$25 Loan Can Change the World

Micro-funding gives a low-income individual who has no access to typical banking services an opportunity to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Because most banks consider the poor to be too "high-risk" you can become a microcredit investor with a very small sum of money. There are many micro-lending campaigns available, as a lender the one I've had the most success with is KIVA. I joined a Kiva lending group last year, and was very happy to reissue my initial loan to another individual last week. This lending organization accepts loans as little as $25 and as that loan gets repaid you can repeat the process with a new borrower using your refunded loan. It feels good to be a microlender knowing that my small loan can continue to help over and over! A tiny amount of money to us means a lot in a third world country. Of course, you do risk loosing your investment if the borrower defaults but I'm on my 3rd loan and so far have been repaid on schedule.

Here is a simple illustration explaining the process if you're interested in helping:

How Kiva Works from Kiva on Vimeo.

You can learn more about micro loans here.