This weekend, I received a notice from Kiva that one of the first loans I made was repaid completely. To commemorate this happy accomplishment, I thought I’d break out of my normal boring blogger role and recommend that you join Kiva as well. If you’re not familiar with Kiva, it is a micro-lending site that harnesses the power of many to generate loans for entrepreneurs. You can loan as little as $25, and the return is the priceless feeling of knowing that you’ve empowered someone. Kiva charges no overhead (though they do accept donations) and the repayment rate on investments is something like 99.9999%. If you’d like a little more info, you can read this article I wrote about Web 2.0 philanthropy – or you can just sign in and start lending today.
Tags: kiva
Fred Stutzman is a doctoral student, researcher and teaching fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science. He studies how people use social media.
Fred, how do you justify 16-36% interest rates?
Huh?
http://www.kiva.org/about/microfinance/#6._Why_are_microcredit_interest_rates
The interest rates for the lendees seems very high – even if they can’t get loans in other places. I’m still paying off a credit card I had 3 years ago with a 21% interest rate.
I couldn’t find any info on kiva’s rates specifically.