Admittedly, I’m a bit of a philosophy nut. And by ‘nut’, I don’t mean that I sleep knee deep in the works of Hume and Kant, or Nietzche and Marx (at least not anymore…), rather that I am consistently analyzing my own/other people’s actions and ideas and how they affect the world around us.
As a large side effect of my interest in philosophy, I’ve become very interested in philanthropy the past few years. One of the peculiar things that I’ve discovered about philanthropy is that it is often associated with the mega-rich who donate X million dollars to fight malaria or some similar cause. Of course that is fantastic (in most cases), but I believe there are opportunities for the rest of us ‘common’ people who have a vested interest in the wholeness of the world and in humanity to make dramatic impacts in the lives of other less fortunate people. Most of us know about organizations like Habitat for Humanity or even the local soup kitchen, but I am making this post to raise awareness about Kiva — it is the combination of two things near and dear to me: philanthropy and small business.
The basic premise of Kiva is that a person can lend money (starting at $25) to citizens of impoverished countries or regions, who are trying to better their lives through sustainable small business. Kiva works with direct lenders in these areas who manage the distribution of loan funds and the collection of repayment. There is no interest return on loans you make — the individual lenders do not make profit so that the loans can be made as affordable as possible to those who need the capital. The repayment terms vary from loan to loan, but I’ve already made loans, had them repaid, then loaned out the money again to others.
If you do consider making a contribution (which I hope some of you might), you should know that this is not a charitable contribution (i.e. tax deduction) because you may remove your capital from the program at any time after it is repaid. You are, however, required to make a small contribution to Kiva on a per-loan basis to cover their costs, and this is considered a viable charitable contribution.
I know what some of you are probably thinking: this seems like a total scam…. Before I made my first loan last year, I had the exact same thoughts. Fortunately, Kiva has a huge list of corporate sponsors (Microsoft, Google, Intel) and began receiving major press coverage last year. To be fair, this is lending: there is a chance of delinquency and default, but the rates are very, very low and I have personally never had a single issue with repayment.
So, now that you’ve heard my spiel, I’ll give you the link. If philanthropy and small business strike the right chord with you, I urge you to check out:
and see what it is all about.
Posted by Coby 
