.Dust

This post is kind of personal.

When I get home and check the snail mail mail­box I usu­ally find request for dona­tions com­ing from dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions. Some­times I decided to donate some money to some of these orga­ni­za­tions, some­times I sim­ply for­got about them.

When I donate I always ask to myself where this money will really go. Most of the times you have no chance to know how your money was used and I some­times feel sus­pi­cious about that.

Novem­ber last year I joined Kiva and that was a rev­o­lu­tion. Sort of.

Let’s have a look at what Kiva does:

Kiva lets you con­nect with and loan money to unique small busi­nesses in the devel­op­ing world. By choos­ing a busi­ness on Kiva​.org, you can “spon­sor a busi­ness” and help the world’s work­ing poor make great strides towards eco­nomic inde­pen­dence. Through­out the course of the loan (usu­ally 6 – 12 months), you can receive email jour­nal updates from the busi­ness you’ve spon­sored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

• They do this imple­ment­ing a very sim­ple process called “The Loan Cycle”:
• Lenders pick a busi­ness and make a loan using their credit card.
• Kiva trans­fers funds to local part­ners. Part­ners dis­burses loans to each business.
• Over time, part­ners col­lects repay­ments and pro­vides busi­ness updates to Kiva​.org.
• Funds are returned to lender. Kiva lender may with­draw or re-​lend.

I found this really great for a num­ber of reasons:

• You have the real touch. You can look at your funded busi­ness and how they progress in time.
• You can reuse the money you have given. This is one of the most impor­tant things to me. With same money you end up help­ing sev­eral dif­fer­ent busi­ness in the world.
• The idea that many lenders help a sin­gle busi­ness is great.
• I know where my money is going and I may choose which projects to finance.

The min­i­mum amount of money you can lend is 25 USD that is a small omount in rich coun­tries. Pretty much every­body can afford that.

Why do I blog this? I have always loved the con­cept of Micro Financ­ing. Kiva is one good approach to the sub­ject when you find your­self sit­ting in the office.

P.S. I hope that some of you will join Kiva and will lend some money to some busi­ness in need.

P.P.S. If you want to look at my lender page, just click here.

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2. Being inno­v­a­tive is an attitude?
3. Com­mu­ni­cat­ing Innovation
4. Shall we write about iPhone ? Well, yes!
5. links for 2007-​01-​10