares a brief bio and photo; there are thousands of stories of courageous people trying to better their lives and the lives of their children. Many of them of are women.

To find a borrower, you can look at specific countries or particular sectors like: Agriculture, Education, Food, etc.... You can even use a filter to search for an attribute like: Fair Trade, Green practices, Underfunded areas or Conflict Zones.

Since it's founding in 2005, Kiva has distributed $256 million throughout 60 countries - many of these loans were lent in $25 increments. They have a 98.8% repayment rate. I've been a lender for several years now and highly recommend it to everyone.

Donating in someone's honor makes a wonderful gift. If you donate $25 in someone's name that person then can keep re-lending the $25, every time it's paid off. It's truly the gift that keeps giving.