July Social Innovators – International Development Through Microfinance

Kiva is a five-year-old San Francisco-based non-profit organization. Its mission is to empower individuals to support international development via an innovative, grassroots philanthropy mechanism. By allowing people to lend money online to entrepreneurs across the globe (loans can be as small as $25 per month) Kiva is creating a global microfinance community that deals in up to $2 million in loans per month.

In 2009, Kiva (which means "unity" in Swahili) has helped raise nearly $100 million, and connected thousands of people in 180 countries through peer-to-peer lending. If you would like to know more about how Kiva works, please go to:

http://www.kiva.org/

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