Comments on: Friday Entrepreneurs: Premal Shah, Kiva.org

By: jewelrycharity

jewelrycharity — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 03:30:49 +0000

You can actually make money right now making loans on kiva. Since you use a credit card just use rewards card. Right now I am using Citibank Cashreturns card so I am making 5% on my Kiva loans.

By: Kare Anderson

Kare Anderson — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 21:18:18 +0000

as a fan of Kiva let me suggest another person-to-person social venture to support the working poor in moving up the economic ladder: LaborFair.com

By: Mike Pendleton

Mike Pendleton — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:15:44 +0000

Thank you for doing this.

This is sanity. You hold a powerful context.

Highest Regards,

Mike Pendleton

By: Joe Antony

Joe Antony — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 18:15:11 +0000

There seems to be a lot of people (including myself) interested in volunteering our time to help Kiva, or other microfinance organizations. I see an attraction to Kiva in its being web-based, location may not be a restricting factor. What opportunities are there for those that dont have a background in this type of work, but are still strongly movitaved to help.

By: Richard Sillan

Richard Sillan — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 01:25:17 +0000

It sounds like a grreat idea. The idea of teaching one to fish rather than giving a fish.. Teaching capitalism….The payback rate is hard to believe…

By: Ruben Serrato

Ruben Serrato — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 20:37:17 +0000

An entrepreneurial approach is so much smarter than just giving money away.

But I wonder about this supply issue. There are only so many entrepreneurs and even fewer good ones. So, as Kiva grows the quality of its loans is necessarily going to get lower. In the future, identifying good projects/investments is where the real work lies.

Thinking out loud, I wonder if the solution is a blend of real capitalism and Kiva approaches – where you allow lenders to make profits so that they are willing to undertake riskier investments. After all, the more money that flows in to Kiva the higher the default rates will be. So might as well use the market’s natural profit mechanism to serve as an incentive to fund those lower quality/higher risk loans.

Without taking profits, there’s a point past which the only way for Kiva to grow is for investors to accept higher default rates and the idea of not getting their money back…

But that way is just back to the traditional ‘charity’ model and that’s far less exciting, innovative and smart…

By: John Rickert

John Rickert — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 07:18:36 +0000

I was blown away when I saw the show on Frontline. I want to be a part of it. If anyone from Kiva reads this, please get in touch with me. I work for free. I tried the site but it is down due to overload. I might just have to drive to the site to get involved.

By: sal carrillo

sal carrillo — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 15:42:02 +0000

I would like to get involved in microfinancing

By: Eers

Eers — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:43:45 +0000

This was an excellent interview and very appropriate for the topic. Wealth – whether ours or our worlds is a relevant topic, as the disparity is the cause of many of it’s ills.

I’m going to point my readers to this interview.

By: Declan Fallon

Declan Fallon — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 23:49:29 +0000

I have read how KIVA could be integrated into school programs (social geography), or as monetary gift ideas, but another side to consider is the potential to apply the KIVA way through sales and marketing of traditional goods, services and advertising. For example, I allocate a portion of my revenues from selling a financial newsletter through KIVA. The buyer gets the benefit of the newsletter – so he/she benefits from the product I sell + the social return of having some of that payment routed to an entrepeneur. I may get a sale I otherwise would not have got by ensuring part of the money goes to KIVA. I also get the social benefit from the deal, and if business is good I get the added leverage to add to the system and recycle loan repayments. My business is small, but since I started doing this in April I have been able to contribute to 10 KIVA programs. I am very pleased to be a part of this program and would encourage other web sale driven goods/services/advertising to do likewise. It doesn’t have to be a lot to get started.

Best wishes,
Declan Fallon
President and CEO
Fallond Stock Picks Inc