Because of the nature of nonprofit and social enterprise work, usually the focus is on people – as it should be. Micro-lending in particular is about empowering people in underserved communities by giving them access to the resources they need to make financial independence a reality. It’s easy to forget, therefore, that micro-lending organizations themselves rely on certain resources to keep their own systems up and running.

This is especially true of organizations that operate mostly online, and that work on a model of collecting money. Their websites and content need to be functioning correctly at all times, and even though the end user doesn’t see the gears turning, there’s usually a team of developers making sure that everything runs smoothly and that the user doesn’t encounter any problems.

At Exygy, we love building things on WordPress and experimenting with that platform. In the micro-lending world, some organizations have also found ways to work with WordPress, while others have put together unique technological solutions for their needs. Here are a few micro-lending sites that are making the web work for them, and doing a good job of it.

Micro-lending organizations themselves rely on certain resources to keep their own systems up and running

Acumen

Focused on Africa, Western Asia, and Southern Asia, Acumen raises money to invest in companies that are tackling issues related to world poverty. These may include ideas like solar power in rural areas, building affordable housing, and providing health care to those in need. The organization has been in existence since 2001, when it first started trying to solve problems of poverty using dignified, sustainable solutions.

Acumen’s website is beautiful to look at, easy to navigate, and is built with WordPress. Although the site does have a blog, the main emphasis is on informational pages, making use of some of the more sophisticated WordPress functionality while still keeping ideas and content front and center.

Kiva

The Kiva website is built with Drupal, giving them a lot of flexibility over how the site looks

Kiva is probably the best-known micro-lending site in existence, and one of the first to make it big by promoting itself on the internet. One of the big keys to the site’s success is the idea of personal lending – rather than just donating the money to Kiva and allowing them to distribute it, users can read through the stories of the individuals and groups asking for funding, and then loan money to the idea they think deserves it the most.

The Kiva website is built with Drupal, giving them a lot of flexibility over how the site looks. Rather than building a blog from scratch, however, they’ve gone with a ready-made solution via Google’s Blogger platform, simply tweaking the theme to fit the overall look of their site.

Trickle Up

Trickle Up has gone with WordPress, and have even opted for a remote wordpress.com blog account

The microenterprise development program at Trickle Up specifically targets the very poor, which they define to be those who are living on less than $1.25 per day. Furthermore, they zero in on helping women and people with disabilities, thus bringing hope and a real chance of entrepreneurship to people who would very likely never have it otherwise.

The Trickle Up website is built on PaperThin’s CommonSpot Winter 2012 platform, providing them an all-in-one solution for their site, their uploaded videos, and other media. Although they could have chosen to create their blog using CommonSpot, as well, instead they’ve gone with WordPress, and have even opted for a remote wordpress.com blog account rather than the self-hosted variation.

Grameen Foundation

Using a multi-pronged approach, the Grameen Foundation helps the poor create businesses, manage money, and stay healthy. In addition to financial services, they also provide assistance to farmers who can benefit from agricultural data and other information, while also using mobile technology to help educate people on health and medicine.

Drupal is the basis for all the content on the Grameen Foundation website. Unlike Kiva, though, they’ve even built their blog with Drupal, giving it the greatest possible amount of integration with the rest of the site.

Accion

One of the largest and most widespread micro-lending networks in the world, Accion has spent the past half-century building 63 micro-finance institutions across the globe. With literally millions of clients, and several hundred thousand of those in the United States, the organization is giving potential entrepreneurs access to the financial tools they need not only to start their businesses, but to improve their lives in general.

Accion is yet another micro-lender that chooses Drupal for its content management

Accion is yet another micro-lender that chooses Drupal for its content management. The Accion blog is also built with Drupal, which seems to work well for them in the context of a complex and widespread site architecture. Despite the relatively large amount of information on the website, it is easy to navigate, making a potentially overwhelming experience more palatable for the user.