Need help/advice on how to start a lending group at my company

[Guest]

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[babs]

Hello fellow Kiva supporters,

I would like to start a corporate lending group at my company. I've noticed that some of you have created lending groups for your organizations (http://www.kivapedia.org/index.php/Main_Page/Groups). 

I would love to start one, but I have no idea of (a) where to begin/who to talk to, (b) even how to manage the logistics of starting one or (c) how it would even work overall. 

For example -- if several employees contributed into a single pool, does is make sense to have a single Kiva account for everyone to share?

If I could get my company to match, how should the Kiva lending account be managed for the company match?  At this point, I am assuming that it would be possible for every employee who creates an individual/personal Kiva account, the company would match the amount into a Corporate Kiva lending account? If that was the case, how should the corporate lending account be managed, and who would make the loan selections?

I obviously need to ask these questions first to my HR and internal corporate community service group -- but any anecdotes of how others have done it in the past would be so helpful.

My company has about 7000 employees. I would love to do something where this could be something everyone in the company could participate in and where the company would match all those contributions.

Another question, since the lending is not considered a donation, has anyone encountered an issue with company matching there?

As you can see, I have no idea of where to start, so any guidance would be much appreciated.  I'm extremely excited about this little project I am going to embark on.  Your thoughts, tips, advice or pointers to resources I should follow up on are appreciated as well.

Thanks again, and a happy holidays!

[QueenOfHearts]

Welcome Babs to Kiva Friends....this is a link to a discussion regarding matching funds from an employer...the matching of funds are for the donation amounts and not the loan amounts.

http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,341.msg2241.html#msg2241

For a company-wide lender page I do believe you would need one person to administer it if your goal is to have one lender page for the entire company.....take a look at the Kiva Shopping Club page...http://www.kivashoppingclub.com/...there are about thirty of us who shop for Kiva and Henry administers the lender page...although a few of us also have the log in information for when Henry is not available.  We shop, accrue money in a central account at IGive and then pick loans to be funded from that account. 

Hope this helps to get you started....

Queen

[Julia]

If you set a Kiva account up as a lender, your company will probably not match funds because technically you can take the money out when the loan gets repaid. So its not a charity.

There is also the issues about people not wanting to donate money that someone else might get a hold of, technically the person who runs the group can take out all the money, so there is a lot of trust involved.

We set up our 'second life' group as a donation and not a lender. So we get to choose the loans, but we can't take the money out. So the money we donate into this group is a 'donation' and we can get a tax receipt.  This is probably the type of group a company would match.

We set our group up through Fiona. Not sure if that's the standard way to do it.

I think you have a wonderful idea, and I think you can get a lot of people enthused about Kiva, especially if you send out regular notices of how your clients are doing.

[QueenOfHearts]

Julia is correct...if the money is put in as a donation it is tax deductible....if it intended as an amount to loan the you would have the ability to withdraw it at a later date (that is how the shopping club is set up), then it is not......and no, we did not set up our group through Fiona....but she would definitely be the person to contact at Kiva for your idea....

Queen

[babs]

Thanks so much Queen & Julia!  You're tips are most helpful!

Happy new year!

[cpbailey]

I think to consider money a tax deductible event, control would have to be turned over to a non-profit (501c3 status, board of directors, pay to register, send in books and all that fun stuff).  There may be ways to put it into a trust or something.  I would ask of whomever works with charitable organizations within the company what options there are on the company's rules.  Also, ask Kiva what methods there would be to make it a tax beneficial event.  Then figure out what makes the most sense.

One method would be to have the company donate to Kiva based upon how many loans are made during a period of time.  This could cover the 10% donation aspect perhaps.  Each employee could give an account.  It isn't a total match, and the employee couldn't write-off the loan.  But it would be simple.

Colette