Kiva - You're invited to Join Kiva

I regularly do loans on Kiva. For those who don't know, Kiva provides loans to people all over the world, people who are unserved or underserved by traditional banks. These are people who are trying to grow a business, or repair a home, or pay for tuition or medical bills, things like that. They don't want to be given anything, but they can't get loans through traditional channels. So Kiva closes that gap. Kiva allows people who have the means to help those who don't.

I loan $25 at a time, and my $25 combines with $25 from numerous other people to provide the full loan to the person receiving the loan. So far, I have made 220 loans. Most of the money comes back to me, but I usually just re-lend it. Sometimes a loan defaults and the money never gets repaid. That's just life, it doesn't stop me from lending.

I strongly encourage everyone who can afford it to consider lending to someone who can't get that help otherwise. You can support anything you want. I tend to support men who want to buy tools for their business, or who want to repair their vehicles, or who want to build/repair a building or structure. (I figure those kinds of investments will continue to pay off well into the future.) My sister, who turned me on to Kiva, lends to women in all different circumstances. You might want to support green tech, or single parents, or water projects in Africa. Anything you can think of to support, I'm sure you can find it on Kiva.