You asked if people are giving through Kiva.org because Oprah, Bill Clinton or New York Times endorsed it. That may the reason for some people to get to know about Kiva.org, and then to give. But the concept and communication of Kiva.org is absolutely revolutionary.

Here are some of the reasons I lend, and will, hopefully, continue to lend through Kiva.org:

- You are investing in real people instead of investing in mutual funds and stocks which reside on bits and bytes.

- You get to know specific information about the entrepreneurs.

- You get to know their hopes and aspirations through their write-ups.

- You are able to assess the reliability of the micro-finance agencies on the ground.

- You get ot see the excitement of people getting funded in days, and within hours in some cases.

- Because of the historical success rate of the micro-finance loans, you know that a major portion of you money is coming back to you. That is, if you lend $25 each to four entrepreneurs, you know that at least $75, or even $100, are coming back to you, typically, after a year for your to lend it back to three more people.

- Think about it. If I get to be able to donate $25 each to 40 entrepreneurs, just imagine how much excitement I can have few months down the road when I see how these 40 entrepreneurs are doing. I am sure that most are going to succeed, some are going to fail, and yet some others will work hard to make their payments so that they can borrow the next bigger loan to expand their business to even higher level. Just imagine one of the Kiva.org entrepreneurs making it to the Nasdaq!!!

I think that, Oprah or not, above are good enough reasons for me to lend through Kiva.org.