More Miscellaneous Microcredit Marketing Musings!

[Guest]

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[NumboJumbo]

Human Billboard

Anyone fancy walking around town as a human billboard advertising Kiva. A long pole, a flat piece of light plywood and the Kiva message slapped over it will turn heads – only because I've never seen anybody do a human billboard for a worthwhile cause before. They're either for restaurants, computer sales or 'The end is nigh' brigade – never for a good cause. Be the first, be a pioneer!!


Cheque it out

Some of the cheques you write out to pay off bills, have to have your cedit card a/c number, your address or whatever written on the back of it. This means that somebody has got to have a look at that cheque to make sure things tally up with whatever bill you're payong off. That person is one more set of eyes to convey the message of Kiva – so, why not write a small Kiva orientated message on the back of your cheque. Conversely, why not write the Kiva message on the front of the cheque, making sure of course that it does not mask any of the important stuff!!


MicroCredit Night

Why not hold a fun events night around the theme of microcredit. You what, I hear you say?. Some initial ideas are
1)that the raffle tickets have Kiva.org written on every single one of them.
2)Play a game of bingo, where instead of numbers, phrases related to microcredit are called out and crossed off the card when that phrase is called out
3)Have a quiz on microcredit using multiple choice answers
4)Hold a filmed horse race night with the horses names being something to do with Microcredit. Make them fun names though

The thrust of the evening is to make people think about microcredit and hopefully have a bit of fun as well. Of course, it's only an idea and not a very good one at that, but hey it might spawn an idea in somebody's head to do something different with it


Raffle Prize

Many charities and clubs raise money by holding a raffle. They get their members to try and sell raffle tickets to their friends or family. They use pre-printed tickets which list the prizes and how much the raffle ticket costs. I'm sure you know the type of tickets I mean. Why not offer a prize of a $25 Kiva.org Gift Certificate for the raffle. That way Kiva.org will be printed on all the raffle tickets. Kiva gets lots of publicity, the Kiva entrepreneur gets a loan, the prize winner will eventually get the $25 (assuming the loan is not defaulted) and you....well you get the pride of spreading the word about Kiva, knowing that you're making the world just that little bit better.


Leaflet Drop

Not the most original of ideas this one, but I haven't seen it mentioned before. Why not just distribute leaflets about Kiva through the letterboxes of your neighbourhood's houses. They'll be so intrigued and surprised to receive a mailshot that isn't a marketing sales pitch.

Think about it – how many leaflets do you get through the letterbox that are for worthy causes that ask you to fork out a small bit of money and which you're almost virtually guaranteed to get your money back. They're almost always asking for a donation which you'll never get back. Pitch the wording right about virtually guaranteeing to get your money back and you might have won some people over. The thrust behind this one, is that it will be something different through their letterbox – they may just take more notice of it.


Rotary Club sponsorship

Rotary Club members are full of business people and entrepreneurs, most of whom know what it's like to have been in the position of having to borrow money to fund a business idea. They've been there and so what better audience to approach and appeal to, to see whether an individual person within the Club would be willing to loan $25 to a Kiva entrepreneur.

How many Rotary clubs are there in your area or your country? It's a fair bet that each one will probably have someone sympathetic to the cause of Kiva. Write to them. Explain what Kiva is all about and describe the similarities between the business loan that they may have started off with, with the microcredit loan that a kiva entrepreneur needs to start off with. Touch on the fact that someone helped them out when they needed a loan. Now that they've become successful with the help they once receieved, they are now in a position to help someone else out. Outline that the amount of money needed to reciprocate this help is so small, that they will hardly notice it.

Just an idea. It may work or it may not. Certainly no harm in trying though.


Thanks for reading this far. Hope I didn't bore you with all those ideas.

Mike

[Julia]

Human Billboard

Anyone fancy walking around town as a human billboard advertising Kiva. A long pole, a flat piece of light plywood and the Kiva message slapped over it will turn heads – only because I've never seen anybody do a human billboard for a worthwhile cause before. They're either for restaurants, computer sales or 'The end is nigh' brigade – never for a good cause. Be the first, be a pioneer!!
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Mike

Mike you inspired me.  I made these for Second Life. They are available for free at kivafriends.

[NumboJumbo]

Hi Julia

That's marvellous. Just goes to show what somebody else can do with an already established idea. BTW, I presume you had your outfit in Second Life made by your Garb The World site!

Mike

[NumboJumbo]

I just wanted to add something else to the Rotary Club idea, which I forgot to do first time round. The idea suggested to contact Rotary Clubs to sponsor a Kiva entrepreneur. Well there are loads of other similar organisations out there, which I'll list below. Apologies for it being UK biased - it's the country I was born in, live in and probably d.... well pop my cloggs in!!

Round Table - http://www.roundtable.co.uk/
Probus - http://probus.org.uk/
Rotaract - http://www.rotaract.org.uk/
Womens Institute - http://www.womens-institute.co.uk/
Apex Australia - http://www.apex.org.au/
Lions Clubs - http://www.lionsclubs.org/
Kin Canada - http://www.kincanada.ca/
Elks Clubs - http://www.elks.org/
Kiwanis International  - http://www.kiwanis.org/
Freemasons - http://www.grandlodge-england.org/
Ruritan - http://www.ruritan.org/
International Women's Club - website is currently not available but there are many individual club websites around the world

Mike

[Julia]

BTW, I presume you had your outfit in Second Life made by your Garb The World site!

Mike

Yes, but since I'm the clothes designer, I make everything (in SL, so far). We have an SL clothing line now (a few items) and we've already had customers. 
i've also had the chance to get several people involved in KIVA, they see my 'profile' and ask me about it, and then check out the site. A few have come back and told me they became lenders.  Its effective to spread the word one person at a time, but it sure would be great if some famous person starts talking about Kiva.  Like a (reformed) party girl about to get out of jail who has a lot of publicity around her.  I did send her some Kiva stuff in case she had time to look at it. I know some people have some strong opinions about her, but I think if my idea works than everyone will benefit. 

[cpbailey]

Julia,

I guess you have to be careful what you wish for...after Oprah, there isn't a lot of need walking around as a human billboard for Kiva.   

Colette