How many people to lend to? I like knowing who they are...

[Guest]

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[lemming]

To open, I think it's great that Kiva lets people participate with as little as $25 in an individual loan.

I've been a fan of microfinance for a long time. When I started doing Kiva I liked the idea of putting $100/month in it and I also really liked the idea of choosing individuals I could identify with and care about. So I chose, for the most part, one person per month to loan the $100 to. Fast forward almost a year and my loans are starting to be paid back. I am also addicted to Kiva now so, thus far, I've reloaned that money while continuing contributions. (I think that at one point my plan was to stop contributing and just re-loan; but for the forseeable future I can afford to keep going.)

Now, even at mostly $100 apiece I have a largeish handful of entrepreneurs. Just today I was looking over my lender page and realized there was a woman I had forgotten all about loaning to! That wasn't my intention.

I was wondering if this issue bothers anyone else... I see some lender pages out there that are really impressively long, and (while I have no way of knowing how much is being lent to each person) there's no way the lender can be remembering and thinking about each one. For me, something will be lost if I loan to that many people. Ideally I do know who they are; ideally I'd even like to have their pictures and names tacked up in my cube at work just so I can remember that my work is doing some good somewhere in the world. But to keep their numbers small and keep loaning, I'm going to have to start consolidating things (like making a $200 loan on months when I get a $100 loan paid back). At that rate and following that strategy, I could be fully funding some of the smaller loans in a couple of years. Obviously, that gets riskier in terms of losing more money if/when eventually some loan is not fully repaid, but it might help to keep some of the humanity alive.

I'm really not sure. Does anyone have thoughts on this? If anyone here has one of those long, long lists of loans I'd especially love to hear your viewpoint.

http://www.kiva.org/lender/lemming

[Julia]

I'm not sure how long a long list is, but I have a few loans out. Way more than I could keep track of. But I never planned to.  I mostly give minimums to each loan.  I do think as I get more money invested and this is less new, that I will be adding more to each loan. I'm not sure I want to be the only funder on a loan, I like the community idea.  Also, I plan on meeting some of my loan recipients, and I think it will be easier if I am only one of many lenders.

I was adding $200 to prosper.com as an investment/savings/social lending thing and have been for over a year when I found Kiva.  I quickly decided that my money was better used at Kiva, and it was even probably a better investment. I've had 4 prosper loans default already.  I have been transferring prosper funds to kiva when loans get paid back, and am putting my monthly amouts there also. 

I like bidding on different loans. Right now I am trying to have as loans in as many countries as possible 'cause I think that's just really neat.  I do like to read my lender page and think about my lendees, but I also like to just browse Kiva and read everyone's story. I just find it all so interesting, I love looking at the pictures and thinking about their lives.  And then I think of how cool it is that we can help them. 

 

[nfolkert]

I loan to a lot of businesses (http://www.kiva.org/lender/nfolkert).  At the start, I loaned a large chunk of money to a small number of businesses, but decided that that wasn't wise, and started distributing my money over more and more businesses as it got paid back.  Apart from being less risky, it means that I get repayments more often, so I'm back at the site more often.  It does mean that there is no way I can keep all my borrowers in my head.  Even so, with lots of borrowers, you'll end up paying more attention to a few of them as you discover which are the most interesting and have the best stories as they progress, so you don't lose the personal connection.

[Wood Fairy Glenda]

  In reply to Lemming's comment that nobody could possibly remember long lists of people they've lent money to:  I'm obsessive enough to have printed out hard-copy reports on each of my many (very small amount) borrowers... and, no, I'm by no means a rich person.  On each I paste a small photo of the person and I hand-write updates on the pages.  I even send messages to many of them via KIVA..... Did somebody say "compulsive"?  At any rate, the whole thing gives me great pleasure.  Cheers, Wood Fairy Glenda

[FANAFI]

Glenda,

We have started the same hard copy practice as well. We have a coffee (or tea) table binder with all our picks and their stories. This way visitors will see the binder and stand in awe at the power it contains within the hope of each person we have loaned money to. As the binder grows we hope so too does the success of Kiva.

-Jeff & Heather

[Kevin]

My two cents:

I also like the idea of a group of people helping out on a single loan. As for making lots of $25 contributions, as long as Kiva allows it, I think it's great: it encourages you to read a lot of profiles. Becoming familiar with the way other people live is part of the reason we're at this site to begin with.

Even if PayPal is processing these without charge, it must cost something, so I do wonder whether it would be less of a financial burden on them if we made larger contributions to fewer people.


Finally, I only joined this month so none of the loans have been distributed yet, but I saw on Frontline that someone was emailing back and forth with one of his lendees. Is this typical? It was my impression that the money went through the local financing group and that the recipient didn't know anything about individual lenders.

[hunger4god]

I love the coffee table binder idea. I think I'm going to do the same thing as soon as I can print out my pages in color. Thanks to LMYG (FANAFI) for the unique project.

Adam
http://gokiva.blogspot.com

[Ramón]

@Kevin:

Welcome to Kiva! I see that in the few days you are with us, you've already become an active member here at Kivafriends. That is great!

There are stories about lender emailing and even visiting the entrepreneurs they have invested in, but those stories would be the exception rather than the rule. All of the entrepreneurs are probably aware of how Kiva works (their MFIs would explain that to them), but I'm not sure how many of them go and check out the Kiva website and visit the lenders profiles.

I have found that some of the management people of the MFIs that actually give out the loans to the entrepreneurs are very easily accessible. If you have any questions about specific loans, I would imagine that, with a little research, you can email them. I've always gotten response.

As for the speed of disbursing the loans, some MFIs use their cash reserve to immediately disburse when the funds are available, while other MFIs have to wait until Kiva transfers the money at the end of the month.

--Ramon

[johanna]

i go for the higher number of loan recipients rather than the higher loan amounts (my lender page is here: http://www.kiva.org/lender/johanna). as someone said, it's less risky, & also... i just like to help as many as i can! i don't feel bad that i don't remember all of them; i figure they don't need me to remember them, except when loaning time comes around.

i've been volunteering for kiva editing & proofreading business descriptions before they go up (so i hear about the new countries early!), &... occupational hazard! i want to loan to ALL of them! so that's another  reason i stick to the small loans.

[Kevin]

Ramón

Thanks for the info. (It took me a while to remember on which thread I'd asked it, so I'm just reading your post now.) It's not as if I can correspond much beyond English and Spanish, and I'm not even sure what I'd like to say to them, but I think it will be worth the effort.