Presented in the spirit of the season of giving…
Some Solicitations Are Not Scams
By Casey Wilson, East Sierra Branch
Like everybody else I get the occasional solicitation to send $$ to some supposedly good cause. Typically, that solicitation ends up in my (virtual or actual) trash basket. The most recent one that popped up in my email inbox asked me to send twenty-five or more dollars to KIVA.
Different from the myriad here-today-gone-tomorrow scams the name rang a bell and the pitch was familiar. So, I spent some time checking it out. Based on what I found, I’m sending them my $25.
Here’s what I dredged up from the Internet on https://www.cgdev.org/blog/kiva-not-quite-what-it-seems, a blog site for the Center for Global Development. “KIVA is the path-breaking, fast-growing person-to-person microlending site.
“It works this way: Kiva posts pictures and stories of people needing loans. You give your money to Kiva. Kiva sends it to a microlender. The lender makes the loan to a person you choose. He or she ordinarily repays. You get your money back with no interest. It’s like eBay for microcredit.”
It is a way for the little guy to get a loan. One loan request I saw was a street vendor, a woman, asking for $600 to upgrade her cart. The largest I saw was $1,500. One person in Africa asked for $800 for University tuition. If not for Kiva, where would these micro-entrepreneurs get micro-funding, I wonder. Oh, by the way, some requests I scanned were from people in the good old USA.
Including his ‘not-quite-what-it-seems’ tag, writer David Roodman explains in great detail how Kiva works in the blog I addressed earlier.
Yes, when I send in my money I will designate my bucks to go to a particular person. But by the time it wends its way through channels, some Kiva partner will have already made the loan rather than stall around until the crowdfunding completes.
Then, my $25 will reimburse that lender so they can go on to help the next person on the application list. That Kiva partner survives by charging pennies on the dollar interest and keeps his business viable based on quantity.
When the loan is repaid by the borrower, I get my $25 back to keep or ‘reinvest.’ Is it a gamble? Well, Kiva boasts that 97.3% of all loans are repaid. Yeah, yeah, so I don’t get any interest. But then, what’s a warm fuzzy feeling worth.
I’m convinced Kiva is legitimate. The Internal Revenue Service rates them as tax-exempt 501(c)(3). The Center for Global Development ranks them four out of four stars. You can personally check them out on http://GuideStar.org by searching for KIVA.
Some solicitations are not scams.
See more about Casey Wilson on his blog http://afreelancewriter.wordpress.com