NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Kiva is an organization that empowers individuals to make charitable, microfinance loans. Anyone can look at the profiles of businesses (all rural entrepreneurs, currently all in Uganda), make a loan of as little as $25 through PayPal, and stay in contact with their sponsored business for the 6-12 months (average time) it takes to have the loan repaid.

This is a truly innovative platform for BOP microfinance, and although currently subsisting on seed money from its partner (Village Enterprise Fund) Kiva intends to be eventually financially sustainable.

(Editor’s note: this post was picked up by WorldChanging; a nice discussion is ongoing)