CauseWired

The Bergen Record has a big piece on online microfinance today, with a strong focus on Kiva. Nothing new there - Kiva’s press has been brilliant for a year and I’ve contributed to that trend myself -  but I liked the focus on young professionals. Those of us with more years under our widening belts tend to be blown away by Kiva’s simple model on the front-end, but the article by  Heather Haddon makes it clear that millennials take ease of use as a given. Here’s a bit:

Proponents of online giving believe it could attract Generation X and Y into philanthropy through sites that mimic MySpace in their personal testimonials and Craigslist in their ease of use. This year, executives from Facebook and America Online launched sites that allow users to donate as little as $10 to causes around the world.

“They are reaching people that traditional charities never could,” said Marc Holzer, dean of the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University. “You are really responding to things that the World Bank never imagined of.”