Spend $5 to fund a startup? That's how it worked with a speaker event in Seattle last night featuring Brad Feld, the well-known blogger, entrepreneur and venture capitalist. It cost between $5 and $20 to attend the event, and the proceeds (which, according to a preliminary count, total $1,250) are going to Vittana, a new early-stage nonprofit founded by a pair of ex-Amazon.com engineers.

Vittana is taking the concept of microfinance -- making small loans to people in developing countries to help them build small businesses -- and applying it into the world of education. Vittana is working with local schools and microfinance banks in developing countries to identify 'high-achieving, deserving" students. Those students will be highlighted on the Vittana website, complete with photos and personal stories. People who visit the site can choose to make small loans to these students ($1,000 or less) to help them complete their educations.

Vittana's two founders, Kushal Chakrabarti and Brett Witt, are veterans of Amazon.com. Both worked on developing the Amazon website's personalized recommendations function. Chakrabarti said he was inspired to found Vittana after reading a New York Times article that featured families in India spending 30 to 40 percent of their salaries to send kids to school. "For every one person who can do that, how many more are falling through the cracks?" he asked himself.

Chakrabarti and Witt founded Vittana in late 2007 and received angel investor funding late last year from some unidentified ex-Amazon executives and the Peery Foundation of Palo Alto. Vittana has some close ties to the Grameen Foundation, one of the heavy-hitters of the microfinance world (Muhammad Yunus, who received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in microfinance, sits on the foundation's board). Chakrabarti and Witt hired Ximena Arteaga, former regional director of the Americas for the Grameen Foundation, and they brought on Ericka Lock, from the Grameen Foundation's Latin America Advisory Council, as an advisor. 

Chakrabarti said Vittana will work with microfinance institutions around the world to identify children of their existing borrowers who need help with school costs. He said Vittana has signed with one partner institution in Paraguay and has 3 to 4 other institutions in the pipeline. The nonprofit plans to launch its full website in March.

Dave Schappell, founder and CEO of Seattle startup TeachStreet who helped organize last night's Brad Feld speaker event, is an advisor to Vittana.