Kiva

If you look at Kiva.org, people with a very modest amount of money can make a huge positive impact all around the world. There are so many people who want to give but don't really know how to do it. Through Kiva.org, people around the world can become micro-bankers to developing world entrepreneurs, who have their own ideas, so we can give them a chance to raise their kids with dignity, send their kids to school, and in troubled places like Afghanistan we can marginally increase the chance that peace can prevail, because people will see there is a positive alternative to conflict.

I think that the great success of Kiva, and micro-finance in general, is that it shows a series of success stories at a time when there's great pessimism around foreign aid and what official aid approaches are doing. Kiva and the micro-finance world are set up not just as a better way to fight banking but also an important way to rethink traditional modes of giving and global social justice.

It is a way of feeling like you're making a difference, of doing so in a way that encourages economic activity which ultimately will provide more employment to support the economy. I also think that there's really a benefit, though, of just engaging with the rest of the world and of seeing who you are helping.

..this is a great first step in opening up bottlenecks.

The results are awesome... There's a lot any entrepreneur can learn from the Kiva story.

Kiva.org allows people the very American satisfaction of both helping someone and getting their money back.

You learn from a blog posting by a friend who lives a block away in Berkeley, Calif., that he just made two $25 loans to two women in Kenya (and expects to be paid back, albeit without interest) and you decide, hey, I gotta get me a piece of that action!

...this kind of an idea can change not just the country; it can change the world.

...the future is Kiva: coordination economies, microchunking into new domains (in this case, capital formation), and disrupting markets and regulatory structures in the process. Seriously, unspeakably, awesome.

A great idea where PayPal meets Gates Foundation.

The blogosphere is a-buzz about Kiva.

Case study: What happens when a social entrepreneur hits the blogosphere (4 parts)

Microfinance meets Match.com...This is a truly innovative platform for BOP microfinance.

...I have, however, been looking at new models of micro-finance and boy, I haven't seen anything as innovative as Kiva in recent times.

For the first time, Kiva.org opens the Internet to people looking for a personal, high-engagement means of taking steps to eradicate poverty.