Hey Jess, how are you? You mentioned that you give out micro loans and I was wondering where/how you do it. It sounds like such a cool thing and I would love to support women in business as you do. Whilst I may not be able to start this straight away (being a student and all) I really want to look into it. Thank you for your help
I’m so delighted that you’re interested in it!! I do my loaning through Kiva. Basically a lot of banks obviously don’t want to lend to people who are high risk. If they do lend it’s generally high interest. But with Kiva, you have to give a minimum of $25 per loan and generally most people don’t give a huge amount more than that. That means that instead of one bank giving a $1000 loan it’s 40 people give $25. That makes it lower risk for the lender so there isn’t a lot of interest and therefore they’re less likely to default on the loan or become trapped in debt. I like it because it feels more like a business transaction- you’re supporting a business person- rather than the traditional international aid set up where it feels very much like a distant, powerful white person giving money to the poor, sad, foreign person. This feels more like a transaction that would go on here anyway: they’re a business and need money, I have some extra cash.
The cool thing about it if you are on a budget is that the money is paid back. You might lose a little because of exchange rates but I’ve never lost over a dollar. And so when someone has fully repaid their loan you have $25 in your Kiva Account that you can then lend to someone else. So you can make, say, 5 loans of $25 but spend less than $30.
I’m a huge fan of micro financing. I think it’s a much more egalitarian approach to banking as it’s not about huge corporations- most of the lenders are church groups, rotary clubs or individuals- and it feels much more balanced. They also have a great record of working with groups on the ground to distribute funds and their marketing is never exploitative or “poverty porn.”
