You Too Can Make Microloans thru Kiva.org
By Susanne Goldstein on Sep 24, 2007 in More To Explore, Susanne's Favs, Brass Tacks, Global Community, The Social Age
I often hear from people about how they’d really like to make a difference in the world, but they aren’t sure how. Kiva, a non-profit based in San Francisco, offers a very cool solution to help you help others. “Kiva.org allows individuals to make $25 loans to low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world (microfinance). By doing so, individuals like you provide affordable working capital for the poor (money to buy a sewing machine, livestock, etc.), empowering them to earn their way out of poverty.”
Microloans start at as little as $25 and are repaid over time. Though it’s hard to believe that $25 can make a difference, it can. And well-known field partners such as Mercy Corps assist in the the delivery of the loan. Of the nearly $12 million dollars that Kiva has collected and distributed to entrepreneurs, there has been a very low delinquency rate of 2.49%, about equivalent to that of US Loans*.
Some of the people you can help include:
Gulkhar Huseynova, who is a low-income local from Baku, Azerbaijan. She is married with 3 children, and she is 47. She has been running her animal business for 8 years. She used her own resources to start this business. Previously she had two loans amounting to $300 and $650 from Normicro and used them for business expansion. Now she is applying for a loan of $1,100 to expand her business further to make more income for her family.
Mohammad Gul Mohammad, who lives in district 5 of Kabul, Afghanistan. He is educated. He is responsible for his family as he is the only worker in his family, and he supports his father and mother. He has a painting shop where he paints cars. He wants to enlarge his shop, so he wants to take an individual loan to completely stock his shop and expand his business to attract more clients. He wants to make a good income to help his family. He is happy.
Due to media coverage on Oprah, the Today Show and in Bill Clinton’s book GIVING (which I blogged about here), the breadth of loans needed right now isn’t as robust as it has been — but that is a good thing. It also means that those lendees listed could really use your help.
I encourage you to get involved.
* US delinquency rates as of August 2007 according to Haver Analytics: Consumer loans 3.02% , Residential Real Estate Loans 2.28%
Kiva is awesome. Closer to home (if you’re in the U.S., anyway), there’s Prosper.com, which facilitates people-to-people loans through a bidding system. You can participate as either a borrower or a lender. I like the idea of helping people get out of debt or start a business while staying outside the conventional banking system.
Comment by Bronwyn -- Oct 11, 2007 @ 1:08 pm
I just recently made four $25 loans through Kiva. I feel reasonably confident that this is as good or better a way to help than any other given the small amount of $ and relative ease of making a loan.
I’m also sure that as Kiva becomes more well-known, it will attract more people who will attempt to take advantage of it.
It will be interesting to see how it fares over the next several years.
Comment by Scott -- Dec 31, 2007 @ 10:14 pm