Have you heard of Kiva.org?  If not, you’ve been living under a rock.  Kiva allows anyone to make a 0 interest loan to entrepreneurs and small business owners in developing countries.  The cool thing is that Kiva is a non-profit and isn’t making a buck off your direct loans.

It is my belief that capitalism and entrepreneurship elevate society and raise the standard of living for everyone, at least on some level.  I also have an internal struggle with the aid that our government doles out overseas every year.  On one hand I see past our borders and realize it’s an issue of an obligation to humanity to help your fellow man but at the same time there are so many problems within the United States that it pains me to see people in our communities getting overlooked for foreigners.

Naturally this shows why I love Kiva so much.  It allows people to lend money, not even truly donate because you’ll get it back, and at the same time help solve a problem–not just add fuel to a fire that will continue to rage until something changes (aid without accountability).  I realize that Kiva loans are probably just a few hours worth of aid compared to what the United States gives on an annual basis but I think it’s a great model that could someday be rolled out on a much larger scale.

You might be wondering why the heck I’m trying to highlight Kiva when I haven’t talked about anything like this before on my blog.  Next week I’ll be attending the infamous Pubcon Internet Marketing Convention in fabulous Las Vegas. One of the attendees, a man by the name of dk, is throwing a cool bash and as part of the attendence requirement he asked everyone to highlight a charity or non-profit that they respected.  He worked a deal to do this as opposed to charge people for the party–pretty awesome in my opinion.  A few hundred people will be attending this even and we’ll all be highlighting great causes on our websites.  Cheers to helping!