When I was looking for
submissions for Best Web Companies and Innovators of 2006, a R/WW commenter pointed
to a non-profit site called kiva.org - calling it "web
2.0 meets the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize".
Kiva.org lets you loan money to an entrepreneur in the developing world. On the homepage there is a list of relatively small loan requests (usually $2000 or less), from people in developing countries. Incidentally, Kiva is a Swahili word meaning “agreement” or “unity”.
For example Rabil
Hamzayev is requesting $2000 to expand his foodstuffs business. He's described as a
"30, single, internally Displaced Person ( IDP ) from the Armenian-ocupied territory of
Azerbaijan Lachin". He says he will repay the loan over 12-16 months. Here's his business
history so far:
"Before he wanted to open his own market, but he could not do it.He decided to borrow the loan $400 and to built his own market. For the second time he borrowed the loan $800 and bought the foodstuffs. The third loan amount $1400 he spent to expand the area of his market. Now he wants to built the household shop."
Rabil is 69% funded so far and on his Kiva webpage there is a facewall of people who have loaned him money. Kiva.org even addresses the question of "Will I get repaid", with a little popup box that states: "So far, Kiva has experienced a 100% repayment rate on all businesses with completed loan terms."
In terms of utilizing the Web for non-profit purposes, Kiva.org is a shining example. It has the usual 'web 2.0' things like RSS feeds, journals with comments (like blogs), facewall that links to user profiles, badges for websites, easy Web payments (using credit card, Paypal, etc), recommendations, and more.
As Kiva.org explains on its About page, they facilitate connections using the Web:
"Kiva is using the power of the internet to facilitate one-to-one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive. Child sponsorship has always been a high overhead business. Kiva creates a similar interpersonal connection at much lower costs due to the instant, inexpensive nature of internet delivery. The individuals featured on our website are real people who need a loan and waiting for socially-minded individuals like you to lend them money."
Interestingly, Kiva.org seems to have good support from Silicon Valley - in the FAQ it states that "Kiva.org currently has financial support from a number of angel investors, including Silicon Valley donors, and corporate sponsors including Microsoft Research."
Also Kiva.org has received good press coverage. The Seattle Times called it "Philanthropy 2.0" and noted:
"The power of the Internet not only makes it possible for donors to find organizations and causes they support around the world, but it means that even small amounts by individuals can make a big difference because of the sheer volume of givers."
Overall Kiva.org is an impressive use of the Web and shows there's much more to web 2.0 than just Flickr, del.icio.us, YouTube and MySpace. Read/WriteWeb will be profiling more of these web-empowered non-profits in future posts - they literally give new meaning to 'world wide web'!
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UK Zopa.com has been doing the same for a while.
Regards
Paulo Vaz
Portugal
Posted by: Paulo Vaz | January 3, 2007 6:34 AM
Paulo, Zopa is a person to person loan system where you set the interest rate and choose who to loan to/borrow from. Kiva is a microloan site where you choose to loan at no interest to people in the third world to whom a loan can mean everything. No similarity - unless I missed something that Zopa does in addition to their main business?
Posted by: Ivan Pope | January 3, 2007 7:09 AM
Richard,
It would be great if you could follow-up with future posts related to "Philanthropy 2.0" and also "Crowdfunding".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdfunding
Very interesting things going on out there :)
Posted by: Sull | January 3, 2007 8:45 AM
F**king awesome.
More power to ideas like that.
Posted by: Mikael Bergkvist | January 3, 2007 9:15 AM
Well, these days even we have seen an increase in the clients who start off a website which provide e-loans to their customers.I wonder the cost of living have taken a drastic change.
Posted by: vps hosting | January 3, 2007 11:47 AM
I would also add to that list FirstGiving.com ... they're a Cambridge, MA startup that allows people to create funds for any non-profit venture. They can automatically cut a check to most accredited national (US)/international charities. What makes them unique from from sites like Fundable and ChipIn, besides being able to automate the process of collecting for existing charities, is that they have no cap on fundraising (Fundable and ChipIn cap you at $25k, as far as I know) and they have a $1 minimum donation (most sites have a $5 minimum, likely due to credit card processing fees). I've been considering using their service for a non-profit fund raising project.
Posted by: Josh | January 3, 2007 12:46 PM
Very innovative...I would say a service like this can feed off itself given the right conditions.
The more genuine success stories the more Philanthropists will be motivated to donate funds given the very small requests.
Also very importantly a service like this could highlight how much things are taken for granted by the "Haves" and how much a small amount could do in helping some of the less fortunate.
www.jollyjo.org
Posted by: Adrian Keys | January 3, 2007 1:56 PM
You might also check on zopa (http://zopa.co.uk) and propser (http://prosper.com). These are also sites operating under similar mechanisms to kiva. Basically, they're all part of the micro-finance movement, which gave Yunus and Grameen Bank the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
Posted by: Danny Kim | January 3, 2007 3:16 PM
i am happy to see that the idea of "grameen bank" by muhammad younus (don't know how to spell it) has made to the web.
it was about microcredit using really small loans to people in small towns in india, so they could buy a cow and things like that. this is much bigger but the intent is always great.
Posted by: mox | January 3, 2007 5:40 PM
Lots of information on developments in philanthropy and technology can be found at Philanthropy 2173: Provocations on the future of philanthropy. Sample posts cover philanthropy and SecondLife, media changes and philanthropy, and - as requested - crowdfunding through sites like smartocracy.
Posted by: Lucy | January 3, 2007 6:22 PM
Richard - I like this because it's very personal and they appear to have the proper safeguards in place in addition to smart partners and advisors to make it work. If you're looking for others in the philanthropy 2.0 space, my vote goes to www.createhope.com. They are for profit - they manage corporate workplace giving campaigns and volunteer programs for large corporations. But their leadership in bringing efficiencies to the process and providing absolute transparency and accountability to donor employees, corporations and charities results in more of every dollar donated reaching the donor's charity of choice fast and has forced traditional workplace giving providers like United Ways to clean up their acts.
Posted by: Amy Smith | January 4, 2007 5:13 AM
Another rising star in the online microfinance space is GlobeFunder. www.globefunder.com Although only up-and-running for less than a month there approach seems to be a little different - GlobeFunder is a for-profit model that aims to use this as an asset for loan investors, helping to grow MFIs borrower networks, and expanding the amount of loan fulfilled globally to micro entreprenuers looking to help themselves.
Posted by: Ben Decio | January 14, 2007 6:32 PM
One thing worth mentioning is that if you have a blog / website / MySpace page (whatever online presence), you can put a banner on it that will rotate through the current small businesses seeking funds. So even if you don’t have money to help these small businesses, you can help them by simply giving them exposure.
If you want to see an example of this, I added a banner for Kiva.org (bottom of right sidebar):
http://www.computers.net
Posted by: Bob Caswell | January 15, 2007 11:47 AM