Kiva initially allowed users to lend to entrepreneurs in developing countries. However, due to the American financial crisis, the company recently extended its mandate to help US entrepreneurs gain access to micropayment loans. As millions struggle to execute on their dream projects, a number of crowd-based funding options have emerged. Below are a few of these tools.

2. Spot.Us: Spot.Us harnesses "community-powered reporting" by allowing the public to commission news stories. Filmmakers and reporters pitch the public on stories, and public donors commission their favorite story ideas. In this way, environmental organizations and under-funded advocacy groups pool their resources to collectively fund issues-based investigations. If a group wants exclusive rights to a story, they must fund at least 50% of that story's production costs.

3. SellABand: SellABand helps musicians crowdsource funding for their next albums. While Bandcamp, Amie Street and MixMatchMusic allow fans to donate after tracks have been laid down, SellABand specializes in the pre-recording phase. The service offsets the high costs of studio time and sound engineering. A number of SellABand artist albums are available on Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon US and Dutch-based Bol.com.

4. Contenture: Contenture is a micropayment service that allows content creators to monetize their sites. Users pay a monthly fee and their money is distributed to the sites they visit the most. Groups like Silicon Florist and Hashtags.org use Contenture simply by adding a line of code to their sites. In this way the most popular service members earn cash for their traffic. TipJoy also offered a micropayment tipping service to content producers; however, the company unfortunately announced plans to close a few days ago.

In addition to our 4 examples, we know there are a number of professionals who are crowdsourcing their funding efforts. From TwitPay to Tipit, let us know your favorite tools and what you're working on in the comments below.

Photo Credit: Lead image courtesy of Bradley Gordon

Starting in January, Amazon will launch a dedicated music shop for selling albums by bands discovered via Amsterdam-based Sellaband. The albums will be sold for £8.99, reports The Times Online -- or about $18, which is rather hefty given that jewel case CDs are sold for just $10 on the Sellaband site.

So far, 11 acts have hit the $50,000 threshold and created an album through Sellaband. The company says that they've also doled out $25,000 in commissions to artists and believers in the past three months. Getting music on Amazon, though, gives Sellaband artists a far more visible distribution platform.

According to Sellaband, the site receives about 150,000 unique visitors per month, but their main focus is artist development, not creating a consumer-focused destination site. That means that deals like the one with Amazon are key to actually selling the music their artists create.

Amazon will also help more bands hit the magic $50,000 -- any band that reaches $30,000 will get an automatic $1,000 investment from Amazon to help them along. To date, over 6,000 bands have uploaded tracks to Sellaband, and $1.3 million has been invested in them, according to Pim Betist, one of the site's co-founders.