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bluepanda -> RE: Charitable X-mas Gifts (12/3/2008 7:00:08 AM)
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For anyone in search of a meaningful way to share their good fortune this holiday season (or any other season, for that matter), I urge you to check out http://www.kiva.org/.
quote:
Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world. The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.
Through Kiva, you can make loans of 25, 50, 100, or however many dollars you like to people all over the world who are struggling to lift themselves out of poverty by building small businesses. If their business venture succeeds, your money is paid back within a year (without interest), and you can either keep it or loan it out again to another budding enterpreneur. If you want to make the gift in the name of a friend or family member, you can actually start a community "team" (which is actually a philanthropic fund) and add the names of those people to the roster of your team. There are several thousand such teams on Kiva, many of them focused on specific goals and values. Since you can choose who you loan your money to, you can ensure that it's being used to promote causes that reflect your own values. There are teams such as "Animal Lovers", "Women Empowering Women", "Kiva Friends: Single Parent Loans", and "Kiva Friends: Agricultural Loans." Other teams reflect a more regional or local focus, such as "Vermont - Jeezum Crow!" and "Punahou School". And of course there are teams like "Beer Goggles Never Lie", "Flying Spaghetti Monster", and "Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists, and the Non-Religious", which focus their efforts on... well... I'm not exactly sure.
But whatever. The point is, no matter what you or the people on behalf of whom you're donating believe in, there's an opportunity for you there to help people out. If the business fails, well, you're out 25 or 50 bucks or whatever, but what the hell? You were looking for a way to make a charitable gift anyway, right? They made an honest effort to better their lives, you tried to help, it was worth the risk. If you just keep re-loaning the money over and over again, your gift just keeps on giving for as many years as you care to keep it going, and you can kick in another 25 bucks or whatever each holiday season if you like. Definitely a worthy cause, IMO.
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