A team of UCLA Anderson school researchers led by Samantha Nobles recently finished a round of research on our user base.  For the first time, we actually know quite a lot about who our users are.  Here are some interesting snippets:

Table I-1: The Typical Kiva Customer

Age	Evenly distributed between 25-60
Gender	51% Male and 49% Female
Race	82% Caucasian
Income	57% between $35K and $120K
Marital Status	45% Single
Education	80% College or beyond
Occupational Sectors	Diverse
Computer Use	90% spend 4 or more hours/day
PayPal	74% had account before Kiva
Annual Giving	40% less than $500
Microfinance Knowledge	73% know "something about" it

• About 40% of respondents give less than $500 annually. 

• 73% claimed to know "something about" the field of microfinance." 

• 75% said the would disapprove if Kiva were to become a for-profit company; almost 50% said they would no longer lend.

 
We have a user base that highly favors the non-profit model.  That doesn't surprise me too much since Kiva is a non-profit and these are folks which really like Kiva.  It will be interesting to see how they react when Kiva (as a non-profit) offers interest rates on the site.

I'm in London now headed to Africa for my first ever due diligence trip.  I'll be blogging sporadically, wish me luck.