Nothing to do with making money today, but this post falls under the category of doing something of value with the money you do make, employing a greater purpose to your online business activities, and maybe changing some lives in the process.

I’ve written briefly about Kiva.org before but I constantly feel the need to reiterate it’s awesomeness to whoever will listen. Truth is, it’s one of the most rewarding times of my month when I get a chance to go to the website and select some new entrepreneurs from the third world who I’ll sponsor to help grow their business. And the coolest part is that their businesses help others in the community, feeding them, clothing them, educating them, and so on.

And if that’s the most rewarding part of the month, the second most rewarding is to receive an email that looks like this:

The email tells me all of the entrepreneurs that have made repayments on their loan this month!

It means that they’ve both made use of the funds I loaned them AND that because of their repayments I have new funds which I can now loan to OTHER entrepreneurs! The more you loan the more you get repaid, and so the more you can loan the next time around, so the scale of your contribution is increasing with each subsequent loan.

Again the big difference is that instead of throwing money at people from the third world and having them always feel like the recipients of charity, you’re INVESTING in entrepreneurs who by growing their businesses can empower entire communities to overcome poverty.

I just can’t talk highly enough of Kiva.org and if you want to make a difference I strongly recommend you go and make your first donation today.