Do you give to Kiva (or similar) and how do you decide who you will loan money to?

I give in person when panhandled. I give my spare change to the Salvation Army’s kettle drive in Christmas.

What is Kiva? Never heard of it

I have a friend who regularly lends to Kiva, and loves them. I’ll probably follow suit, if it still exists when I properly enter the workforce. :)

@Adirondackwannabe, it’s a charity organisation. Individuals (or small informal groups) apply for a small loan, say $1000, to help them pay for their education, to buy livestock, grain, to repair their roof, stock a small community store with produce or to fund community sanitation projects. A million different things. The loans are normally managed by agencies in the borrower’s local district/country.

Then people like me go to the site, read the borrower’s profiles, choose who I want to make the loan to and invest say $25 towards their loan. You can give individuals more. I tend to stick to $25 per person. Eventually, enough borrowers choose that person to fund the full loan amount.

The people then pay the money back and the money goes back into your account so you can loan it to someone else. Kiva charges $3.50 or so admin costs per loan. You can pay less than that if you choose to.

www.kiva.org

I like it because it’s helping people to become self-sufficient. They’re determining what they need money for and I choose what I want my money to fund. All the loans I’ve made have been paid back and I’ve loaned over $1200. You can sort the borrowers by geographic location, gender, purpose of loan and other categories.

If people know of similar organisations, I’d love to hear about them. I like this way of helping others.

Thank you, I’ll check out the site.

Crap. I’m broke, and investing “250.”

Well don’t invest what you can’t afford Mr @ibstubro. Lovely though that is. We don’t want you having to apply for your own Kiva loan :D

I loaned $25 last year to Narine in Armenia to help her buy a cow and fodder last year. I’ve gotten 47% back so far. The repayments are monthly, and the last payment is scheduled for December 2015. Based on the repayment history, it looks as if she’ll finish repaying earlier than that.

@Earthbound_Misfit

I’m in Kiva. Deposited only, not had the pleasure of loaning.

Maybe tomorrow.

Typically, I loaned all my money to ‘Expiring soon’ loans. Completed one. Nothing else formed a pattern.

Nice @ibstubro. It’s a nice thing to do before Christmas too.

I did not donate to Kiva. Do you? Seemed like they wanted quite a lot, and it seemed better spent on the loans. @Earthbound_Misfit and others that use Kiva?

@ibstubro, sometimes I do because I figure they do have running costs. I don’t always and I don’t necessarily donate what they ask for. I may reduce it to a couple of dollars.

Well, Merry Christmas to you, @Earthbound_Misfit.

Based on your post, I made 3 loans. 2 in Kenya, one in Armenia. 2 Women and one man. 2 blacks and 1 Armenian. Farming, commerce and animals.

I think I may make it a Christmas tradition.

I think Kivas’ the only junk mail I don’t dislike.
I like being reminded that they are there, and that I helped. (As I was just now.)

I’m working on a fund-raiser that will allow me to make loans more regularly.