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I've made 30 loans now, one for each year of my life.
New Kiva loans for May:
$100 to Pong Chanthy in Cambodia, toward purchase of a new sewing machine.
$100 to Khotam Bustonov in Tajikistan, for purchase of construction equipment.
I was able to make two loans instead of one this month, because I experienced my first default; a microfinance group called SEED, it turns out, was not passing along 100% of the capital raised through Kiva to its entrepreneurs. Kiva has ended that partnership and announced a default on loans made through SEED, but my SEED-based loan was almost entirely paid back anyway... the field partner was the bad apple, not my entrepreneur. I just rounded up a smidge to give myself an even hundred in Kiva credit as if it had been paid back, and off I went. I'm getting stricter about making loans only to people who are buying equipment or education, rather than the many many people who are just buying goods to sell in a store.
(Join me? You only need $25.)
As a side note, I don't think I've mentioned that Zopa is now up and running in the United States. It offers a way to make loans to those who need them in the good old US of A... and yes, I am conflicted about this. As most of you know, I do the microfinance thing in order to fight poverty, and I've been doing it since before Zopa existed. I find myself torn between making loans to those in the third world, where my money goes a long long way and can make a real difference to people's quality of life, and wanting to put money to work locally. I could be helping wlaffin here in Brighton. There are other borrowers in Massachusetts as well.
Global vs local... what do you think? I was very touched by reading Deep Economy a year or so ago, and it sold me on the idea of acting locally to fund the local eco-finance-web and keep it robust. Still... it's kind of telling that most of the requested American loans on Zopa are for paying off existing, higher-interest loans. These people are trying to do a smart thing, and yet their case isn't all that compelling to me.
$100 to Pong Chanthy in Cambodia, toward purchase of a new sewing machine.
$100 to Khotam Bustonov in Tajikistan, for purchase of construction equipment.
I was able to make two loans instead of one this month, because I experienced my first default; a microfinance group called SEED, it turns out, was not passing along 100% of the capital raised through Kiva to its entrepreneurs. Kiva has ended that partnership and announced a default on loans made through SEED, but my SEED-based loan was almost entirely paid back anyway... the field partner was the bad apple, not my entrepreneur. I just rounded up a smidge to give myself an even hundred in Kiva credit as if it had been paid back, and off I went. I'm getting stricter about making loans only to people who are buying equipment or education, rather than the many many people who are just buying goods to sell in a store.
(Join me? You only need $25.)
As a side note, I don't think I've mentioned that Zopa is now up and running in the United States. It offers a way to make loans to those who need them in the good old US of A... and yes, I am conflicted about this. As most of you know, I do the microfinance thing in order to fight poverty, and I've been doing it since before Zopa existed. I find myself torn between making loans to those in the third world, where my money goes a long long way and can make a real difference to people's quality of life, and wanting to put money to work locally. I could be helping wlaffin here in Brighton. There are other borrowers in Massachusetts as well.
Global vs local... what do you think? I was very touched by reading Deep Economy a year or so ago, and it sold me on the idea of acting locally to fund the local eco-finance-web and keep it robust. Still... it's kind of telling that most of the requested American loans on Zopa are for paying off existing, higher-interest loans. These people are trying to do a smart thing, and yet their case isn't all that compelling to me.