Hi John, welcome to Kiva Friends!
As part of my role, I'd like to serve as an advocate for the collective needs of KivaFriends within Kiva...
Well,
that should be a cinch!
I certainly commend your ambition!
I’ll start with three issues I believe Kiva needs to work on – values, transparency and usability.
ValuesPersonally, I believe many of Kiva’s issues (and certainly most importantly) revolve around values. “Connecting people for the sake of alleviating poverty,” is a noble purpose, but my impression is that Kiva often simplistically operationalizes that statement through a utilitarian ethic – the end justifies the means. A while back, I suggested Kiva
Add a Statement of Values to the Kiva website. I believe that suggestion still has merit and it would be a valuable process in and of itself for Kiva to develop such a presentation.
The best example I can think of where Kiva’s (in)actions call into question its underlying ethics is its position on bloodsports. The
Cockfighting loan topic pretty much covers that one. The following graphic and poem sums up my views on the subject.
Your Voice Is Missing HereIf you support cockfighting,
Please share your views.
Your voice is missing here.
If you raise gamecocks, enter the ring, frequent the events, or otherwise support the enterprise,
Please share your views.
Your voice is missing here.
I have heard the opposers.
They say cockfighting is torture, causing great suffering.
They oppose the act and the means to enable it.
I have heard Kiva.
It stands on neutral ground, neither for nor against consequential activities.
Utilitarian aims to alleviate poverty within legalistic boundaries set the rules of acceptability.
The end justifies the means.
I have heard the Field Partners.
They support the Entrepreneurs.
They act to safeguard their clientele from the risk of lost opportunity.
The issue at hand is left to another day.
I have heard the opposers of the opposers.
Without explicitly supporting cockfighting,
They find fault with opposition to it.
Deftly employing logical fallacy arguments of false dichotomies and slippery slopes,
They see culture pitted against culture and the realities of other issues tail spinning out of control.
The gravity of such threats are grounds for inaction.
And to the combatants,
You are thrown into the ring
Armed with steely gaffs at your command.
In a life and death struggle,
You are fully invested.
Please share your views.
Your voice is missing here.
TransparencyConsidering how often Kiva uses the term, I would hope it would be more consistent in its application. The example I’ll use here is the
”New” Field Partners Risk Rating System, also discussed at
Kiva asked: How much do you rely on the star rating when assessing risk? My suggestions here are simple.
- Publish the criteria and mechanisms for determining a Field Partner’s Risk Rating.
- Publish the detailed elements that comprise each Field Partner’s Risk Rating.
- Publish a permanent log of every change to a Field Partner’s Risk Rating, including the reason(s) for the change.
UsabilityUsability for lenders is about selecting new loans and managing their portfolios. Any number of topics at Kiva Friends focus on various usability issues with the Kiva platform. My own solution to most of these issues has been to avoid using the Kiva platform as much as possible. Instead, I rely on the good works of other dedicated lenders, most notable Ian and Paul.
Ian’s spreadsheets,
FundraisingLoans spreadsheet and
Summary spreadsheet, have filled a gap for lenders who wish to do anything more than just the simplest activities available on the Kiva website related to finding new loans or analyzing portfolios.
Virtually overnight, Paul’s
Kiva Bank has so eclipsed Kiva’s tools for finding new loans and balancing my portfolio based on
my criteria, that the only reason I use the Kiva tools is to finalize my selections and begin the payment process. In the not too distant future, I expect Paul will do for
online portfolio management what he did for online loan selection. I can’t wait!
Another underlying aspect of the usability issue for me goes beyond the technical support offered by Ian and Paul. That concern for me is related to the Kiva platform My Basket feature. The main topic at Kiva Friends where that issue has been discussed is
Basket-Hoarders. Please Re-Consider the Impact You May Be Having On Others. How the My Basket feature is implemented on the Kiva platform is a design choice. While impacting usability, this choice also reflects aspects of Kiva’s values and transparency in operation. Regardless of a particular user’s intent at a particular moment in time, my view is that holding an available loan amount for an extended period of time without completing the loan for the
entire amount held constitutes a denial of service attack. Obviously, I am opposed to Kiva’s current design of the My Basket feature.
Unfortunately, some of these design choices don’t simply stop at a certain level of inconvenience to lenders. In extreme cases, I believe the Kiva platform itself has contributed to listings expiring and thousands of dollars in offers to lend being refunded. Not only the obvious opportunity cost of delayed funding results from this circumstance, but I also expect Kiva’s Lender base is diminished when such series of unfortunate events occurs as well.
Since
Paul also has raised the basket issue with Kiva, I’ll conclude here with some of my views
on how Kiva could better address some of its values-based usability design choices.
The following assertions represent some of my beliefs about the nature of online microcredit and how it could be implemented on the Kiva platform.
Values, context and intent should drive design and practice.- Every Partner-approved loan has verified merit.
- For every Partner-approved loan, there is a group of Lenders willing to fund it.
- The total amount of available cash from Lenders is sufficient to fund the total amount of loan requests posted by Partners.
- Partners are the primary customers for online microcredit debt capital.
- Lenders are the primary customers for online stories about the Partners’ Borrowers.
- Kiva is the online platform and facilitator for risk-managed cash flow and information exchange among the Partners and the Lenders.
- The Kiva
LEND page Kiva Bank is the hub for facilitating the establishment of the business relationships among the Partners and the Lenders. - The
LEND page Kiva Bank should optimize opportunities for Partners and Lenders to establish mutually-acceptable microcredit transactions.
Performance and results grounded in values and intent should inform adjustments to design and practice.- The Kiva-funded Partner Loan Portfolio Outstanding is the key by-Partner measure of the Kiva Loan Portfolio.
- The unit of transaction among the Partners and Lenders is the "Note" ($25 loan increments to Partners selected by Lenders), not the full amount requested by Partners for a loan.
- The only inherent time frame in the Partner-Lender relationship is the loan term for specific Borrowers. All other time frames are based on Kiva platform design choices.
- Any factor that distinguishes loans from one another will be differentially preferred by multiple Lenders.
- Any
LEND page Kiva Bank tools that assist Lenders to find loans that meet their factor-related criteria will increase the rate of fully funding loans.
Primary Issue- Because the current and potential total supply of Lender cash meets or exceeds Partner total loan requests, expired Partner loans are artifacts of
LEND page Kiva Bank page design choices, particularly related to default loan presentations, limited advanced search capabilities, arbitrary time limits, and opportunities to block funding transactions.
Proposed Solutions and Resulting Benefits- Based on an established maximum allowable, Kiva-funded Loan Portfolio Outstanding for each Partner, maintain a standing Fundraising amount on the
LEND page Kiva Bank for Each Partner by using the net settlement between new loans funded and active loans repayment amounts. New loan requests will be posted by Kiva from a Partner-maintained queue in real time as Fundraising cap space becomes available. This will create a more stable Fundraising amount for each Partner and Kiva overall by eliminating arbitrary monthly Fundraising quotas. - Transfer all funded Notes (each Lender-funded amount) to Partners, regardless of whether the entire requested amount is funded. This maximizes the person-to-person financial commitments made by Lenders to Partners in the name of Borrowers.
- Implement flexible Fundraising time frames. Rather than using an arbitrary, inflexible Fundraising clock, allow for Partner-selected clock time extensions, such as additional time when a loan continues to receive funds near the end of the standard time, or extending the clock indefinitely until the loan becomes fully funded. This will maximize the likelihood of a loan to become fully funded. It also will minimize the likelihood of the Basket feature being used to block Lenders from funding a loan by hoarding unfunded amounts in the Basket without lending and running out the clock.
- Implement comprehensive advanced
LEND page Kiva Bank search features. Allow Lenders to customize, save and use collections of settings related to key Borrower, loan, Partner, risk and marketplace attributes to search for, select and sort loans of interest to them. This will optimize the likelihood and rate of the Kiva lending platform connecting people for the sake of alleviating poverty.
That’s enough for now. Once again, welcome to Kiva Friends. And Thanks for your efforts to be another voice in the discourse to help alleviate global poverty!
Note. The usability issue was added to the original post.
