Nice idea, it might fly, but I get the feeling that Kiva promotional tie-ins with outfits like Advanta or (more recently) Purex tend to be driven initially by individuals who work at the outfit in question, and happen to have the Kiva bug. This was certainly the case with Purex - it would be hard to imagine that someone at Kiva said "hey guys, let's find and join forces with a detergent manufacturer to promote the alleviation of poverty" - and perhaps to a lesser extent with Advanta.
In other words, perhaps the impetus for this needs to come mainly from Kiva's potential partner, rather than from Kiva itself. But people like Premal and Matt are always networking, and meeting people with influence and budgets for Corporate Social Responsibility. I think making connections of this kind is part of the job specification for Kiva's Director of Development (Bennett Grassano). As far as networking is concerned, Premal for example was
on the same platform quite recently as John Stumpf the CEO of Wells Fargo, which is perhaps how
the present Wells Fargo Kiva initiative came about.
Incidentally, Kiva does need to be careful about the partnerships it forms. I notice that they still list Advanta as a corporate
supporter, even though Advanta has pulled out of the credit card business completely (it's not just the Kiva branded card they've ditched), and Advanta's
kivab4b.org site that Kiva still links to now just says "website disabled". To some apparently well-informed
observers it seems that there is a major scandal brewing in relation to Advanta's recent offering of 11% returns to unsuspecting members of the public, so perhaps Kiva needs to get rid of the references to Advanta fairly soon, before any association with Advanta becomes completely poisonous.
Welcome to KivaFriends...
Peter
