Kiva is a pretty cool system. You lend money to people in places all over the world to try and help them improve their personal situation and community at large.

One of my favorite features of the site is how easy it is to keep helping people with the same money. Every time I get paid back I can easily re-lend it causing my smaller amount of money to have a larger impact.

I've been using Kiva for years, since Apr 2008, and every once in a while I'll add a little bit more into my "deposits" - for instance today I added 11.97. But look at how my $637 over time has worked. It's created $3920 worth of loans. That's a 6x difference.

Over time I've made 154 loans and only 6 have defaulted (meaning I didn't get my full $25 back per loan).
My 154 loans have gone to people in 71 different countries (including the US).
How cool is it that you can reach out a helping hand to so many people all over the world so easily?

Kiva is not a money making operation. At best, your ROI will be 0% in terms of revenue gain. But, the little bit of risk seems like it's worth it to me if it is actually helping people.

If you've ever thought about using Kiva - I encourage you to give it a try. If you have any questions about using Kiva just let me know. I'll be happy to help.