Kiva.org: A Stroke of Brilliance

So I logged into MySpace yesterday and was greeted with banners telling me about a new MySpace section about making a difference in the world and all of that. This being related to my purpose in life, I clicked on it to see if it was all talk or if there was anything real to it.

To my surprise, there was.

Amidst the fluff and vague optimism was a link to Kiva.org. This website is using a truly unique idea to help people out of poverty in poor countries. It involves people with money giving money to people without money. But it's a far cry from the generic donate-money-to-some-charity-and hope-it-gets-to-an-African-kid-and-not-the-CEO-of-the-charity stuff that usually stops me from running to charities with even some of the little money that I have.

At Kiva.org, you lend money to an entrepreneur in another country (translation: somebody trying to start a business but having no money to meet the start-up costs), and after they get their business going, they pay you back. Kiva hooks up with your PayPal account (used safely by millions of eBayers to take care of the transaction)

Sound like a scam? Far from it.

I googled "Kiva.org" to see what people were saying about it. You know, see if it was for real and if it really worked. Well, that took me to the Wikipedia page for Kiva.org (yeah, there's a page for everything), which told me that

1) this thing is being supported and encouraged by PayPal (duh), MySpace (where I found it), YouTube, Google, and Microsoft. With these gigantic corporations involved, it doesn't sound like a sneaky scam for your money.

2) Depending on which part of the Wikipedia article you read, these loans are being repayed, a few months or a year later, at a rate of 100% or 99%.

"In a little over a year, Kiva has rapidly grown to become the most trafficked site in microfinance with +35,000 Internet lenders generating +$3 million in loans to thousands of entrepreneurs in +25 developing countries – all with a +99% on time repayment rate thus far. Kiva is staffed and governed by experienced consumer Internet and microfinance leaders."

Just go to Kiva.org and look at the home page. These aren't random guys from poor countries asking for some money with a vague idea of starting a business with it. They're asking for specific amounts to meet specific needs to get a specific business going in a specific location. You can donate in multiplies of $25 to meet a percentage of their need. Kiva takes care of the rest. A few months later, their business is going, and you get your money back. You can then reinvest or keep it.

So, what do you have to lose? Nothing. Unless you just happen to invest in the less than 1% whose business fails. And even that seems more productive than donating to a random charity, where you have no idea where the money goes or what good it does.

I'm definitely going to pick somebody and lend some money. You should, too. Especially if you have a job. If you have more than a couple hundred dollars sitting in the bank, taking out $50 of it has no real effect on your life. And then, a year later, when you get it back, it'll feel like free money, and you'll know (not just hope) that you helped somebody out by getting a business going in a poor country.

This is an excellent idea and I offer it my full support.

Edmond the Hun

We keep on waiting, waiting on the world to change...

Now we see everything that's going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don't have the means
To rise above and beat it

John Mayer's hit single "Waiting on the World to Change" beautifully captures the apathy of today's youth. We know the world's not perfect, but we just don't know what we can do about it. This often causes us to just give up or stop caring. After all, what real difference could I make even if I wanted to? So we just keep on waiting and maybe something will change.

I think deep down inside most of us have a desire to do something of significance. Every now and then I'll get a glimpse of this, such as the Facebook group "For Every 1,000 that join this group I will donate $1 for Darfur," maxing out at almost 500,000, and its hundreds of spin-off groups. We'd all love to do something to help the suffering over there, but when you think about it, even if this guy gives $498 to some charity, what is that really going to do? How do we know that throwing money out there will even do anything? So we keep on waiting...

But that doesn't have to be the end of it! The individual today has more power to change the world than at any previous point in history. A regular college student can start a facebook group with the potential to unite hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. Anybody can upload a home-made video to YouTube and get millions of views. Admittedly, the majority of the groups and videos never rise above the double- or triple-digit status in recognition, but the point is that the potential is there for something that wasn't possible even five years ago.

Music sales used to be influenced by how well record labels marketed their artists into radio stations and MTV, etc. Now a regular guy who makes it on American Idol can choose to sing a song and see iTunes downloads for the week go up 1000% or even more. (3300 to 36,000 for Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" two weeks ago; 600 to 24,000 for Jason Mraz's "Geek In the Pink" last week)

Do you realize how incredible that is? Thousands of dollars are made (or not made) based on one individual's song choice. Alan Greenspan used to be the only single person with that kind of economic power. Every single person has a greater potential for influence than ever before!

So how do we bring peace to Darfur? How do we feed the homeless and reduce crime and change social attitudes of abortion and reduce the selfish message of pop culture and stop political corruption? How do we move from the hypocritical irony of words to real, effective action that changes the world?

Well, I don't know. I just know that it's possible. Anyone can do something to make a change, but anyone can't change everything. God has put different passions in the hearts of different people, and they'll each have to work with others to get things done.

One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
So we keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

I don't know how it's going to happen. I just know that waiting isn't going to do it.

Edmond the Hun

We’re just the boys and girls that think they always know...

There are very few things that make me angry. One of them is pop culture's destructive degeneration of healthy relationships.

It's time for some more venting.

The fourth-highest selling album of last week was Kidz Bop 11. If you don't know, Kidz Bop is a strangely successful series that takes radio hits and re-records them with kids singing them. Apparently 75,000 kids convinced their parents to buy the latest one. Cute? Maybe occasionally.

Some of the hit songs are harmless. As much as I despise Nickelback, at least "Far Away" is about commitment through the distance. But something about ten-year-olds singing about destructive relationships just really gets me. James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" was bad enough. But this latest installement includes Beyonce's You're-not-"Irreplaceable" (I could have another you in a minute) and Hinder's "Lips of An Angel" (It's hard to be faithful to my new woman because I'm still in love with you).

Seriously?! And then we wonder why these kids grow up to be teenagers who sleep around and cheat on each other and break each other's hearts and have no idea what a healthy relationship looks like.

I'll tell you why. It's because our culture doesn't know what a healthy relationship is anymore. We've forgotten that having sex whenever you want isn't any better for you than eating whenever you want (Parenthetical citation: C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity). Pop culture seems to think that relationships are simply about getting what you want.

We haven't quite forgotten that relationships are about the simple joy of spending time with someone, that when she's in your arms there's nothing else in the world. But we have forgotten that relationships are about unselfishness. They're about respect. They're about your attraction for that special someone causing you to desire their happiness and safety above anything else. Some people call that love.

Emery said it best in their song "So Cold I Could See My Breath"

How quickly lust can pretend it's love
Designing words to help us believe
It’s so much more than just tonight
So we have got to get this right
How quickly words can become our hands (you want it more, you want it more)
Resigning everything we believe (you want it more, you want it...)
You want it, you want it
More

We’re just the boys and girls that think they always know
With answers for the world
The ambiguity shows

Even those who don’t agree with the Christian view of sex within a lifetime-lasting marriage must see that it’s dangerous to teach kids that relationships are not at all about commitment or respect or any of those unselfish virtues that actually make relationships work…

Edmond the Hun