Become a KIVA Diva!
There are times when my daughter or son return from a Youth Group Meeting or Bible Study and I cringe thinking of the future for those who call themselves Christian. They bring me back reports of rampant immorality among their peers and a general malaise or even abject disdain for any of the ethics or doctrines of the faith. I would attribute such horror to the arrogance of age, but my children express the same concern. Often, when they profess orthodox beliefs they are met with either ridicule, or worse, glazed and uncaring eyes.
When they bring me these reports, I become tempted to join Hal Lindsey in hunkering down in a pre-millennial bunker and waiting for the rapture; if I believed in the rapture, pre-millennialism, or Hal Lindsey for that matter.
Then I look in the mirror and realize that I have not been such a hot commodity in the Christian Kingdom either. Still, when I look at the state of the churches in my country, I often lose hope and figure Christ will soon abandon America to its sins. Many would say He probably did so centuries ago.
Yet both they and I are wrong. Looking more objectively, I think there are signs that this present, Emergent generation may even be better at the life of the cross then those of my age could ever be.
Case in point: Justin Baeder of Radical Congruency. Not only is he an excellent Web Host Provider, he is an adept blogger to boot. He finds ways to live out his Christian life that always stun and surprise.
His latest effort pulls from the work of Nobel Prize Winner, Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh, founder of the Grameen Bank. In an intelligent combination of the principles of charity and entrepreneurship, Yunus came up with the idea of "microfinance" to combat poverty in Third World Countries. According to Justin:
It started when Yunus loaned $27 to a Bangladeshi woman who had been paying exorbitant fees to a moneylender. She used the loan to buy raw materials for her furniture-making co-op, which allowed her to actually make a decent living from her labor. She paid back the loan, and Yunus realized he had discovered a sustainable way to help people work their way out of poverty.
Since then, Yunus' Grameen Bank has issued more than 6 million loans, totaling around $5.7 billion. 98.5% of the loans have been repaid, compared to about 50% of normal bank loans in developing countries. Many of the loans are issued to "cell phone women," who rent cell phone time to others in their remote villages.
Justin also makes the (perhaps historically arguable) conclusion:
It could be argued that Muhammad Yunus has done more to alleviate poverty than the Republican party, the Democractic party, and the evangelical church in America.
Justin makes this claim that while those countries (and the evangelical church) are involved in "charity" programs that throw money or food at problems, with little thought for the dignity of the recipient or his/her future development. Yunus' plan is different. He issues loans to individuals; loans they are expected to pay back.
[The] loan, on the other hand, enables an individual to start a real, legitimate business and provide a better life for his or her family, while maintaining a sense of independence and competence.
The genius is that these are not billions and billions of loans to governments; instead, they are "micro" loans to individuals who have a business plan on how to use them. They give them dignity while at he same time giving them the "boost" they need to break free from their poverty and become self reliant.
An organization in California called KIVA has taken Yunus' concept and made it even more accessible for people to get involved in the "microfinance" concept. KIVA was started by Matthew and Jessica Flannery in the spring of 2004. While they knew there were many microfinance institutions lending money to the working poor all over the world, none of them allowed average-income individuals to lend smaller amounts of money to someone else. They set up KIVA (a Swahili word meaning "agreement" or "unity") to "democratize" the microfinance concept.
Using the internet, they came up with a way to present a "small business loan" need from an impoverished country to the world at large. Even better, multiple people could donate small amounts (say $25) to build toward making that loan. Once the full amount of the needed loan is collected, KIVA distributes the funds to a local "partner" who then remits them to the entrepreneur. Over time, the entrepreneur repays that loan and the funds are returned to your KIVA account, hopefully to be redistributed to another needy person; however, you can take the funds back once the loan is repaid if you so wish.
If Yunus is microfinance, KIVA is micro-microfinance.
There are some "down sides" to the KIVA program, at least in the normal American mindset. First, you will receive no interest for your "loan." KIVA also charges no interest to the local partner, though to sustain the organization, the partner may charge interest to the entrepreneur. However, at all times this rate must be substantially below the exorbitant rates normally charged in those countries.
Second, since the payments you make are officially loans and go 100% in amount to the entrepreneur, they are not tax deductible. However, KIVA asks for a VOLUNTARY 5% donation to process each loan. That amount is tax deductible.
If you have a PayPal account, KIVA has arranged with that organization to process your payment free of the payment processing fees. If you desire your money deposited back into your PayPal account once the recipient pays it back, KIVA will pay those fees themselves.
Generosity and support for your brothers and sisters has never been easier (and potentially more effective). I have included an interactive link to KIVA at the top of this post as well as a permanent link at the side of my blog page. Should you wish to add the same to your own site, the code is located here.
My thanks to Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, Matthew and Jessica Flannery, and especially Justin for keeping my faith up about those coming up after me. Since I started by own small KIVA fund, he even helped me restore some faith in myself.
Thanks for the kind words and for mentioning Kiva :).
—Justin