Oct 16 2012
Kiva – A sustainable way of lending money
I walked out of today’s class feeling compelled to learn more about Kiva, a social enterprise founded by Matt Flannery who, much like Muhammed Yunnus, saw potential in utilizing microfinance as a means of solving poverty, and furthermore brought the idea to an online platform. The reason that I feel Kiva will continue to gain popularity and bring about it’s desired impact is that, in my opinion, there is a plethora of people that would like to join in the battle against poverty yet have no idea where to begin. We are bombarded by charities seeking our support, yet the benefit seen by the beneficiaries is rarely sustainable and therefore we, as donors, do not feel that our contributions are making a long-term impact.
Kiva provides a solution to both these issues because it introduces a self-sufficient, sustainable alternative and, given minimal loan amounts and an impressive payback rate of 98.99 percent (Kiva 2012), almost everybody can participate. It seems to me that if we are serious about helping out those in need we should focus much more of our attention to Kiva and enterprises like it – I certainly plan on lending money in the near future.