How Technology Helps Business » Helping Others http://www.howtechnologyhelpsbusiness.com Wed, 05 May 2010 03:20:29 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Loan $25 and Change Lives http://www.howtechnologyhelpsbusiness.com/2009/08/loan-25-and-change-lives/136 http://www.howtechnologyhelpsbusiness.com/2009/08/loan-25-and-change-lives/136#comments Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:02:55 +0000 Adam Erstelle http://www.howtechnologyhelpsbusiness.com/?p=136 Kiva - loans that change livesTechnology can be used for so much more than helping ourselves. Kiva is a non-profit organization that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in less fortunate areas of the globe. They are the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

You choose who to lend to – whether a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq – and as they repay their loan, you get your money back.  It’s a powerful and sustainable way to empower someone right now to lift themselves out of poverty.

Here are some quick tips that I follow when deciding on who to lend my money to.

  1. Find a sector that you want to focus this particular loan on, such as Health or Food
  2. Get information on the Field Partner, I try to stick with Field Partners that have loaned more than a million dollars in total loans and have delinquency and default rates very close to 0%.
  3. Read the information about the loan, what it is to be used for.

As the entrepreneurs you have financed a micro-loan pay it back, the funds become available to you again. You can choose to relend it to someone else in need or withdraw it.

Make a Small Loan, Make a Big Difference – Check out Kiva.org to Learn How!

If you use Kiva, how do you like it?

]]> http://www.howtechnologyhelpsbusiness.com/2009/08/loan-25-and-change-lives/136/feed 0