Thursday, July 14, 2016

giveaway giveaway

It's been a while since there's been a Comptonia giveaway, and I've been trying for over a week to come up with a good idea. Yarn? Could do. A book? Maybe. But with so much tension and upheaval going on in the wider-than-my-world, I wanted to do something that would feel a little special. A little uplifting.

A little positive for goodness' sake.


It took a while, but then...light dawned!


I emailed a question, and Kiva emailed right back
and said, "Good idea!" so here we go.


Are you familiar with Kiva? Since 2005, this non-profit group has funded microloans all over the world by combining donations of $25 or more. Donors choose a loan they wish to contribute to, and after that loan is repaid, a donor can re-loan the original donation to another borrower!

All the screenshots are from the Kiva website.
They are nice images; left-click to embiggen.


I. Love. Kiva.

I love the fact that 100% of every donation goes to funding a loan. There is a separate option for donating to Kiva admin costs. This is brilliant. A $25 lender does not have to wonder how many of those dollars are really going to the designated borrower, because ALL the dollars are going there.


I love that Kiva does such a great job of making this program work. The repayment rate is 97.1%. That's due diligence, that is.

I love that more than 2 million loans have been made, in 83 countries, by 1.5 million lenders, to the tune of over 800 million dollars. Oh, and Kiva has a top rating on Charity Navigator.



It's an unusual experience, making a Kiva donation. Reading the borrower information is a tiny, unique window on ordinary lives around the world. There's much I wouldn't have imagined. And much as familiar as the view from my porch.


Maybe a cooperative group of farming women in Vietnam are adding to their small breeding herd of pigs. Or cattle. Or goats. Maybe an urban taxi driver needs to repair the vehicle that supports an extended family, or a shop owner needs enough capital to begin purchasing products at a lower bulk rate. Maybe someone is planting apple trees in Moldova, or growing a business in California. 


The Kiva website offers simple filters to help a donor find the loan they wish to support. Some search filters are geographical. Some filter by the purpose of the loan - such as agriculture, or retail business, or clean energy - or by characteristics of the borrower: elderly, single parent, individual/group, etc.



So, okay...
this is all very interesting, but what happened to the giveaway? Have you forgotten the giveaway? The one I mentioned waaaay up at the top of this post?

It's a $25 Kiva Gift Card
(purchased by me)
for the winner to donate to your Kiva loan of choice.
It's a giveaway giveaway :)

Yay! Right?

If you have already donated to Kiva, the $25 will be added to your account. If you are new to Kiva, redeeming the gift card will set up your account. And in case you have concerns: in my experience, Kiva does not pester donors. I get an email periodically to let me know when a loan has received repayments, so I know when I have enough funds available to donate again - that's about it. And that's actually pretty nice.

So if you want your name in the hat for this giveaway, just leave a comment. Any comment will do, but if you feel like sharing something joyful, that will be appreciated by me and every reader who comments after you, I'm sure.


Feel free to share this giveaway, in any way you like. It's open to anyone on the planet, or on the International Space Station.

I'll do the random number thing next Thursday, the 21th.

Good luck!

~~~~~~

17 comments:

  1. What a fascinating idea (to do a giveaway giveaway). Love that! I've heard of Kiva... just never got around to doing anything with it. Thanks for bringing it up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm copying and reposting this comment from
    Tammy@T's Daily Treasures, which I accidentally deleted - sorry, Tammy!
    July 14, 2016 at 3:24 PM
    When my oldest son was in 10th grade, their community service project for the year was Kiva. They made a fun music video about it that you can see here:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhpH-O-wsDk
    Seth Johnson starts off the video, he was one of our humanities teachers; my son loved him. And the next one, Tim Koehn, was one of his community service leaders. Both great teachers and all around good guys! Two of my son's best friends are in the video – Jake, the lender, who is now attending acting college in Philadelphia; and Adham, with the fro on drums, is at St. Mary's in Canada.
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. What an amazing giveaway Quinn!! Please count me in - it would be an amazing thing to win. I actually have heard of this organization and then promptly lost the information and couldn't remember the name of it. I wondered if it was really as good as it seemed and so it's wonderful to have a 'review' from someone I actually know. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love this idea! Please count me in. I've also heard of Kiva, and have been curious. What a good way to spread their word.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've never heard of Kiva, but it sounds like a wonderful thing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. That is a great giveaway!!! Way to go, Quinn :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a lovely idea. There is asimilar association in the UK, Lend with Care (https://www.lendwithcare.org/) and I keep meaning to start a loan with them. This would be like a kick start for me!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You beat me to it, I was also going to suggest Lend with Care. I have put some money forward and it is rather surprising how soon the loan is paid and another can be made. All feel-good-factor!

      Delete
  8. Thanks for your kind comments on my blog this morning. I hopped over here and I see Kiva! I've been a lender on Kiva for a little while now and I think it's an awesome thing, and you are an awesome person for this. Good stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  9. What a lovely idea! I have never heard of Kiva, what an incredible NPO!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Although I've known about them for a while, I've yet to donate. Quinn, this is a lovely giveaway...wonderful!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ha-ha! You really didn't have to repost the comment. Glad you were able to watch the video though. It is rather catchy and fun to watch.

    ReplyDelete
  12. A new journey! I am going to look into this more. Thanks for making it known to more folks.

    ReplyDelete
  13. What a great giveaway! It's very much like the idea of passing it on - you're giving a prize so someone else can give a gift!
    Thanks for sharing it on Ravelry! Rav ID: Kimert

    ReplyDelete
  14. This is such a cool idea! A giveaway giveaway!

    Well my happy thing is that today is my 40th birthday. (And 40 is the new 12 or something, right?)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for leaving a comment! I enjoy reading each one, and will usually reply either here or on YOUR blog!

Due to spam, Anonymous comments are blocked. I'm hoping to avoid the annoying Word Verification gizmo! If you find you cannot leave a comment, please email me so we can try to sort it out.