A Lifetime Commitment to Community Service

We, at The WebTool, feel very strongly about the organizations we support with our time, expertise and money. See how you can pitch in, too.

Finca International (FINCA) provides financial services to the world’s poorest families so they can create their own jobs, raise household incomes, and improve their standard of living. We deliver these services through a global network of locally managed, self-supporting institutions. Microfinance is the term most often used to describe financial services for poor people in developing countries. Microfinance includes microcredit or microloans (small amounts of money lent to poor people to finance self-employment activities or for other purposes); savings; payment transfers (services which enable breadwinners living elsewhere to send small amounts of money regularly to family members back home, a major revenue stream in many developing countries); microinsurance, and other financial services.

Geekcorps, a division of IESC, promotes economic growth in the developing world by sending highly skilled technology volunteers to teach communities how to use innovative and affordable information and communication technologies to solve development problems.

Heifer International works with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth. Heifer's strategy is…to “pass on the gift.” As people share their animals’ offspring with others – along with their knowledge, resources, and skills – an expanding network of hope, dignity, and self-reliance is created that reaches around the globe. This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for almost 60 years. Today, millions of families in 128 countries have been given the gifts of self-reliance and hope.

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to entrepreneurs around the globe. The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.

Current Statistics : July 26, 2009
Total value of all loans made through Kiva:     $83,962,460
Number of Kiva Lenders:     531,575
Number of countries represented by Kiva Lenders:     183
Number of entrepreneurs that have received a loan through Kiva:     202,827
Number of loans that have been funded through Kiva:     120,129
Percentage of Kiva loans which have been made to women entrepreneurs:     82.86%
Number of Kiva Field Partners (microfinance institutions Kiva partners with):     107
Number of countries Kiva Field Partners are located in:     48
Current repayment rate (all partners):     98.61%

Mercy Corps is a team of 3700 professionals helping turn crisis into opportunity for millions around the world. By trade, we are engineers, financial analysts, drivers, community organizers, project managers, public health experts, administrators, social entrepreneurs and logisticians. In spirit, we are activists, optimists, innovators and proud partners of the people we serve. NetAid has merged with MercyCorps.

Millenium Promise's mission is to end extreme poverty by 2025. In support of this goal, Millennium Promise’s unique focus is to build coordinated action and collaborations among individuals, governments, corporations and non-governmental organizations to address the root causes and symptoms of extreme poverty. Our work is guided by the Millennium Development Goals (the “MDGs”), eight globally endorsed objectives aimed at eradicating the multidimensional sources of poverty. Our flagship initiative, the Millennium Villages project , applies scientific research, economic analysis and international development expertise to the practical achievement of these goals at the community level.

TechnoServe helps entrepreneurial men and women in poor rural areas of the developing world to build businesses that create income, opportunity and economic growth for their families, their communities and their countries. Climbing out of poverty in the developing world takes more than hard work; it takes economic opportunities. Entrepreneurs create these opportunities by identifying and capitalizing on good business ideas. TechnoServe helps them turn their visions into reality.

The Hunger Project is a global non-profit organization that carries out its mission of ending hunger in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America through three essential activities: mobilizing village clusters at the grassroots level to build self-reliance, empowering women as key change agents, and forging effective partnerships with local government. The Hunger Project focuses on chronic, persistent hunger as distinct from the acute famine emergencies that make the news. Chronic, persistent hunger is not due merely to lack of food. It occurs when people lack opportunity to earn enough income, to be educated and gain skills, to meet basic health needs and have a voice in the decisions that affect their community.

United Nations Online Volunteering Service Volunteers from around the world can help organizations that serve communities in developing countries -- without leaving their own communities. These online volunteers translate documents, write articles, research data, build web sites, mentor young people, design logos, and engage in many other projects to benefit organizations serving people in the developing world. Online volunteers are volunteers without frontiers.

Zonta International is a global service organization of executives in business and the professions working together, across political and social boundaries, to advance the status of women worldwide. Founded in 1919, Zonta International members volunteer their time, talents and money to local and international service programs, as well as scholarship and award programs aimed at furthering women's education, leadership and youth development.