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♥ Kiva ♥
I had my first Kiva loan repaid today, so spent the past half hour or so poking around for another person to pay it on to. I think I'll top up my account with another loan next time I'm on a slightly more secure wifi network. Yay!
If you've no idea what I'm talking about, you should, for it is awesome. Kiva is a site/organisation that facilitates no-interest loans to entrepreneurs around the world in mind of alleviating poverty (more details here). Anyone can be a lender, and as a lender you get to browse all the entrepreneurs requesting loans, see how much they're asking for, how much they've already raised, and of course the specifics of who they are and what they want the money for. You get to decide who, personally, your loan goes to.
As it's about microfinance and not straight-up charity, loans are repaid by the entrepreneur, which means that the money you donate through Kiva can be re-gifted again and again. (You know, along with all the benefits of microfinance to the recipients!)
You can also be part of teams of lenders on Kiva - you still personally decide who you want to lend to and how much, but there's a total tally kept for the amount loaned by the group, and you can see what other people are loaning too also. There's a "Team Fandom" on Kiva that's been going since August last year, and collectively we've loaned over $10,000. That's pretty freaking awesome.
Anyway, if you have a penchant to donate to charity, I strongly urge you to give Kiva a look - it's quite brilliant. I'm planning on upping my account every time I get a loan repayment, which hopefully means the amount I lend gets to grow exponentially, while my donating-to-charity budget is adhered to. More bang for my buck, as it were :D
If you've no idea what I'm talking about, you should, for it is awesome. Kiva is a site/organisation that facilitates no-interest loans to entrepreneurs around the world in mind of alleviating poverty (more details here). Anyone can be a lender, and as a lender you get to browse all the entrepreneurs requesting loans, see how much they're asking for, how much they've already raised, and of course the specifics of who they are and what they want the money for. You get to decide who, personally, your loan goes to.
As it's about microfinance and not straight-up charity, loans are repaid by the entrepreneur, which means that the money you donate through Kiva can be re-gifted again and again. (You know, along with all the benefits of microfinance to the recipients!)
You can also be part of teams of lenders on Kiva - you still personally decide who you want to lend to and how much, but there's a total tally kept for the amount loaned by the group, and you can see what other people are loaning too also. There's a "Team Fandom" on Kiva that's been going since August last year, and collectively we've loaned over $10,000. That's pretty freaking awesome.
Anyway, if you have a penchant to donate to charity, I strongly urge you to give Kiva a look - it's quite brilliant. I'm planning on upping my account every time I get a loan repayment, which hopefully means the amount I lend gets to grow exponentially, while my donating-to-charity budget is adhered to. More bang for my buck, as it were :D