Kiva Tracker's MessageStream

Kids and Micro-lending

Kiva Tracker (KivaTracker) — 2008-03-15T21:53:21Z

This is a good story!

Tale of microloans urges kids to generosity

Meet Kojo.

He's a West African boy who receives a small loan to buy a hen, which lays eggs, which earn him money to go to school, which inspires him to secure another loan, which he uses to start a poultry farm, which creates jobs in his village and taxes for his government - ultimately improving his country's quality of life.

Kojo's story is told in "One Hen," a children's book that teaches the value of microfinance, a lending system for people in developing countries who have no collateral or access to conventional banking. It was written by Katie Smith Milway of Wellesley, who works for Bain & Co., a consulting firm headquartered in Boston, who wanted to offer a glimpse of the developing world that might inspire compassion in youngsters.

The goal of microfinance, also called microcredit or microlending, is to provide modest loans that help poor people around the world become self-sufficient and break out of poverty. The concept gained global acclaim when Grameen Bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for their microfinance efforts. Its popularity has spread due to websites like kiva.org, which lets individuals make loans to entrepreneurs in the developing world.

Milway's book, which has a companion website, onehen.org, that offers educational games, aims to simplify an idea that may be difficult for young minds to grasp.

"Microfinance is a fantastic entry point for children into the world of international development, because any kid who had a lemonade stand can understand it," said Milway, who believes children are naturally entrepreneurial, as evidenced by the legions of kids who earn money mowing lawns and shoveling snow. "It's international development at a scale children can wrap their minds around, and it gets them to understand how valuable what seems like small change to them is to kids in other countries."

With $10, for example, a child could download some iTunes or - through an online lending service like Kiva - potentially change a person's life by loaning the money to someone like Kojo, whose tale was inspired by the true story of Kwabena Darko. Darko is one of the largest poultry farmers in West Africa and founder of Sinapi Aba Trust, a Ghana nonprofit that is part of Opportunity International, a global microfinance organization.

"My real hope for the book is that it will develop can-do and compassion in kids," Milway said, "and give schools and families a way to think about making a difference with the money children earn doing odd jobs."

New MessageDance features -

Geoff Wolfe (rooffire) — 2008-03-05T10:12:47Z

Hello my friends! Check out why you haven't seen much of me lately . . .

Digital Media Sharing - on the Cream and Clear

March 5th, 2008 by Geoff · No Comments

Roundup: YouTube to Twitter, Photo-Blogging, Share Email Attachments & more.

We've been insanely busy at MessageDance the last few weeks adding features requested by our beta users. The enormous value we believe MessageDance will bring to the social media is starting to take shape. MessageDance is revolutionizing messaging by enabling a single publishing of content to be transformed and distributed to disparate end-points. Huh? OK, enough of the marketecture buzzwords. Share whatever you want — videos, photos, music, rich content, text — to where ever you want in your network — all from one message. We'll take it from there, transform it, and render nicely for its final destination.

Portable YouTube Playlist: all the way to Twitter: If you're into YouTube and want to share videos to your friends in Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, its ridiculously simple to do with MessageDance. Music-video-philes can even create and update a playlist and display it in their MessageDance widget. When you've found a video on YouTube, you just need to click on "Share" and put in your or your friend's MessageDance email address (or send to all of them using "friends @ messagedance.com"). It will go to all of the places you and your friends have MessageDance — this includes Twitter. I sent this video from YouTube.com and it went to my blog, Facebook profile, and Twitter. Clicking on the link shows the video rendered in MessageDance.com where my friends can make comments about it.

Photo-Blogging: I got an iPhone for my birthday and it really hit me as to how easy it is to share anything with all of my social channels. I can take a picture of something I see at the park and send it to my network of friends from my iPhone. You can even make a game of it. The next evolution of this is to have the easy-ability to reply or comment by photo. It's in the works.

Share Attachments: We believe in the future of email. It is easy to use and is an efficient way to transport messages and data. It's just being abused. MessageDance doesn't clutter your or your friends email inbox. We just use email as the vehicle to deliver digital media and share it in ways no other service does. One thing our beta users constantly ask for is the ability to share actual file attachments. Now you can. Send photos, images, music, videos, PDFs, Word, Excel, whatever you want as attachments and they can be shared with your friends.

And since the first release, you can embed and copy & paste in rich content into a rich email client (like Gmail!) and it will render in MessageDance.

The next few weeks you'll see some more stuff that will make your social sharing even easier. To reward you for reading this far, here is an unreleased feature that you can try (we're working on something sweet to make it better). If you're a MessageDancer and added us to Facebook, you can email photos to "photos @ messagedance.com" and we'll automatically drop it into your My Photos section of Facebook Photos. With Facebook, only cellphone users can upload photos using email, but with MessageDance you can use any of your email clients to send photos. Freeeeeeeedom!

Latest Entrepreneur Activity

Kiva Tracker (KivaTracker) — 2008-03-04T13:50:27Z

This is fun to look through!

Entrepreneur / Activity	Loan Info	Country / Partner	Description
Alifaga Ibishov Fruits & Vegetables	$1,200.00 75% raised	Azerbaijan Aqroinvest CU	Ibishov Alifaga is a 48-year-old trader at the Saatli local bazaar who sells fruits, vegetables,...
Francisca Chavez's Group 16 Entrepreneurs Retail	$151.56 per entrepreneur 79% raised	Paraguay Fundaci�n Paraguaya	This committee of women named, "The Women in the Fight," has worked hard to ensure the safety and...
Julia Silva Chiroque Retail	$625.00 12% raised	Peru Manuela Ramos / CrediMUJER	Mrs.Julia Silva Chiroque is 48 years old and attended school up to the third grade. She has four...
Jabbor Vohidov Livestock	$725.00 79% raised	Tajikistan MLF MicroInvest-Tajikistan	Jabbor Vohidov was born in 1941 in the J.Rasulov region of Tajikistan. Mr.Vohidov has been...
Fel�cita Soto Huaynate Food Production/Sales	$450.00 16% raised	Peru Microfinanzas PRISMA	Felicita is constantly searching for ways to improve her household economy, and facing a...
Nguyen Thi Ham Retail	$400.00 75% raised	Viet Nam TYM Fund	Mrs. Nguyen Thi Ham, 55 years old, have joined TYM since 1998. Her husband and her along with...
Gunduz Seidov General Store	$1,000.00 2% raised	Azerbaijan Norwegian Microcredit LLC (Normicro)	Gunduz, despite his young age - he is just 25 years - is very active in his business, which he...
Harriet Nakimbugwe's Group 8 Entrepreneurs Pharmacy	$268.75 per entrepreneur 52% raised	Uganda Pearl Microfinance Limited	After she failed to have a second child, Harriet's husband left her for another woman, but this...
Bradis Pavon Sanchez Cosmetics Sales	$1,100.00 81% raised	Nicaragua AFODENIC	Ms. Bradis is 32 and lives with her family in Hialeah. She has been selling cosmetics...
Santos Elena Arteaga Minchola Animal Sales	$350.00 50% raised	Peru Manuela Ramos / CrediMUJER	Santos Elena, 45, studied through high school. She now has three children, two of whom still...

ate

Should Kiva Adjust Its Formula?

Kiva Tracker (KivaTracker) — 2008-02-17T15:19:17Z

Good for discussion, but I think they should stay with their current model. It's more pure.

February 06, 2008

Should Kiva Adjust Its Formula?

The founder of Kiva, a charity that encourages donors to make loans to needy entrepreneurs, took questions about his organization's supply-demand dilemma during Tuesday's weekly Chronicle online discussion.

And one of the most pointed questions came from Sean Stannard-Stocton, a financial consultant and the author of Tactical Philanthropy, who suggested that the organization change its lending terms to direct less money to the recipients of its small-business loans.

Mr. Stannard-Stockton suggested that Kiva should keep 10 percent of the pledged money as a contribution. That money would then be used to build a support staff that can identify more potential loan recipients.

During the discussion, Mr. Flannery dismissed the idea as being incongruent with Kiva's mission.

"It's really powerful to say '100 percent of your loan goes to the entrepreneur' and that's something we are not going to back away from as long as I'm here," Mr. Flannery said during the discussion.

In a follow-up blog post, Mr. Stannard-Stockton says his question might have come across as "kind of obnoxious".

But he says that it is important for groups like Kiva to listen to outside suggestions to help it achieve its goals.

"These social-capital markets belong to the public. As we shift towards a social capital market, it is important that those people with a vested interest in the outcome speak up and make their voice heard," he writes. "As a member of the public, we are all 'shareholders' in the social capital markets and the organizations that are creating them."

Is Mr. Stannard-Stockton proposing a smart solution to Kiva's recent supply-demand issue? Or is the organization's strategy more in line with its mission?

Click on the comments link below this post to share your thoughts.

� Peter Panepento

Lending And Philanthropy In The Internet Age

Kiva Tracker (KivaTracker) — 2008-02-05T22:56:07Z

Good press at Information Week.

Lending And Philanthropy In The Internet Age

Microlending has benefited from the development of online tools.

By Nicole Ferraro LightReading.com
InformationWeek
February 2, 2008 12:00 AM (From the February 4, 2008 issue)

Another way the Internet is having an effect on developing countries is by linking lenders and donors in developed countries with those in need. Microlending in particular has benefited from development of online tools.

Kiva.org is a relatively new Web site that lets people make microloans to specific individuals and projects. Microloans in developing countries generally go to people trying to set up or grow small businesses. They're initially no more than $100 and are repaid in a few months. After that, recipients might get larger sums and eventually have good enough credit to get a bank loan.

Kiva partners with microfinance institutions around the world--60 partners in 36 countries--that identify potential borrowers. They post funding needs on Kiva's Web site, and people interested in lending money can browse loan applications, check out using PayPal, and when funds are repaid, get money back, says Kiva public relations director Fiona Ramsey.

Kiva uses social networking capabilities, letting lenders and entrepreneurs post photographs and profiles. It also has a presence on Facebook and MySpace and recently partnered with Flip Video to incorporate videos on its Web site.

These facilities make lending a person-to-person experience. "There is a feeling with a lot of people in Africa of isolation, and the clients on Kiva feel like for the first time they have this international online ID," Ramsey says.

Kiva has to contend with a variety of cultural and infrastructure problems. "In Afghanistan, we can't put a picture of woman, just her husband or her brother, usually, and we write a note saying this is due to cultural reasons," Ramsey says. In Iraq, keeping entrepreneurs' identities hidden online can be a matter of life or death. "You'll see every Iraqi entrepreneur name is ID protected, and every face is Photoshopped out," Ramsey says.

More than 99% of loans are repaid, and Kiva has loaned nearly $20 million to date, according to statistics on its Web site.

EBay entered the microfinance market in October when it acquired MicroPlace. MicroPlace differs from Kiva in that it's a Web-based brokerage firm, says founder Tracey Pettengill Turner. Loans made through MicroPlace earn interest and can be traded.

Microfinance organizations used to get capital from institutions and big multilateral organizations like the World Bank, but by harnessing "the power of the everyday investor," Pettengill says, "we're on track to hopefully be a new source of capital for microfinance world."

Page 2: Cutting Out Middlemen
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Can you ever have too many charitable people?

Kiva Tracker (KivaTracker) — 2008-01-31T15:29:58Z

Kiva has had a problem: too much success. They actually ran out of business to loan money to because of the incredible growth of their supports. Way to go! Take a look now as they have more businesses to fund available. Below is a NYT article about the charitable glut.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazine/27wwln-consumed-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=kiva&st=nyt&oref=slogin

Peter Arkle

By ROB WALKER

Published: January 27, 2008

Kiva.org

Over the last few months, some visitors to the Web site of Kiva, a nonprofit that lets users make interest-free "microloans" to entrepreneurs in low-development (that is, poor) countries all over the world, were greeted with a surprising message. "Thanks Kiva Lenders!" it began. "You've funded EVERY business on the site!!" Has a charity ever announced that it had enough money? Would-be lenders were dumbstruck, says Kiva's public-relations director, Fiona Ramsey: "They're stunned for a second � 'Here I am, I have money, I want to help someone, and you're telling me that I can't?' " The note encouraged the visitor to check back soon, as a new batch of loan-seeking entrepreneurs will often appear mere minutes later. But still, Kiva is a philanthropic organization facing an extremely unusual challenge: maintaining adequate supply (people who need help) to meet demand (people who want to give it). "We don't want people coming to the Web site who want to make a loan and there's no one to loan to," Ramsey says.

Kiva has attracted more than $19.5 million worth of loans, from more than 220,000 individuals. You may already be familiar with the project, which has received a phenomenal amount of glowing attention � and that's one reason demand is so high. The site presents a photo of each loan seeker and a short summary of who and where they are and what they want the money for. A restaurant owner in Nigeria needs $450; a small farmer in Samoa needs $330. With a few clicks you can help someone on the other side of the world and play a part in solving the problems of global inequality that so often seem insurmountable. While it can be hard for charitable givers to really know where their money goes and whom it helps, Kiva lenders receive updates from the loan recipients. And they almost always see their loans repaid. (The default rate to date is 0.16 percent.)

The venture started in 2005, a time when skepticism about, for example, whether the huge sums donated to tsunami relief efforts were doing any good. It also dovetailed with an increased interest in a more capitalistic version of philanthropy that felt more like investing than simply giving. Add to this a drumbeat of high-profile attention and endorsements � from the PBS series "Frontline/World," the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Bill Clinton � and you get spikes in demand normally associated with limited-edition luxury products. After Kiva was featured on "Oprah" this past September, for instance, "we sold out," as Ramsey puts it. Since the holidays, individual loans have been capped at $25, to give as many people as possible the chance to participate.

Sometimes frustrated visitors to the site write in to demand an explanation for the dearth of needy people to help. Kiva's 23-person staff works with 77 "field partners" � microfinance institutions on the ground in 39 countries, who line up potential borrowers. About 250 volunteer translators and editors around the world post new requests as quickly as they can � which can mean gluts as well as shortages. "We could keep, for lack of a better word, a stockpile of entrepreneurs," Ramsey says. "But these are real people. We're not looking at them as inventory." It can take a while to vet potential borrowers. For example, a Sudan-based organization expressed interest in a partnership at a microfinance conference last August, and it took a couple of months of research, conversations and looking at financial statements before Kiva agreed to work with it. Even when that process was finally complete, Kiva had to help acquire the digital cameras to take pictures of borrowers; the organization is expected to start posting loan requests soon.

Ramsey says that the $25 cap will mostly be in effect for the next month or so, partly because Kiva sold about $2 million worth of gift certificates over the holidays, many of them still waiting to be invested. Meanwhile, some users get so caught up in helping that they behave like collectors, looking to add new countries and new kinds of businesses to their portfolios. (Entrepreneurs in Iraq and Afghanistan are particularly popular.) The chat boards on a kind of fan site called KivaFriends.org indicate the mixed feelings about the high demand for loan recipients. "I was trying to leave the field open for the newcomers," one enthusiast there confessed recently, shortly after adding to a personal portfolio of 62 loans � even as the number of hopeful borrowers was dwindling quickly. "Makes me feel guilty." That's an odd thing for such a generous person to say, but it's one indicator of what an unusual dynamic Kiva's popularity has created. Even philanthropists don't want to look greedy.

Bill Clinton Discusses KIVA.org with Greta Van Susteren

Kiva Tracker (KivaTracker) — 2008-01-22T16:34:31Z

He also talks about Kiva in his book "Giving."

WorldChanging's 2007 Best - Kiva - Interview With Kiva's Jessica Flannery

Kiva Tracker (KivaTracker) — 2008-01-02T22:47:09Z

Saw that Kiva was on the list of WorldChanging's 2007 Best Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy . Below is their interview with Jessica.

Pop!Tech - Interview With Kiva's Jessica Flannery

Robert Katz
October 20, 2007 5:31 AM

Jessica Flannery is, in many ways, an accidental entrepreneur. Hadshe not met a guy named Matt at a DC conference in 1999, the entireenterprise she's known for (Kiva.org) might not exist today. I was fortunate to be able to sit down with Jessica for an interview on Thursday here at Pop!Tech 2007, where she agreed to share many of the other fortunate "accidents" that have marked her journey.

The best part about interviewing someone like Jessica Flannery isthat I don't have to tell and re-tell the Kiva story. After all,NextBillion.net was one of the first web sitesor blogs to even talk about Kiva, the peer-to-peer microfinance website that Jessica co-founded with her husband, Matt (ok, that's asmidge of story, I admit). What's more, Sara Standish � a former NextBillion writer and current MBA candidate � conducted a long interview with Kiva principals including Matt, Premal Shah, and Krista Van Lewen. And Kiva has been featured in a slew of mainstream media � from Newsweek to BusinessWeek to Oprah to NPR.

Sincethe basic story of Kiva is well known, Jessica and I decided to focusour conversation on some of the lesser-known aspects of her journey andthe business it has spawned.

A special thanks to Jessica Flannery and to the Pop!Tech press folks, who helped make this interview happen.

Rob Katz: Why did you take two years away from Kiva to attend business school?

Jessica Flannery, Kiva.org: To be honest with you, it's the result of timing more than anything. When I applied to the Graduate School of Business at Stanfordin 2005, I was working at the school and Matt was full-time with TiVo.Kiva was just a nights and weekends projects. We started it with 7businesses that I met in Uganda and $3100 that we raised throughfriends � and we raised it by spamming our wedding list.

So in the fall of 2005, I entered business school. About two monthslater, we got slammed on the blogosphere � mostly through NextBillion, Worldchanging, and BoingBoing� and Kiva took off. I was in the middle of my first semester, but Istrongly considered leaving school. After all, Kiva was a dream for me.After conversations with professors and administrators at Stanford, andlong talks with Matt, we decided that I would stay in school and Mattwould quit TiVo to concentrate full-time on Kiva.

RK: Why Matt, and not you?

JF: I admit that it didn't necessarily makeeconomic sense. Matt was earning a paycheck, while I was costing moneyin terms of tuition and living expenses while at school. Butfundamentally, Matt is a true visionary � which makes him better suitedto run a high ceiling social enterprise like Kiva. And on a practicallevel, Matt could program the alpha and beta versions of the web site,while I couldn't.

Ultimately, my decision to stay in school was a good one. After all,there's no better place to be while starting something than businessschool. Stanford's community of students, professors, and outsideexperts provided a great test bed in which Matt and I could develop andgrow Kiva. It also took over six months � from November 2005 to April2006 for Kiva's platform and deal flow to be sufficient to support us.By April 2006, I was nearly finished with my first year of businessschool. So from both the theoretical and practical side, my staying inbusiness school was definitely the right choice for me, and the rightchoice for Kiva.

RK: You have a bachelor's degree in English and a passionfor international development. Why did you go to business school in thefirst place?

JF: Honestly, I happened into business school. Tounderstand how I ended up at Stanford, you first have to understand howI ended up in California � and that goes back to 1999. In 1999, while asenior at Bucknell University, I attended an interfaith conference inWashington, DC, where I met a really nice guy named Matt. We stayed intouch throughout the year, and when I graduated from Bucknell, I movedto California to be closer to him.

When I got to California, I moved into an 11-person group house onSand Hill Road. My rent was $200 per month (we eventually got evicted).But I moved to California to be 3 miles from Matt, instead of 3,000miles. I had no job � so I took copies of my resume over to theStanford campus and walked around.

My first job in California was temping at the Center for Social Innovation.It was a directed accident, if you will. I knew I was interested ininternational development, so when I read a little about the Center forSocial Innovation and what it does, I decided to walk in. The accidentpart of it was that they needed a temp. My temp job became a contractjob, which became a permanent job.

RK: How did your work at the Center for Social Innovation develop from temp job to Kiva to business school and beyond?

JF: Well, the first thing I did with the Center was help coordinate the Global Philanthropy Forum.I was a 23-year old, moderating sessions with Fortune 100 CEOs � and itworked. It was an eye-opening experience for me. I kept working at theCSI for three years, watching students go through business school. Atfirst, I wasn't jealous � I cared about changing the world, not drivingcore competence in search of profits.

But after a while, core competence � and incentives, profitmaximization, and all those other b-school concepts � started to makesense to my own personal mission. These business school students,contrary to their stereotypes, actually cared about changing the world.Not only that, but they were getting my dream jobs � managing andrunning non-profits � when they graduated. So that's how I becameinterested in business school.

RK: What about Kiva?

JF: Kiva was, in some ways, born out of necessity.Matt and I had a relationship problem: he wanted to do high-techstartups, and I wanted to do microfinance in Africa. We knew that wehad this problem when we were dating, but we were in love, so we gotmarried anyway and decided to figure it out as we went along.

Think about it � Kiva marries the high-tech startup world withmicrofinance. It's the perfect solution to Matt and my relationshipproblem, and I can honestly say that it was born out of love. I wouldnever have been able to get my head around Kiva had I not worked at theCenter for Social Innovation, where these kinds of social innovationswere part of the standard, day-to-day office talk.

RK: What do you want NextBillion.net to know that we don't already?

JF: Pursue your passion. Peel away the boundariesbetween you and the people you want to work with. If you do thatpeeling, you can build connections that change you and change theworld. In the course of pursuing passion and peeling away boundaries,you become vulnerable. Don't fight it. Strive for vulnerability �beautiful things can happen out of it. In that same light, here's myone-liner: never, ever think you are better than anyone else. If youcan live like that, and work in the BOP context, then you can reallychange things.

Follow Kiva blog

Kiva Tracker (KivaTracker) — 2007-12-17T17:03:55Z

Kiva Chronicles is written Matt and Jessica Flannery , co-founders of Kiva.

http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/kiva-chronicles

Welcome to MessageDance!

Ask Sam (AskSam) — 2007-12-04T22:58:57Z

Looks like you are ready to go! Check out this quick video.

Below are a couple of more videos about other cool things you can do with MessageDance. You can also check out our Help Section for the nitty gritty.

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