Comments on: Fight Poverty by Supporting Microcredit (by 5PM CST Today)

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:55:56 +0000

I asked Tom this awhile back. I should have put his response in this post…

Kiva is great but they partner with less than 100 microcredit organizations. Over 3,000 exist. Kiva is also great if you want to lend to individual borrowers in the developing world. I pitched Kiva to someone in December and he said, “That’s great. I don’t have the time to look through all these borrowers [on Kiva]. How about I give you the money and you can find the best borrowers.” Some people just don’t have time to lend $25 or $50 at a time.

Microcredit organizations, located in remote areas of the world and on the other side of a language barrier from the lenders, are in a poor position to meet the information requirements of their potential investors. The few on Kiva are being funded but there is still a great need.

Harvard Business School professor Michael Chu told Forbes, “You need to discriminate between the 11,900 [microcredit organizations] that aren’t worth investing a dime in.”
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0107/050.html

By: Erica Douglass

Erica Douglass — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:35:27 +0000

I read both this page and the linked page, and I totally don’t get it. Doesn’t Kiva already do this? Why create yet another website that does what Kiva does? And finally, since Kiva has such wide recognition of its brand, why would they not even mention it in this article?

-Erica

By: KM

KM — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:11:51 +0000

Thanks for publicizing our project. It is a worthwhile cause and we appreciate the support.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:30:40 +0000

Lazy – thanks for posting this and helping to raise awareness of this challenge.