| 1 January |
Be Happy Through Kiva-Microfinance/Microfunds for Green or Solar and Renewable Energy Entrepreneurs |
Dear Readers,
If you are in favor of renewable, clean, or solar energy, please sign this petition for FIT/CLEAN Program, accessible at http://sunisthefuture.net/?page_id=1065 Thank you very much.
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Dear Friends & Readers,
Thank you for your words of support and encouragement. I promise that I will be bringing forth much more on solar energy in the year 2012.
We are living in such a dynamic period in our human history, with the wind of changes spurred by communication technology and exponential growth of human ideas ready to be tested and challenged. If Charles Dickens were still alive, I am sure that he would not hesitate to reuse his famous lines in A Tale of Two Cities:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us”
Even though we here in US and planet earth are confronting with much difficult problems, I looked around and see/read/hear that so many conscientious individuals are genuinely interested in helping others and actively participating in finding solutions to our world’s problems. I would just like to take the opportunity in sharing a few of these solutions in this new 2012, hopefully you will find it in your hearts to also reach out to others through these solutions.
The first one I would like to share is Kiva (at kiva.org) . Kiva Microfunds is an organization that allows people to lend money via the internet to microfinance institutions in developing countries of planet earth and in the United States, which in turn lend the money to small business and students. It is a 501 non-profit organization headquartered in San Francisco, supported by loans and donations from its users and through partnerships with businesses and other institutions. Kiva itself does not charge any interest;the loans made by Kiva members are passed interest-free to the independent field partner indicated for each loan. These interest rates are disclosed and are discussed in the relevant section on the Kiva website. Kiva’s lending process, in wikipedia, is described below:
Kiva allows microfinance institutions around the world, called “Field Partners”, to post profiles of qualified local entrepreneurs on its website, www.kiva.org. Lenders browse and choose an entrepreneur they wish to fund. Kiva aggregates loan capital from individual lenders and transfers it to the appropriate Field Partners to disperse to the entrepreneur chosen by the lender. As the entrepreneurs repay their loans, the Field Partners remit funds back to Kiva. As the loan is repaid, the Kiva lenders can withdraw their principal or re-lend it to another entrepreneur.
Lenders’ funds are transferred to Kiva through PayPal, which does not collect its usual fees in this case. It is possible to pay by credit card through PayPal’s website, even without a PayPal account, but a PayPal account is needed to withdraw funds. Field Partners charge interest to their borrowers, although Kiva claims to keep track of how much interest is charged and will not work with those charging unfair interest rates. Kiva lenders do not receive any interest because Kiva is not registered with the US Government as a broker. When Kiva began, lenders chose who could borrow their money. Since then, the system has changed, so that loans are disbursed to borrowers before their stories are posted to Kiva‘s website. This is disclosed on Kiva‘s site; each loan proposal states whether funds were pre-disbursed. Thus, lenders‘ loan funds are likely to go to borrowers other than those chosen by the lenders. Whether lenders‘ preferences are used for lender preference trend analysis by any field partners or Kiva is not stated. Kiva‘s response has been to keep pre-disbursing but be clearer about the process.
As of August 12, 2011, Kiva has distributed $233,493,400 in loans from 614,671 lenders. A total of 309,076 loans have been funded. The average loan size is $384.39. Its current repayment rate is 98.79%. According to Alexa, Kiva’s website ranks in the top 15,000 websites on the Internet. The total costs of running Kiva in 2008 totaled $4.7M. During 2008, the user base released about $37M to low-income entrepreneurs listed on the Kiva website. So, for every dollar spent on operations, Kiva lenders sent about $8 for loans.
Now, you might wonder why is Kiva showing up in http://sunisthefuture.net ? When I first learned of Kiva and contacted the organization to inquire if there is a category for renewable energy, the wonderful Molly Lynch at Kiva informed me that a very small number of green loans (in the form of loans that reduce waste and pollution or in recycling used materials) had been posted over the years. But there are so few of them that they are always quickly funded. Now, here at Sun Is The Future I would like to be able to help Kiva to have more entrepreneurs/loans in the category/ATTRIBUTES under Green (in the form of more solar businesses/ entrepreneurs/loans ). I would like to ask all of you who are reading Sun Is The Future to help in spreading the words of Kiva and sharing different business ideas for solar energy, regardless where you are in/on planet earth. This is a fantastic opportunity for all of us Earthlings to participate in transitioning into our next stage in history, into the renewable energy age, by helping one another, via microfinancing, to develop various small businesses needed throughout planet earth in preparation for renewable/solar energy age. So what if the political structure is too slow to change… so what if the banking industry is difficult to deal with… so what if you are currently unemployed…. So long as you/we do not sit idly by, we can pull our resources and brain powers together to help one another in starting small businesses in solar or renewable energy. Not only will we be able to help stimulate small business development, but we will be able to help solve problems in energy, pollution, and prevention of wars among nations. This is an interest not only in developing countries, but in developed countries throughout planet earth. I urge you all to write me at sunisthefuture@gmail.com with business ideas, products, and questions. I will try to develop the format of a forum shortly. I urge you to go to www.kiva.org with your solar business ideas/plans and become a solar entrepreneur so those who are interested in helping Green businesses will have opportunity to become Green Lenders. Please check back frequently for more on forum that will be developed shortly.
~have a bright and sunny day~
written and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker, sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Homepage: http://sunisthefuture.net
Any comments and suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
www.youtube.com/user/sunisthefuture
www.kiva.org/team/sunisthefuture
www.facebook.com/sunisthefuture
www.pinterest.com/sunisthefuture
