Kiva: Micro-Financing on Steroids!

Kiva is an incredible place where by the click of a button you can help someone across the world get access to money they never could have gotten before. Kiva is a micro financing site that connects you to people in need. Kiva users can look a thousands of micro-finance loans across the world. These are people who are applying for loans that conventional banks would never grant them because they are to poor and don’t have the collateral to back up the loans.  Most of these loans are for small amount of money for us like 500 dollars, but it allows these people to repair their homes, send their kids to school, buy farming supply’s, or upgrade their equipment.  Getting a loans could be the difference between success and failure for these families.  It allows these people to get ahead enough to stay out of poverty.  What Kiva does is it allows you to see and hear about these people and their loans and then you have the opportunity to back the loan with your money.  So that banks in their countries will given them the money.  Kiva also breaks the loans up into manageable chunks.  You don’t have to guarantee the whole loan just 25 dollars!  Kiva also  has an amazing 98.8% success rate meaning that only 1.2% of people who receive loans default.  These are people that were seen to be too risky to loan to and they paid back their loans 98.8% of the time.  This is not Charity it is a real loan that the people have to pay back and when they pay back their money you get yours back too.  This allows the people receiving the loans to keep their dignity and not get used to free handouts.  You can then keep re-lending you money or simply take it back.  This is a great way for American’s to use our extra money to truly help people all over the world.  I have been lending at Kiva since 2010 and it has been a great experience, check out my profile.  I really think Kiva is a great organization.  You should try Kiva, click here to sign up for Kiva and give someone an opportunity to succeed!