The Latest Survey of Kiva Lenders (by survey monkey)

[Guest]

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[KFLiaison]

Ronan, I included your list and questions in an addendum I sent to Liz this afternoon, in case she's able to address it on our call tomorrow afternoon.  (No guarantees, since I sent it late; if not, I'll ask her if we can address it at the next call.)

thanks,
--Diane.

[DoubleR]

Diane,

Thanks for adding the status of the "overdue" Pilot groups to the KF Liaison agenda.  I mentioned them merely as a reminder, but I'm glad you're putting the topic back in the forefront.

Regards,
Ronan.

[Unilove]

So many aspects of online life involves competition, but it mostly among the younger demographics.  Console gamers have trophies and badges to compare how you've done vs your friends, facebook has the 'fluff' friends competitions, Twitter has recent races for the most followers, online chats have events etc...

Ronan had the right of it.  Lenders are plentiful, and MFI's are scarce and time-involving.  It is an interesting point....keeping lenders growing, when we need more borrowers!

[YowieFreak]

.... Also, don't Field Partners in "Pilot" status increase their fundraising limits when they transition to "Active" status?  The following Field Partners have been in "Pilot" status for six months or longer:

Zene za Zene - Bosnia & Herzegovina (26 months)
Alide - Benin (14 months)
MCDT Sacco - Uganda (13 months)
HOPE DRC - Dem Rep of the Congo (26 months)
Ameen - Lebanon (7 months)
Asociacion Arariwa - Peru (7 months)
ADIM - Nicaragua (6 months)

Kiva specifically states that Field Partners should expect to spend UP TO 4 MONTHS in Pilot status (http://www.kiva.org/about/pic_become).  How about getting the aforementioned Field Partners to "Active" status so that they can post more loans? ....

I wonder what happens when a partner which has made loans in pilot phase decides to not continue into an active phase?  Do they remain as pilot status until all extant loans are repaid?  If so, they could be in pilot stage for well over a year.

Ian

P.S.  The above was what I was originally going to post in response to your question, but I found a post from Liz in another thread that seems to better answer the question you raised.  I guess it can be treated as the "official" answer to your question.  I'll include it here as a quote - follow the quote link back to its original thread if you want to see the exact question Liz was answering.

Here's an answer to the questions raised above.

During Pilot Status, we ask our partners to write up a manual about their Kiva process, and we perform a pilot consultation that often includes a visit to make sure things are okay and that they understand Kiva; we clear up policy questions; and we do borrower verifications to make sure they are posting correctly, etc.

Pilot generally lasts 3-6 months, but in some cases it might be more, especially if a partner is not posting very much. If a partner doesn't post enough, Kiva won't have confidence that a partner has developed a good posting process.

For the 21 monther, HOPE DRC.  They went dormant on Kiva for about 14 months after raising funds for 6 months or so. For this reason, we wanted to basically treat them as a new partner to get them back up and running.  Thus, the prolonged pilot stage.

[Diane R]

(There will be some answers about this from Liz in the write-up of this week's Liaison call, once the Liaison gets to doing the write-up later today.     )

--Diane.