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GC Blog

Cool Media Meets Microfinancing

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Submitted by bgillespie on Mon, March 14, 2011 - 02:00am

When I initially started writing this entry, I was excited to share a website that I’d just discovered which successfully merges two of my personal passions -- effective use of media and microfinancing. Lendwithcare.org, a project of CARE UK, pairs strategic web design, video and social media with straightforward, well-written text on microfinancing basics. The product is an online resource that can turn even a first time lender into an informed advocate for helping the poor worldwide. The site is populated with personal stories and tangible results, and lendwithcare.org accomplishes what so many organization aim to do -- they change lives and have real results to show.

But that got me thinking about one of my first encounters with microfinancing, and I had to check in with the pioneering organization Kiva to see what they were up to in cyberspace. While their site design was clean and simplistic compared with lendwithcare.org, the interactive banner with links to loan recipients was particularly powerful and colorful (literally!). I also liked their short “About Microfinancing” video…

 

All this interactivity, though, sent me searching for the site I discovered nearly a year ago, Crowdrise, which is more of a personalized fundraising site than microlending, but its use of cutting edge multimedia technology impressed me then and now… along with their amazingly motivating sarcasm and dead pan humor. “If you don’t give back, no one will like you” as a tag line is perhaps the best use of peer pressure I’ve seen in years!