Microlending on Kiva
It’s no surprise that Becca and I got married back in July… and we’re fortunate enough to have families that support us and are generous enough to shower us with gifts. We have received quite a lot of gifts that we are very thankful for, including some cold cash…
With the cash, we have thought about what we wanted to do… buy things we have wanted, things we have needed, etc. Ultimately we decided to spend half on things for ourselves and half on donations.
With the donation money, we’ve split it up into different amounts to place on different campaigns, including Kiva.
Kiva is a non-profit organization and online movement that focuses on people providing micro-loans to entrepreneurs around the world. You search for people or groups who are in need of funds to expand their business, you loan a small chunk of the total amount, the money goes to a non-profit watchdog in the region that distributes funds, and then you get repaid! You can then take your money and move it to another entrepreneur!
As of right today, Kiva has loaned $45,027,485 and has gotten 98.35% repaid. That’s fantastic! All while enabling hard working people to provide for their families and communities.
We’ll be making around $750 in loans to entrepreneurs through Kiva in the next month… and I’m sure once they get repaid, we’ll be donating to Kiva and redistributing the funds to other entrepreneurs…
You can keep up to date with who we are loaning to and how they are doing here:
http://www.kiva.org/lender/thegoodfamily
It feels good.
I'm a Ruby developer that loves to play with science, math, and gadgets. Previously, I was part of a startup called drop.io, acquired by Facebook. I live in Fort Worth, TX with my wife, 2 dogs, and baby boy. I'm a foodie, a gamer, and a self proclaimed scientist.
