Wandering with Reckless Abandon

A few days back, I posted about Prosper, a website that allows you to fund loans for people in need, while earning a return on your investment. While the concept of peer to peer lending fascinates me to no end, and the idea behind prosper is amazing, I stumbled across something tonight that I think is waaay cooler.

Reading through this month’s Fast Company (awesome issue this month) I read about a site called kiva. Kiva is similar to prosper in that it is based on peer to peer loans… but the difference is that kiva works with microfinance institutions that partner with residents of the third world that are in need of a hand up.

Looking over the sites, I was struck by the difference of the requests for aid…

Prosper was filled with requests to help pay off credit card bills, consilidate debt, and hold people over until what they were owed came in. Kiva was dealing with people who were asking for $400 or $1000 in order to start or expand their business so that they could put windows on their houses, or pay for their kids to have an (elementary school) education.

While prosper allows you to make a profit off of the money you lend (so far as I can tell, that is not the case with kiva) kiva allows you to completely change the life of a family in desperate circumstances… and once the loan is repaid, you have the opportunity to reinvest, or have your money returned…

I was excited to see that World Relief is involved with this, and can only imagine what make take place if more Christ following organizations took part in this type of ministry to the poorest of our brothers and sisters…