The following is a guest post.
If you’ve heard of mico-financing I won’t bore you, but I for one think that more people need to do it, so let me say this; $25 dollars may not seem like peanuts in today’s economic turmoil, but if you could lend the money to someone in poverty, who could use it to change their life for the better, wouldn’t you want to do that? That’s exactly what the non-profit organisation Kiva helps to make happen.
Kiva started off as a small project to connect people through lending with the aim of alleviating poverty, and now it helps to fund money to thousands of borrowers each week. Each of these borrowers lives in poverty and is seeking a loan to help with a project or small business venture. You and I, can then simply go online at kiva.org and lend money to whichever person or project we wish. The minimum you can lend to any individual or group is $25 and you can review borrowers based on repayment term or project type. It really is a fantastically simple way to help those in poverty do life changing things.
If you run a company, or can influence the person who holds the purse strings, you can also help by either lending money (in the same way an individual might) or by donating money and supporting the organisation. A business that’s recently signed up to do this is Guarantor Loans Company, you can visit their site at guarantorloanscompany.co.uk or even look at their lending page on Kiva. If you choose to lend yourself, you’ll get a similar lending page that can be shared with those you know or who want to follow your lending progress.
Just think, if every business or individual who could afford to, committed themselves to lending regular amounts then the world could be a better place.
When it comes to repayments you can either opt to have the money paid back into your account or you can choose to put the money straight back into Kiva, so it can continue to promote the work it’s doing around the world.
If you’ve got a spare $25, why not start lending today and help people around the world change their lives for the better!
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