Posted by Dario Meli * This blog post is part of Invoke’s participation in the 2008 Vancouver Blogathon for Charity 5. It isn’t a handout (lender) – From a lender’s perspective microfinance is excellent because you get to directly effect somebody’s effort to better their lives. And once you have aided in bettering the community [...]

Earlier this year, while hanging out with the CTO of Kiva.org, I was introduced to Shawn Smith who runs Global Agents for Change. At first I wasn’t drawn to what they were doing because it sounded a bit odd: ride bicycles from Vancouver to Tiajuana in an effort to raise awareness and money.

Once we got to talking, I realized that this is actually something much more than a bike ride. It is a massively empowering organization, and it also has a dynamic, driven leader in Shawn.

Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

The facebook Kiva application lets a user grow their funds by using the facebook platform as a means of soliciting friends for monetary contributions.