I actually never thought of it that way…might have to have another look…

Raf :
If you like the idea join up with the Kiva Kiwis group
http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=92
Micro and P2P lending may become more prevalent as the banking system collapses. Also look at http://www.Nexx.co.nz here in NZ which is due to start shortly.
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Hi Raf,

Very very cool – I will put up a post advertising the New Zealand group in the next few days methinks 🙂

Indeed – in some areas there are institutional issues that no amount of “credit availability” (which is what this effectively creates) can solve. Which is why there is definitely a role for other charities.

“I happily use Kiva, but at the moment it takes only a small share of
my charitable expenses, for the reasons above, plus it would probably
get a bit confusing and time intensive allocating money to 20
different projects a month!””

Indeed – at some level it provides “too much” choice, given transaction costs. This is why I like the idea of groups 🙂

“Simon D and Matt:

The gist of what you say is that this practice (essentially ‘wealth
creation’?) is better than ‘conventional’ charity. My first thought in
response to that was: it’s a little hard to be an entrepreneur when
you’ve been infected by Guinea Worm i.e. your quality of life is so low
that doing ANY work, let alone running a business, is extremely
difficult. I value such projects to ammeliorate or fix such conditions
higher than I do wealth creation, as I think an immediate end to
suffering trumps enterprises like Kiva.

I can stab in the dark and guess your reply(s) as being something
along the lines of ‘revenue produced as a result of successful
business will feed through either in the form of more public
health/infrastructure revenue or produce money for private
treatment/infrastructure measures’, but that is certainly very much in
the long term. Or perhaps a bit of ‘a healthy mix of both is good’,
eh?! 😀

I happily use Kiva, but at the moment it takes only a small share of
my charitable expenses, for the reasons above, plus it would probably
get a bit confusing and time intensive allocating money to 20
different projects a month!”

http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=92

Micro and P2P lending may become more prevalent as the banking system collapses. Also look at http://www.Nexx.co.nz here in NZ which is due to start shortly.

Definitely 🙂

I mean, helping people in less fortunate countries build infrastructure and trade has to be one of the top ways of helping them out of poverty!

Indeed, if they offered the market rate of interest we would have an equilibrium 🙂

However, there are two issues:

1) Placing interest on it may move it away from feeling like a charity – if people get value because it feels like a charity, adding interest may lower donations/investment

2) The market rate of interest for this type of investment may already be available on the site – it may be zero!

There is no financial interest here is all I’m trying to say – its just a cool idea I wanted to mention. Sadly, my ability to choose the right words has failed me 😛