Kiva: Google meets Bono

Knowledge@Wharton has a great piece on the impact of Kiva.org.  Interestingly enough, the cofounders of the site -- Matt and Jessica Flannery - got a lot of pushback when they initially pitched the idea; that is, venture capitalists thought it would not scale, attorneys were guarded and non-profits were skeptical (was this just another dot-com idea to make a mint?)

Of course, such stuff is moot now.  By all accounts, Kiva.org is a huge success and it continues to grow apace.  There are even imitators, such as eBay's MicroPlace.

And, according to Knowledge@Wharton:

"Kiva mixes the entrepreneurial daring of Google with the do-gooder ethos of Bono, the lead singer of the rock band U2. And with it, the Flannerys have managed to merge two recent socio-economic trends -- social networking and microfinance."

Click here to check out the full piece.