Does anyone else do them? How has your experience been with microloans? I have been using kiva.com and it seems legit. I started a few months ago and I should start getting paid back in October.
We do this quite a bit with our kids, letting them read the stories behind the requests and choose which ones we fund. Kiva is fantastic. I've never had a long that didn't pay back 100%; you can track success rate of the groups they place loans through. Amazing how so little to us changes the lives of people elsewhere.
I hadn't seen this website before, but it's very cool and I might start using it. I met Dr. Yunis Muhammed last year. He was a very humble, down to earth guy. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for the microloans idea. It's really very interesting just how well the microloans have been working. However, there have been a series of articles lately talking about how they are actually a bad idea. That being said, I still see them as being a great cause.
I use Kiva all the time. I'm part of a lending group on there. I found out about it when I was working in the phillippenes and a lot of the money we lend goes to that region. It feels good to change someones life with only a few thousand dollars and it's also nice to get paid back on occasion.
So the local lending groups charge interest, which you get none of. However, the local lending groups will often eat the defaults? Is that how it works?
Yeah I could care less if I don't get totally paid back as long as the money is going to the right place and the people getting the loans aren't being taken advantage of.
A couple of things about microlenders: 1. Be aware that you're not actually funding the loan you think you are. When you fund a loan, it's probably one that was already funded months ago - you're really just replenishing the lenders' funds. It's a controversial part of the microloan idea - donors/lenders like the personal connection so that's an important part of getting people to donate. However, the reality is that these businesses need money immediately, and can't wait the weeks or months it takes to go through the process of getting listed. Lots of people have debated the ethics of it - I have no problem with it personally because it makes the system work better, but it's something that I think people should be aware of. 2. Microloans actually have a mixed history of success. The stats that many of these programs provide are rigged in various ways. I started reading a book a while back called More than Good Intentions - it delved a bit into it, but I don't remember the details and I never did finish it. But if you're interested in learning more, I highly recommend it: http://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Goo...189X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315326465&sr=8-1 It doesn't argue that micoloans are bad, but that it's far more complicated than the success stories we hear, and some programs are clearly better than others at actually making a difference, targetting the people they need to, etc.
