Kiva.org is a micro-lending site that facilitates your ability to do good in the world by making small loans to entrepreneurs around the world. They have partners on the ground who vet people and projects and work with folks who need the funds to foster businesses or cover expenses that allow them to pursue investment in their futures.
You can provide funding for loans they’re making, you don’t earn interest but when the borrower pays the loan back you get the funds returned to your account. You can then make another loan with the funds, or withdrawal your principal back to your bank account.
Kiva accounts can be funded by credit card. Paypal picks up the processing cost so the amount you charge to your card is the amount available to loan out, and ultimately if the loans pay back in full it’s also the amount you can get back to your bank account.
Many people participate in the opportunity to do good in the world while also collecting miles or meeting minimum spending. They fund a Kiva account with a credit card, make a loan, and then withdraw the funds once it’s paid back.
Kiva repayment rates are extraordinarily high. And even when a loan defaults it tends to be quite small, so your risk is minimized in a second way as well.
You do, of course, need to be able to ‘float’ the funds (wait for repayment).
The Milepoint Kiva Lending Team is two years old today and members are prepared to match any funds that you may decide to loan out yourself, up to $17,500 for the day. In that way your loan can have twice the impact today.
Join the Milepoint lending team on Kiva, there’s no better way to do it. (This link is my ‘recruitment link’ for the lending team, I believe it identifies you as having been brought onto the team by team, and while the standard referral link will provide the referrer with $25 to loan I do not know whether this one provides any benefit — and in any case feel free to leave your own preferred link in the comments.)
Join the over 1500 team members, who have made more loans on Kiva than any other this month, and who collectively have loaned $4,519,175!
Gary, thanks for the post and invite. Quick questions: what’s the typical loan size you make and what’s the typical payback period for the loan? Much appreciated!
1k added and credited to the Milepoint team.
Good luck everyone! This is a great cause, and has a great payback rate!
Once your loan is paid back, I’m assuming you remove the $$ from Kiva and charge your card again?
@Mark: if you are into this for the miles, yes.
Do you have an update on how much was loaned?