The Kiva Community

I received my first re-payment back from Azerbaijan today. For Christmas this year my husband, daughters and I decided to make a loan to a member of Kiva. We chose to support a woman from Azerbaijan who operates a small farm with her husband and three children. The entire loan was $1200 to purchase more cattle to increase her earnings and her family's quality of life. Forty-one individual donations were made from strangers all across the world to achieve the total loan amount for this entrepreneur. All the money will be repaid within 15 months.

Kiva is something different. It allows individuals to lend money to other individuals in developing countries for a wide range of projects leading to empowerment and alleviating poverty. It feels like you are really making a difference and I guess part of it is because you can, to use lending terms, track your "return on investment" as you read accounts of the person's activities and progress and watch the loan repayment. You can reinvest your money after repayment of the loan by supporting a new person with a new project, or of course, you can put the money back in your pocket. Microlending is just a new way of looking at giving.

Joining the Kiva community provides a close connection between lender and entrepreneur. Kiva posts profiles of each entrepreneur that describes them and their project. Being part of Kiva feels like a group effort-it is. Kiva does a really great job of creating a community of lenders. You can even join a lending group and journals are posted from entrepreneurs who give personal accounts of how they are using your money.

Non-profits can learn something when considering their next campaign to raise money; take a look at Kiva. Use the idea of creating an online community effort to bring people together to support a cause. I've seen the model work for fundraisers & special events much like the lending program-donors just don't get their money back-but seeing & hearing about results of their support may encourage future participation. Community Cooperative Ministries, Inc. has used this strategy with a Facebook campaign NoFood4You by inviting people to participate in their hunger awareness campaign. More people working together gets results faster. The more the merrier!