Help Entrepreneurs Practically
by Andrew Smith on 06/09/07 at 9:31 am
2 comments
Jason at 37Signals wrote a great article about Kiva. I’ve copied it in full for reasons which I will explain at the bottom.
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Kiva is amazing. It’s a site that lets you make microloans to working poor entrepreneurs in the developing world. Farmers, shopkeepers, builders, textile workers, and shoe sellers in Azerbaijan, Samoa, Togo, Kenya, Ecuador. Kiva helps you help them for as little as $25 at a time.
It’s a loan
This isn’t charity, it’s a loan. Amazingly, 99.7% of loans are repaid. When your Kiva loan is repaid, you can choose to withdraw your funds or re-loan to a new business. It’s a wonderful idea well executed.
One-to-one lending
What’s especially cool is that you are helping one person (and their family). It’s a laser-pointer approach to helping people. Pick one person to help, watch their progress, get paid back, loan them more if they need it.
It’s a refreshing alternative to donating to a mega-charity that blurs the connection between your help and a specific human being. Instead of tossing a dollar in a pile to be mass distributed at a later date, Kiva lets you “look someone in the eye,” hand them the dollar, tell them you’re behind them, and wish them good luck. That’s extra special for the giver and receiver.
The lending process is beautifully simple which is a big part of the appeal. Here’s how simple:
Browse business owners in need
Click someone for more detail
Choose to lend as little as $25
Pay with PayPal or a credit card. PayPal provides Kiva with free payment processing – Kiva.org’s largest variable cost – so 100% of the loaned funds reach entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Keep an eye on your loans
Follow along on their journals
That’s it
It’s simple, fast, easy, and direct. 100% of the donation goes right to the person in need. Kiva’s administration costs are covered by separate donations to Kiva, not by taking a cut of the loans. When you make a loan you are also prompted to make an optional donation to Kiva to help keep their lights on.
For more information on Kiva, see their about page. And here’s a NYT video feature on Kiva.
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The reason I couldn’t write all of that and take the lovely screenshots is because they’re “sold out”. Kiva have received $10 million in loans from over 100,000 people and they don’t have enough small entrepreneurs to help. Right now all you can do is donate money towards their administration costs which will help them find more borrowers around the world.
If you know of South African organisations that are able to indentify needy business owners then please tell them to contact Kiva. There are a lot of 1st world people waiting with their credit cards ready to send money in this direction.
Andrew Smith is the pedantic systems guy behind Live Alchemy, a SA e-commerce company. Andrew writes for Ideate in an attempt to make the world a more efficient place. View more articles by Andrew Smith.
Fred
Sep 6th, 2007
What an unbelievably brilliant idea.
I can’t think of anything in particular – but isn’t there a SMME organisation / dept. in the DTI that can help?
Ideate - Small Business in South Africa
Aug 12th, 2008
[...] year I wrote about Kiva, the organisation that provides interest-free loans to entrepreneurs around the world. You [...]