Well I don't know, but I was just looking at
Kiva's "what we do" page to see if there's any sign of them rewriting the mission statement to include construction loans (er, no, so that whole debate continues..), and down at the bottom of that page there's this graphic, illustrating "we make connections":
I'm seriously into investing (for profit, not just with Kiva
), so it struck me immediately that the guy at top right is unmistakably the investment genius Warren Buffet, aka The Sage of Omaha (where his Berkshire Hathaway company is based), and the man who last year admirably committed something around $30
billion of his wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The picture seems to be of Warren Buffet around 12 years ago, when he was 65. I'm just curious as to what the idea was behind Kiva's use of an image of him in this way... maybe for those who recognize him as a fabulously wealthy man, there's a subliminal encouragement to emulate his great generosity and let that wealth trickle on down.
Having spotted this, I took a closer look at some of the other faces on the graphic, and the guy at top left looks to me very much like Malcolm X, in typical Nation of Islam attire. If it is Malcolm X, the rationale for using his image is to put it mildly a lot less obvious than is the case with Warren Buffet. There is though a connection between Warren Buffet and Malcolm X - they were both born in Omaha.
If I'm right, the chances are that the red-shirted woman at the bottom of the graphic is someone reasonably famous whose image Kiva has appropriated.
Peter
