Posts Tagged ‘kiva’

Last month, I length my thousandth dollar on Kiva.

This means I’ve now lent $1,000 to third world entrepreneurs who are working their way out of poverty. But the real genius of Kiva is that although I’ve lent $1,000, I’ve only deposited $240.

This is because Kiva doesn’t do donations – they do micro loans. You lend someone the money, usually quite a small amount, and they pay it back when they can afford to. Once they have done so, you can lend it out to someone else! This means that for every $1 I deposit, I’ve actually lent out $4.16 – and that number will continue to climb!

Best of all, Kiva is currently offering introductory loans for free. All you have to do is sign up and you get $25 to lend out to someone without having to deposit anything.

Reading this on Facebook? Why not click the like and share buttons, and share it onto your own wall to get even more people involved.

Anyway, I’ve previously written quite a bit on Facebook and Twitter about Kiva.

It’s a microloans charity – people in the third world ask for loans, usually around $1,000 to help them work their way out of poverty. We then come along, donate $25 each and between us raise the money for the loan, and it’s given to the person in the 3rd world. They then improve their business, take another step to working their way out of poverty and then pay us back. We can then lend the same money to somebody else!

It’s a superb idea and one that I am proud to say I have been donating to for several years.

But here is why you should get involved now. They’re currently offering free money to people who sign up – thanks to an anonymous donor, the first $25 loan you make to someone in the third world doesn’t even come out of your pocket!

Not just that but you can sign in with your Facebook details (though you don’t have to, if you would rather register separately) – so it only takes a couple of minutes to make a $25 donation to help someone in the third world without it costing you a penny.

Given that then, I don’t see any excuse for anyone not to get involved. Seriously, just follow this link. Do it! Do it now! I literally don’t see any reason why anyone reading this shouldn’t get involved.

P.S. You can also access the site directly at kiva.org. However, if you follow one of the links above, it will record a referral for me. I don’t get anything out of that beyond the warm feeling inside that I’ve helped spread Kiva a little further, but that is still nice to have.

P.P.S. You can also allocate your donation towards a community team – these are just groups you can join, like a Facebook Group. The biggest and best is the atheists, agnostics and non-religious, but you might also want to consider the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Even CWF has a team.