Is kiva ultimately a scam? I hope someone can explain this...

[Guest]

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[Dottie b]

Is some of the flagging interest perhaps because we know all these folks will be funded, whether we give or not? I got ino this to make a difference, but now it seems I'm mostly making a connection. Still a good thing, but if I pass on a prospect, it will still be funded. With Donors Choose (where you make donations to public school teachers for class projects), lots of projects do not get funded, so it seems to "count" more.

[RichardF]

Dan, Sorry for the misread. 

[Henry]

Richard!  Your just trying to help a few of us out the door!   LOL
it' ain't workin!   

[Jill]

      Yowie.  This is getting a little scary.
To agree with AccountAbility Dan TWICE within a 24 hour time frame.
Could this possibly signal a major change/upheaval in either world or natural events?

    A couple or more posts ago, Dan said,
  "I speak only for myself, but I am not in the least bit disillusioned.   
       Delusional perhaps, but not disillusioned."

     If you take out the "perhaps," after delusional and replace it with a
"definitely,"
I'm right there with him.
   
      Truth is.... some days I do feel much more excited, much more sure about all this
than on other days,
but I don't think I've ever questioned the underlying premise
(what for me is the or, at least an underlying premise):

that the only true hope in the world is for

the individual citizens of this world
to recognize their kinship with, so, in effect,
their mutual responsibilities for and interrelation with
the other citizens of the world
and for everybody to realize and to act like they realize that
the well-being of EVERYBODY matters.....
       

[RichardF]

Henry, are you saying fewer loans for you means more loans for me?! 

Jill, No more "mind reading" for me...maybe...I'm not a fortune teller! 

[Henry]

and OMG!  I'm going to agree with Jill. 
    I must have KIVA moments
KIVAFriends- I look forward to often!

[Wood Fairy Glenda]

Thanks for answering, Bob!
     I'm in basic agreement with your feelings.  Most important to me is that feeling of (and actuality of) connection with particular individuals all over the world. I've traveled to many places and met many deserving, needy people I've really wanted to be able to help but didn't know how. For me, Kiva is still a satisfying answer, which is why I've arranged to visit my Uganda borrowers after a Habitat for Humanity Global Village trip there (I leave tomorrow). 
     
     I really feel the same way you do about all the talk about interest rates and money-making ideas.  The day I start making money on my Kiva loans is the day I stop lending.  I think Kiva will continue to grow exponentially without the addition of interest, and I know Kiva will lose a lot of us    if we look at it as a way to make our money grow.
     
     I'm not in it for me. This is not a big holier-than-thou warm-and-fuzzy guilt-ridden thing with me.  I simply have much more than I need, I'm getting toward the end of the time allotted to me, and there are many many people all over the world who need what I have a lot more than I or my loved ones need it.  I just want life to be more fair, I want to see the haves sharing some of their wealth with the have-nots.
     I really hope you'll decide to come back to Kiva, Bob.  I always enjoyed your posts in KivaFriends.  I'm also hoping that a lot of the monetary problems of Kiva are nothing but growing pains and will settle down.  As for all the posts about money on KivaFriends .... I'm glad some of us are able to keep up with it and alert the rest of us to problems, for I want to be open-eyed about the loans I make.  As for myself, I just don't read most of it  and instead concentrate on the parts that make me love Kiva and KivaFriends. 

[Laurie]

I, too, will be/am sorry if Optimistic Bob quits Kiva Friends (for one thing, that name always makes me smile)...

However, part of me thinks that leaving Kiva Friends might help rebuild his love of Kiva!  Here on Kiva Friends, we discuss every aspect of Kiva, of Kiva reporting, of ways to improve Kiva, of things we don't like about Kiva, IN DETAIL, sometimes way too much detail. 

Lenders who have 20, or 50, or maybe even more, loans out, who DON'T read the Kiva Friends posts, are likely to be happy lenders.  They made connections, payments (or refunds) usually arrive, defaults are still low... whatever reasons brought them to Kiva remain intact.

However, new (or even seasoned) readers of the Kiva Friends forums get an earful on every possible problem.  I don't mean to say Kiva Friends aren't positive, or that we don't post lots of GOOD - but if I was not an active reader, I wouldn't know about or think about what happens to my loans if I die (which I still do not consider a problem), paid-back vs. refunded (yes, Henry, I agree that you are right), duplicate postings (which I consider a boo-boo, not a scam), etc.  I LIKE reading about all these concerns, and seeing all the different points of view, but I think it can really warp a lender's perspective.

I became active on this forum as a way of staying AWAY from Kiva when I needed to restrain my lending frenzy for financial reasons.  If I ever find myself losing interest in Kiva, I will stay off Kiva Friends for a couple weeks and see if my enthusiam bounces back.   

Safe travels,
Laurie

[Robert]

Interesting point, Laurie. I have never considered KivaFriends from this angle, a therapy for more or against more lending.

I can understand Bob's reasons. Maybe it's unavoidable, maybe it's our own fault? Did we do something wrong? Kivi is meant to grow and sooner or later new questions arise, such as estate planning in a $50M venture. We want to help as many people as possible, and then we loose the link to the individual persons.

I'm in dread of the day when I will have 100 active loans, not to speak of the day with 1000 active loans. When I see requests for a feature to download loan details, because manual input is too tiresome, then I ask myself where this is going to lead. I prefer larger loans in order to drag out this moment. Until now I got 64 Kiva related e-mails, but record holders surely get 64 e-mails per day. Don't think that I'm going to loose my commitment to Kiva, on the contrary! I must just find a way how I can grow at the same pace as Kiva is growing.

Bob, even if you should leave Kiva, I wouldn't say that you are "lost" to "us". Kiva isn't the sole solution to the problems of mankind. You are a good man with a good heart and will find a way to serve your brothers and sisters, and still keep the feeling of being a "small fish". Good luck in your search! Please tell us then what alternatives you will have found. Your answers will be worth thinking about for us.

Robert 

[RichardF]

I wonder what Muhammad Yunus thinks about how many people he lends to.