…on kiva.org, that is.

I was at the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference this weekend and Premal Shah, President of Kiva was one of the key note speakers.

For those of you who don’t know, Kiva is a microfinancing site that allows individuals to make loans (as small as $25) to people in (mostly) developing countries. (A current controversy the company is facing is their decision to support American workers as well as those in the so-called Third World.)

To increase the fun factor on the site, Kiva came up with the idea of creating teams so that groups of people could donate money and track their giving against other groups. The two teams that lead the pack are the “Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious” and the “Kiva Christians.” However, aethists have given close to $1.7 million while the Christians are just under one million dollars.

I find this very interesting, though I’m not sure exactly what it means. It could be that atheists are more internet savvy than their Christian brethren. It could mean that Christians are giving to their churches rather than Kiva. We don’t know. However, it does beg the question: since atheists don’t give to a religious institution (which is a substantial part of the donated money in the United States) where do atheists tend to donate…besides Kiva, of course?

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