There has never been a better time to do good and lots of bright minds and able business people are doing exactly that. Take the example of  Kiva.org where the slogan is “where loans change lives”. The good folk at Kiva have developed an online tool that enables an average person to make a mico-loan to people in poverty with a desire to start a business.

Is that cool or what? You open an account and fund it, then you are able to loan this money to someone in the world. The loan is approved and monitored through what are called Micofinance Institutions, or Partners, all over the world.

One example of a Partner is Esperanza International founded by David and Vicky Valle. Dave was once a pro baseball player. This organization is working in the Dominican Republic and has made nearly 2 million dollars in microloans to over 8,300 individuals! The loan delinquency rate is a little over 2% which is remarkable.

Kiva has made over $117,921,960 in loans as of the writing of this bog post and has given over 170,000 loans around the world. Nearly 100,000 of those loans have ended. The cool thing is that these are loans, not donations, so the beneficiaries are committed to repayment! The average default rate on all Kiva loans is under 2%.

Cash is king for anyone that wants to start a business and investment capital is hard to come by in the best economies so Kiva is providing a “leg up” for the poor.