I’ve got a randomly selected winner for the $100 Lending Club giveaway:
Betty C.
Congratulations! I’ll be emailing you shortly with the details of how you can collect your $100 from Lending Club.
Thanks everyone who left comments and entered the contest. Hopefully, at the very least, you all learned about an interesting new opportunity through P2P lending.

Last week I mentioned that I was trying out Lending Club. And, now that I’ve given it a spin, here is the rundown of what Lending Club is all about. Oh, and one of you lucky readers can have a free $100 in your Lending Club account. Here are the rules of this $100 giveaway from Lending Club:

Leave a comment on this post by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time this Friday, March 13, 2009. Make sure you have a valid email address, or I won’t be able to contact you — if you win.
Sign up for Lending Club. It’s free. But …read more

I just received an interesting proposal: Try out Lending Club and get $100 for one of my readers! The only condition is that I try that site out (they’ll give me $50 to put in my account), and the write about my experience.
I’ve toyed with the idea of microfinance through such organizations as Kiva.org. Now that I’ve connected with Lending Club, I’m excited to be entering the world of P2P lending, and sharing my thoughts.
I don’t have all the details worked out, but when I do, I will post contest rules. Stay tuned, you may be the one to get …read more

One company, Pertuity Direct, offers a rather interesting version of social lending. Recently, I spoke with Pertuity’s CEO Kim Muhota, as well as Charlie Schliebs, who is on the board for the National Retail Fund.

One of the trends hitting the investment world is microfinance. For most people, this is a way to make money by offering small loans to the poverty stricken to help them start business ventures. Microfinance isn’t new, but the growing focus on it is. Even eBay is now getting in on microfinance.
Another way to make money from microfinance is to join person-to-person lending communities like Prosper. Prosper has been around for a while, and it exists by helping people connect with other individuals. Lenders make money on interest and fees (usually higher than what is made on micro loans to …read more