June 10th, 2009 — Changing the World, Kiva in America, anti-poverty strategy, benefit communities
I follow Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch pretty closely - in the online space, who doesn’t ?
Today I read a long write up Mike did on Kiva, the microloan site. As of late, I have been putting my money where my mouth is, donating to the EFF, the ACLU and Freepress.
Through a Facebook group Indie Credit that is rallying people to collectively donate to Kiva, I opened one, then two Kiva ( Abiba Awel + Mrs. Savong Hang Village Bank Group ) loans, which I found somehow gratifying. It wasn’t motivated by guilt, of ego, just that here was an opportunity to really help individuals realize their dreams, in a different way that just giving money to a charity group.
The financial crisis has made a lasting impact on small businesses around the world and here at home in the United States. With the credit crunch creating a virtual standstill of lending, small businesses in the U.S. are facing an uphill battle to find funds, especially if their financial history isn’t stellar. Kiva.org,
one of the web’s most interesting innovators in the micro-lending space, is hoping to come to the aid of U.S. entrepreneurs and small businesses by launching a pilot expansion that would allow individuals anywhere to make small loans to low-income U.S. entrepreneurs through Kiva’s platform. ~
In April alone, Kiva members loaned $4.5 million to entrepreneurs, a 56 percent year-over-year increase and a record month for Kiva. Since the microfinance platform’s birth in 2005, over $75 million has been loaned through Kiva.org to support more than 180,000 individuals from 44 developing countries. Kiva’s president, Premal Shah, says this new initiative to include U.S. businesses increasingly made sense as the financial markets deteriorated and traditional lending began to dry up even in the U.S.
According to Kiva, small businesses represent more than 87 percent of all businesses in the United States, and, on average, these micro-enterprises are responsible for 900,000 new jobs created per year according to the Association for Enterprise Opportunity. This number seems small to me but the impact of small businesses on job creation is clear. To make matters worse, Kiva says more than 10 million business owners faced difficulty obtaining capital—even before the credit crisis and economic slowdown.
Kiva will launch today with the ability to for anyone to make loans to 45 small businesses and entrepreneurs seeking funding from the areas of New York, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta and Miami. The businesses range in purpose and services, from salons to landscaping to day care facilities. For example, a Queens, NY-based entrepreneur delivers baked goods to bodegas in New York. He is looking to raise $6000 to fund insulation technology for his trucks.
So now Kiva is coming to the USA - Thanks Mike for the info - in this new political landscape - irony abounds !
February 9th, 2009 — Changing the World, alleviating poverty, anti-poverty strategy, benefit communities, build civil society, educational opportunities, empowering individuals
My longtime freind Margaret Roach and sometime creative collaborator launched open Your hands project a couple of years ago and has built a website to follow the project:
Open Your Hands - Nepal
JOIN YOUR HANDS WITH OURS
You, too, can join the circle. Find out how you can make a difference by opening your hands to the children of Birta Deurali, Nepal, and nearby communities, as those listed below have to date. Open Your Hands’ Federal 501(c) (3) charitable status is pending approval, so we regret that at this time your contributions are not tax-deductible. Email us at openyourhandsinc at gmail dot com to indicate your interest and we will happily contact you when our application is approved, and new projects are being funded. Link to site Here.
January 16th, 2009 — Microcredit, Uncategorized, empowering individuals, young people
I was searching Flickr to find a photographer based in Katmandu Nepal to do an assignment for me, and in my keyword search using Flickr’s tagging search engine I found the Panos Network. Wow ! Blew my mind, wanted to use ‘Giving for the Global Good’ to get the word out.
Panos in not one site, but 9 individual sites, all across the world, each with a unique look, feel and message. In writing this post I realize that this site, Giving for the Global Good, actually could help get the word out and inspire people to dial into Planet Earth and help out.
Panos’ mission statement is clear, and yet so sophisticated - the understanding that to get the message out there needs to be a dynamic conduit for, what I call the 3 Ds - the desperate, disenfranchised, and the diaspora, get get their voices heard to the global community.
Twenty years after the creation of Panos, the vision of a global network of institutes striving towards a common goal - ensuring that information is effectively used to foster public debate, pluralism and democracy - has become a reality.
In 1974, UK journalist Jon Tinker started Earthscan, a unit of the International Institute for Environment and Development which offered journalists (and later NGOs) objective information on key global issues and on policy options for addressing them.
By 1986 Jon had transformed Earthscan’s Southern media programme into a new independent institution: Panos.
From the outset, as part of its commitment to Southern-led development, Panos aimed to build a network of independent institutes around the world.
During the late 1990s offices opened in Zambia, Haiti, Nepal, Ethiopia and India, among others. In 2000 West Africa became the first autonomous Southern institute, and six years later Eastern Africa completed the transition.
It was Gordon Goodman, then head of the Stockholm Environment Institute, who proposed that we take the name Panos – meaning ‘beacon’ in the Doric version of classical Greek.
Today, in Nepali, a panas is an oil lamp around which people gather to discuss important issues, and in Amharic the word means a torch.
Appropriately enough, the prefix pan means ‘all’ or ‘universal’ in modern Latin, resonating with our global approach.
Panos
Panos South Asia
Panos France
Panos Caribe
Panos London
Panos West Afrika
Panos Southern Afrika
Panos East Afrika
Panos Canada
June 20th, 2008 — Uncategorized
May 15th, 2008 — Microcredit, Uncategorized, alleviating poverty, empowering individuals, entrepreneurs in the developing world, offered a solution, social entrepreneurs, young people, young social entrepreneurs
Check out Global Agents for Change
On May 31st, more than 20 people will ride their bikes 3,000km from Vancouver to Tijuana, Mexico to raise money and awareness for entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Agents of Change, a nonprofit registered charity, hopes to raise $1 million from the challenge to connect those living in poverty with microcredit - small, interest-free loans. The loans are to help entrepreneurs in developing countries by helping to get them out of poverty.
The organization is raising awareness about how microcredit can help families escape poverty, with help from its partner organization, Kiva. Kiva, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, provides loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Agents of Change, which has so far raised more than $8,000 for microcredit, is trying to raise the million dollar fund so people in developing countries can be provided with loans through Kiva.
Kiva’s website provides a platform for borrowers to post their stories, pictures, business goals and needs. Supporters can view the profiles and get a choice of who they would like to support, as well as receive information on the borrowers’ progress and how the money is being used.
Through Kiva, lenders receive their money back after the loan is repaid, but that money can also be used again to help another entrepreneur. The million dollar fund through Agents of Change, however, isn’t refundable as it’s being set up to be used as a constant source of funding for Kiva.
Through Kiva, the businesses are screened by recognized local microfinance partners. All of the funds go directly to the borrower. So far, Kiva’s repayment rate is estimated to be 97 per cent successful.
Dr. Muhammad Yunus, who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize and is the inspiration behind the cause, founded the microcredit bank, Grameen Bank of Bangladesh.
May 14th, 2008 — Uncategorized
LINK to Official OLPC site
This post might be a bit out of scope for Giving for the Global Good, but as a fairly serious geek in tune with the current events relative to the various initiatives to find a way to help educate the children of the world and ramp them up the mainstream western industrialized nations about things like the Internet and the World Wide Web, I just wanted to make a quick post about OLPC (One Laptop per Child) Nicholas Negroponte’s initiative to give the third world’s children laptops and the access to the Internet.
Ivan Krsti comments on the challenges of the OLPC and the contentious issues of Windows verses Open Source and really seems to drill down to the important core issues of this subject in his recent post, found here on slashdot
and here on the core blog post LINK
May 1st, 2008 — Uncategorized
This Mother’s Day is May 11th. Unitus has created a unique opportunity to celebrate the occasion while also helping the fight against global poverty.
Check out the Empowering Women website you tell the story of the inspiring and empowering women in your life. With each online tribute, you’ll also be spreading empowerment and economic opportunity to women throughout the developing world—proceeds from the campaign help Unitus microfinance partners reach more hardworking women with life-changing microfinance services.
April 30th, 2008 — MFI, Microcredit, Microfinance, microfinance institutions, nonprofit
Unitus is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing innovative, market-based solutions to global poverty.
We work to create pathways out of poverty by increasing access to life-changing microfinance services—small loans, insurance, and savings programs designed to serve the poor. For millions of families around the world, microfinance means the opportunity for a successful small business and more—better healthcare and housing, increased household savings, education for their children, and ultimately, the real possibility of self-sufficiency.
The need is staggering—nearly half of the world’s population lives on $2 a day or less. To reach the most people in need as quickly as possible, Unitus seeks out and partners with young, high-potential microfinance institutions (MFIs), helping them to build capacity, attract capital, and achieve exponential growth. Through this leveraged approach, Unitus seeks to empower millions of the world’s working poor while transforming the financial systems now left out of their reach.
Rather than directly providing microfinance services, Unitus connects the ambitious, visionary social entrepreneurs who lead our partner MFIs with the business expertise, capital investments, and innovative tools and services required to grow faster, dream bigger, and reach farther. Their success in turn provides hope and opportunity for thousands who would otherwise remain stuck in the downward cycle of devastating poverty.
Unitus partners are adding new clients 7 times faster than the industry average. In just 6 years, we’ve helped our partners serve more than 3.5 million micro-entrepreneurs; our goal is to extend their reach to 15 million families by 2010.
April 30th, 2008 — Microfinance, Sustainable Development, global issues
Mission Statement
Our mission is to provide business leadership as a catalyst for change toward sustainable development, and to support the business license to operate, innovate and grow in a world increasingly shaped by sustainable development issues.
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a CEO-led, global association of some 200 companies dealing exclusively with business and sustainable development.
The Council provides a platform for companies to explore sustainable development, share knowledge, experiences and best practices, and to advocate business positions on these issues in a variety of forums, working with governments, non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations.
Members are drawn from more than 35 countries and 20 major industrial sectors. The Council also benefits from a global network of about 55 national and regional business councils and regional partners.
April 28th, 2008 — Changing the World, Kids in America, Microcredit, Microfinance, anti-poverty strategy, eradicating poverty, lasting social change, nonprofit, social entrepreneurs, young people, young social entrepreneurs, youth-focused organizations, youth-led organization
Global Agents for Change is a fellow traveler with their GFAC fund The group’s vision is to create the world’s largest youth built, youth led microcredit fund and connecting youth with developing world entrepreneurs, providing a crucial tool in the fight to escape poverty. In 2007 they did a 7 week 3000 kilometer ride from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico to help build the fund. They will be doing it again May 31, 2008.
