I will be the first to admit that I usually don't give a lot to charity. It's not that I don't want to give, I'm just sick of reading story after story on how terribly mismanaged many Non-Profit Organizations are. If I give $100 to a charity, I wonder, how much of my money actually gets to the people that need it?
With Kiva, you know exactly where your money is being spent. You even get to decide who receives your loan, yes LOAN. It's called microfinancing. The banner to the right basically describes the process, but feel free to get a more detailed explanation of how this all works by going to their website. You can lend as little as $25. Once your loan is repaid, you can get your money back or lend it out again and help to change another life at no additional expense.
What I love most about Kiva is viewing the lenders from all over the world banning together to help a specific person or small group.
Here's my Kiva lender page. I hope you'll consider joining.
Interesting. I'll have to check that out because I'm one of those skeptics too. I'd rather travel to the disadvantged country and hand my money over to the people who need it than rely on organizations. But I'll check them out.
ReplyDelete@Samantha I don't blame you. If I ever find out that something fishy is going on with Kiva, that might be the end of me giving money to charities ;-/
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