Micro loans

[Jarulf]

I've been thinking of joining a service like www.kiva.org to see if I could do some good. Does anyone have experience with Kiva or another organisation?
Pros, cons?

[RubySlippers]

Well how much can it hurt if a woman wants a new goat to get milk to make goat cheese to sell and you give then some of the money its directly aiding a poor person get some more money and in theory you get repaid. And in most cases your talking $25 its not going to break anybody if my money wasn't from SSI I would do it but well - I'm Poor by American standards.

But I always respected micro-lending in principle.

[Jarulf]

I'm fairly poor by Swedish standards, but I could certainly manage $25 once in a while. And I'm probably filthy rich compared to the woman who needs another goat. I'm not too bothered about getting my money back, it's not an investment.

I was mostly curious about peoples' experiences and if there are other organisations than Kiva.

[Ebb]

I've used Kiva for a couple of years, rolling over the repayments (which have been pretty consistent) into new loans. I honestly can't say how much of a difference it makes, but it's fairly painless and I suppose there's a chance that it's really helping someone out who can use the money more than I can. Everything I've seen about Kiva as an organization says that they're pretty above-board, that they don't take an inordinate amount of money in overhead, etc. Each time you make a loan you're prompted to bump it up a buck or so to help fund Kiva itself, which I believe is mostly how they keep themselves going.

I certainly wouldn't look at Kiva as any sort of reliable investment if you're primarily concerned with making your money grow, though. More like an easy and somewhat fun means of charitable giving.

Out of curiosity, just looked up my statistics. I've put $100 in the system, which has resulted in $325 of loans to people over time. Out of that, I've lost $11 from people defaulting. This is over about a 2 year period.

[RubySlippers]

I view it this way would that $25 you might give to another source like the local Goodwill do as much or more good for someone through KIVA, but they are from my research legitimate. People forget that a small investment in this person is a lot of money in many parts of the world where they sometimes live on $30 a month, and if they become a peddler and can even earn $1.50 a day its a lot of money more than they had.

And at the end of the day I would argue the one person or collective your helping will likely use the money and that could be better than giving it to some charity with major overhead.

[mia h]

Depends on what you are looking to get out it I suppose, but there are companies like Zopa that do peer to peer lending. It's less altruistic in nature and I know a few people who invested to make some cash out of it, but you end up where you get a greater return than you could at a bank and the person borrowing pays less than normal interest rates so everyone wins (well sort of)

[Jarulf]

Thanks everyone for your comments, much appreciated.

This is not intended as a way for me to make money, it's basically a form of charity as Ebb mentioned above. If I get paid back, I expect I'll just lend the money to someone else.

Well, I'm going to do this (once my paycheck arrives next week)

[Stella]

I also use Kiva, and am into my third or fourth loan. They've all had full repayments and I keep cycling the money I've put in to other people requesting loans. I love it - you get an idea of real people in real places, and it's wonderful being able to directly help them grow their businesses. Every so often they have drives where you get extra credit for inviting others to Kiva, which then goes directly into another loan.

It's awesome. Good on you for getting involved! : )

[RubySlippers]

And they have GIFT CARDS how cool is that, you can print up a card sheet or send and e-mail or they will send the gift message to the receiver that is nice and they start at $25.

I would do it save I'm poor only getting SSI so is not practical for me or fair to use your tax money if American to give to other poor people like that. Although seeing them I'm most fortunate being poor here than poor somewhere else in many of the countries Kiva serves.

[Jarulf]

The deed is done
But boy, was it hard to pick one borrower out of so many. It felt a bit depressing going through them and trying to decide, but hopefully my little contribution will do some good.

Thanks again everyone for the comments and everything