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I have mentioned Kiva before: Microfinancing Entrepreneurs (on our Curious Cat Economics and Investing blog). In addition to being a good cause Kiva really shows some great management strategies. The use of Information Technology to connect people directly is a wonderful example of using IT effectively (understanding psychology).
Kiva lets you loan money directly to an entrepreneur of your choice. Kiva provides loans through partners (operating in the countries) to the entrepreneurs. Those partners do charge the entrepreneurs interest (to fund the operations of the lending partner). Kiva pays the principle back to you but does not pay interest. And if the entrepreneur defaults then you do not get your capital paid back (in other words you lose the money you loaned). I plan to just recycle repaid loans to other entrepreneurs.
I have just placed an additional $150 in loans to 6 business entrepreneurs (in Honduras, Indonesia[2 loans], Tajikistan, Uganda and Ukraine), along with a $100 donation to Kiva (adding to my previous Kiva loans of $350). Since our last post the Oprah Winfrey Show, President Clinton’s newly released book Giving and others have sung the praises of Kiva and made it a challenge to find entrepreneurs of Kiva to lend to (Kiva is working on building their capacity - to keep up with the demand. That seems to have been partially fixed (for awhile the supply of the entrepreneurs was completely exhausted) in last few weeks (though still they limit you to no more than $25 per entrepreneur - in order to allow the large numbers of people that want to lend to at least have the chance to loan something).
If you lend through Kiva, add a comment with a link to your Kiva page and I will add you to our list of Curious Cat Kivans.
Related: Kiva: Microfinance Loans - helping people succeed economically - Thinking About the Future
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February 28th, 2008 at 11:14 am
The entrepreneurs I helped fund are located in: Togo, Dominican Republic, Senegal, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Uganda. One of the things Kiva does very well is take advantage of the internet to connect to these people. You can see short profiles and photos of them on my Kiva profile…
April 13th, 2008 at 10:36 am
The Kiva web site includes all sorts of data on the partners making the loans (the capital at risk is provided by Kiva donors but a local organization services the loans…
May 15th, 2008 at 10:13 am
“The decision was swift as it was simple: move to Cambodia to provide jobs for poor women. I first
visited Phnom Penh in April 2006 and was back the next month to look for a house…”
August 30th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Kiva is a great charity and example of how to use the web effectively. Kiva has added a fellows blog - which is a great idea…
September 8th, 2008 at 8:56 am
[...] have convinced them capitalism is. I know to most this doesn’t matter. But I believe capitalism is the best chance to provide economic wealth to those around the world. And while it is easy to say wealth is not important when you are wealthy there are over a billion [...]
September 13th, 2008 at 2:56 am
I like the idea, but I’d like to know what kind of responsibility the entrepreneurs have in repaying the principal. I tend to think that giving a free hand out with no strings attached rarely makes the world a better place.