Whapow! Blog

Looking back, I haven’t really donated as much money and time as I would have liked to truly worthy causes. Sure, I volunteer for the occasional beer fest and random things here and there, but who is that really helping?

As a result, I’ve decided to start lending money through Kiva. 5% of all profits here at Whapow! will go towards 0% loans or donations to Kiva itself. I’ve kicked off the funding with 5% of gross proceeds thus far less transaction costs.

I heard of Kiva a while ago soon after Prosper hit the scene and really like their concept. Unlike traditional donations where you give money to some behemoth non-profit that then fritters away up to 90% of your original donation on ridiculous administrative costs, 100% of your money goes straight to the intended recipient. This money is loaned at 0% interest to individual entrepreneurs in developing nations to help them “lift themselves out of poverty”. Over time, the loan is repaid, and the money can be reused for whatever you want, including loaning it to another person.

You can loan for as little as $25 using PayPal, which generously processes all Kiva payments without fees.

I’m excited for the first four loans I made and can’t wait to make more! Care to join me?

Tags: developing nations, donate, donations, kiva, lending, loan, microfinance, microlending

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 1:06 pm and is filed under Company News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.