Another favorite charity and "What is money?"

I almost hesitate to call KIVA a charity. It's really a micro loan program. You can invest as little as $25 to help an entrepreneur start a new business or improve an existing business. The charity part comes in when KIVA asks you to give an additional small percentage of your loan amount to help them run the program. The beauty of this program is that you can use the same money over and over again to help different people. It works like this: I make a $25 loan to, say, a single mom in the Philippines to upgrade her used clothing business. The loan term is 6 months. Each month a portion of that money is paid back to me. At the end of 6 months I have my entire $25 back and can loan it to a couple in, maybe, Azerbaijan to buy chickens to start an egg business. Or if I need the money I can withdraw it from the program. For more info go here: http://www.kiva.org/about/how and be sure to check out the cool new video A Fistful of Dollars which follows a loan around the world.

So far I have made 9 loans at $25 each with a total loan outlay of only $131. How can I make 9 $25 loans for $131? Because every time I get payments in that bring my total repayments close to $25 I chip in the few extra dollars needed to bring the total to $25 and make a new loan. (I have also donated $25 to KIVA) Two of my loans are 100% paid back, 2 are in excess of 50% paid back and the rest are less than 25% paid back. I have loaned to folks in Central and South America, Africa, Central Asia and East Asia. I haven't lost a dime yet. Each borrower profile tells what micro loan organization/partner they are borrowing through and gives info about their payback rates. They even rate your risk of loosing money due to currency fluctuations. I'm not worried about losing a couple of bucks to currency fluctuation. So what have you got to lose?

Why am I talking about all this stuff? To show off how great I am? No, I don't think I'm great. I read recently that people are more likely to give to charitable causes if they know that others are giving. Thus this blog. If I inspire you to give to any cause I talk about here or any cause you feel is worthy, please leave a comment and tell me about it. I'd love to hear your take on all of this. I also consider charity to be enlightened self interest. The greater the gap between rich and poor, the more unrest in the world. There's an old saying "We all do better when we all do better." The little I do can't make much of a dent in world poverty but it can show people in other countries a kinder face of America. If we all do what we can it will make a dent.

I'll leave you this time with a question: What is money? Think about that and leave a comment, if you wish, telling me your definition of money. Next time I'll tell you mine.