Social Enterprise Facilitates Online Micro-loans for Small Entrepreneurs

Kiva is a unique social enterprise that enables small entrepreneurs in more than 60 countries to receive microfinancing online. Kiva promotes the idea of online giving by allowing Internet users to offer micro-loans of as little as $25 to small businesses around the world.

Kiva.org was founded by Premal Shah, who used his experience as a former principal product manager at the leading online payment firm PayPal to promote online microfinance. Shah established Kiva in 2005 as a social enterprise, and since then the company has facilitated more than $250 million in micro-loans. Kiva continues to grow from strength to strength with each passing year. One of the key achievements of Kiva has been that the enterprise has raised the bar for similar online microfinance operations.

Shah says, "Social entrepreneurs want their idea to spread. There are over 20 websites that look a lot like Kiva, and we're trying to help them out to help them get traction as well." The idea of microfinance as a social entrepreneurial tool was originally propagated by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which was founded by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

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Vikas is a staff writer for the Sustainable Development news and editorial section on Justmeans. He is an MBA with 20 years of managerial and entrepreneurial experience and global travel. He is the author of "The Power of Money" (Scholars, 2003), a book that presents a revolutionary monetary economic theory on poverty alleviation in the developing world. Vikas is also the official writer for an international social project for developing nations "Decisions for Life" run in collaboration between the ILO, the University of Amsterdam and the Indian Institute of Management.