How to Be a Global Micro Lender
By Jennifer Guerin

It used to be that global investment meant corporate investment: put your money in a profitable mutual fund, which will pass it on to a fund manager, who will then—quite possibly—give it to a company with hundreds of employees working in an overseas factory, making anything from bombs to toxic chemicals to tennis shoes. Hold your breath and hope your economic karma doesn’t come back to haunt you.

Now, thanks to Kiva Microfunds, global investment means something entirely new: small, intimate, person-to-person lending across international lines. No karmic strings attached.
Kiva is a California-based micro-lending institution that allows individuals to learn about and invest in small businesses and start-ups anywhere on the globe. With the ultimate ambitious goal “to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty,” Kiva works with established micro-lending partners in various countries, who scope out the most worthy, promising projects. Photos and profiles of aspiring entrepreneurs are then posted on the website, where potential lenders can browse and choose whom they want to support.

Loans are small—on average, somewhere between $50 and $5,000—and investors don't even have to supply the entire amount. If, for instance, you want to support 43-year-old Sok Ith of Cambodia, a fishmonger who is requesting $300 to buy fishing equipment for her unemployed son, but you only have $75 to give, that's just fine. Make your pledge and it will be tracked on the website so that new investors will know Sok Ith now only needs $225 to reach her goal.

Over the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months in duration), you can track the progress of the entrepreneur online and will receive repayment as it becomes available, sometimes on a monthly basis.

Kiva is not only a noble organization but a useful one, for teaching ourselves and our children about real people doing real work in small communities around the globe. Imagine the possibilities for class projects and Christmas gifts. Imagine yourself redefining “investment” in an entirely new and sustainable way. Lenders like Kiva do much to remind us that for the working poor, small gestures can produce big results.

For more information about Kiva Microfunds or to make a loan, visit their website at www.kiva.org.