If you have a bit of pocket change sitting around – say $25 or so – you can invest it to help bring to life the dream of another woman in another part of the world.  Kiva is a unique microfinance organization that lets you pick your recipient, invest your money, and likely (98.7% repayment rate) get it back. Kiva currently operates in 59 countries, and has 613,541 lenders who have lent a total of $233 million give or take since its founding in 2005.  And they are in the middle of a lender recruitment drive.

This microfinance organization is not a write-a-check-and-forget-it organization.  It is a place where you put skin in the game.  For those of us who are not named Gates (God bless them for their international work), Kiva is a way to take a little and make it go farther.  It is a way to feel involved and grab a stake in someone else’s success.  Someone whose name you know and whose face you see.  It is a way to get involved and make the distance between two people shorter.

Part of the purpose of Creating Happily Ever After is to identify ways to become involved in helping women that go beyond writing a check to an organization and having others do the work.  Writing a check is great, but so many of us want to become emotionally involved, to really do something ourselves.

Kiva is a good start.  It is skin in the game.  You can find Kiva at www.kiva.org.