Kiva on Nanikore

My Kiva in 2020

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 23:10:56 +0000

It’s been five years since I last talked about Kiva.org, the microfinance / underwriting website I’ve been a lending through for the last 11 years. By the end of 2015, I’d lent about 300 USD. So how is my Kiva in 2020? I see I’ve lent 675 USD, so that’s a nice doubling but off an investment pool of 105USD, which I don’t think I’ve added to in a while.

I’ll be honest, my biggest issue with Kiva is that I forget about it. They do send me reminders when I’ve been repaid enough money to take part in another loan (usually 25 USD), but for some reason, I just don’t log in and review loans which are currently available to be funded. That’s something I need to get on top of, along with adding to my pool, so I can begin getting more loans in rotation.

If you haven’t heard of Kiva, then go and check out their about page, but in essence, it’s a microfinancing site meaning that lots of people (like crowdsourcing) contribute a small amount of money like 25 USD to loan a person in, say, Viet Nam, 1000USD to improve irrigation on their farm. They then pay the money back. You don’t get interest on the loan, and due to FX and local conditions, you may not get all of your money back. In the years I’ve done it, I’ve not lost much at all. This is not a for-profit investment vehicle though, it’s more about philanthropy.

It can be more complicated than that though; in some situations, you’re underwriting the loan, rather than making it, and the local lending partners may make some interest to cover running costs, but broadly, you’re helping loan money to people in parts of the world where loans may not be simple.

As I noted in 2015, it now also seems to have a lot of US based entities. I’m not against it still, but since the US has an established financial loan system, I still focus in developing and troubled parts of the world for my loans, but that’s one of the strengths - you can choose where your money goes.

Forbes has a couple of nice articles on how Kiva often lends to refugees who are generally outside of any traditional lending framework, but who can work with organisations and then with Kiva to get loans to rebuild their lives. It’s not something we really hear much about.

Anyway, take a look if it sounds interesting, and perhaps help with some loans yourself.

Original Comments

Comments from the original WordPress blog post.

Touge — 2020-12-10

Good stuff. Will check it out.

gurahamu — 2020-12-10

It’s an interesting idea, doesn’t cost much and there’s some interesting stories out there. I’ve also helped fund some motorbike transportation ideas too.

My Kiva.org Update 2015

Wed, 18 Nov 2015 22:02:34 +0000

I’ve covered Kiva times over the years I’ve been ’lending’ through it, so I thought I’d put up a post about where I am as we copme to the end of 2015.

At the end of 2014, I’d lent 125USD total in 3 years, and lamented I was far behind the average 330USD lend rate, and having just 50USD to rotate through loans.

Now I’ve got 105USD on deposit with Kiva, and have made 300USD in loans. I’ve also donated some money to Kiva itself. I think that counts as a good year for my Kiva involvement, and I hope in 2016 I can put a little more in there. I also collected all 7 of the ‘Social Performance’ badges, which is one of the ways Kiva tries to gamify the experience a little.

One thing I will say though is that I see quite a lot of small US businesses on there now, which you wouldn’t see before, such as a Manhattan fresh food start up. It’s certainly no bad thing, just something I hadn’t noted before. For my part, I think I’ll keep my small loan rotation focused on other parts of the world.

Kiva on, people.

Kiva Update

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 00:49:04 +0000

Here’s a quick Kiva update; I’m micro-loan. The first was to a Vietnamese metalwork shop, as part of a $675 overall loan, which was repaid on time, in full, by February 2012.

This second one is to a lady in Colombia, to assist a clothing business, as part of an overall 1,700 USD loan.

I feel a little bad for her - on her first payment expected in June, she’s a few cents behind, and is thus noted as ‘delinquent’ which sounds quite harsh, but is the term used. Let’s see how she gets on in future.

What is Kiva?

“We are a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world.”

I’m going to add another $25 to enable me to do another loan, and have been looking again at manufacturing, possibly in Mongolia.

Kiva.org and Micro Finance

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 15:35:16 +0000

So, after a long time of ’ going to’, I finally made a loan via micro-finance site, kiva.org.
Kiva.org basically take money invested by normal people on the web as a loan offer, and via local funding groups and charities, pool this money to make larger loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs in developing areas of the world. It seems to be a good thing. In their own words:

“Kiva’s mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva empowers individuals to lend to an entrepreneur across the globe. By combining microfinance with the internet, Kiva is creating a global community of people connected through lending.”

I first heard about Kiva in November 2008 in a fairly odd way - I was listening to twit.tv’s open source FLOSS podcast and the Mifos team mentioned that their software was used by several micro-finance organisations including Kiva, and I made a point of following up on it, and then completely failed to actually make a loan despite reading up on several of the hundreds of people looking for investment, and creating a login.

Anyway, a friend on Twitter, @bl0ke, actually had got off the sofa and put some time and money into Kiva, so finally I thought I should too.

Actually, one of the hardest things, I discovered, is selecting which ‘someone’ to invest in - there’s people and ideas literally from all over the world. How to narrow it down? Well I went on a couple of factors for my first loan - firstly, I thought I would try someone inside Asia since that’s been my second home continent for the last decade or so, and secondly, something in manufacturing. I come from a manufacturing background, did manufacturing at university before somehow ending up in IT, and I still believe that a solid manufacturing base is vital in any community and economy.

Eventually then I ended up browsing some companies in Thanh Hoá, Viet Nam, and one was a metal working company essentially run by three women (as Mật Sơn 1- Đông Vệ Group) , who themselves were part of a larger initiative, so there we are, and within a couple of minutes, I’ve donated 25USD to them to be paid back in just over a year.

Done. Sure, I don’t get any interest on that investment, but as I live in Japan, I’m used to not getting paid interest anyway. There’s also an element of risk (~1% of loans don’t get repaid), but really, for just knowing that you can help someone bootstrap or build something for that amount of money to me is fantastic, and what crowd-sourcing is all about.

There are quite a few organisations like this, going from this grass roots work, to more tech and artist savvy places like Kickstarter, but whatever your interest and view point, I think this is a decent use of a few notes.

Give it a try.