TOP

Are You Giving Away Your Money

Nov 01
Posted by DaveOlson in Leadership

I really wanted to come back to the whole concept of generosity today.

Sowing and reaping. Law of Attraction etc…

Alex asked why people serve, but I’m wondering about what drives generosity in people.

children.pngSeveral months ago I started supporting Kiva.org. In fact we even ran a contest here and I ended up giving away three gift certificates. Jonathan-C Phillips got on the bandwagon as well as many others. Since that time, I’ve continued to support Kiva as you can see from the sidebar. In fact our church has been supporting Kiva for quite a while now too.

Since I gave my first loan to Kiva, the first entrepreneur has already paid back one loan. That’s exciting to me.

The last few times I’ve been at the kiva.org website, there haven’t been many entrepreneurs to lend to. The reason: Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton have featured the organization in books and on television. As a result of the exposure, lot’s of people have gotten involved.

My question is this: Why? Did they suddenly become generous because there was an opportunity? Or were people moved to generosity because someone said they should be?

Did Oprah and Bill Clinton (funny that the former president has to be identified by both first and last names) simply point out something that people were looking for? Or is it the power of personality?

My friend is headed to Sudan to provide some basic humanitarian aide. What would it take to get you to support him?

What moves you to be generous? What are the basic criteria you insist on in a charitable project? Let’s talk!

Tags: , , ,
  • http://www.liaquatali.com Liaquat Ali

    You asked if people are giving through Kiva.org because Oprah, Bill Clinton or New York Times endorsed it. That may the reason for some people to get to know about Kiva.org, and then to give. But the concept and communication of Kiva.org is absolutely revolutionary.

    Here are some of the reasons I lend, and will, hopefully, continue to lend through Kiva.org:

    - You are investing in real people instead of investing in mutual funds and stocks which reside on bits and bytes.

    - You get to know specific information about the entrepreneurs.

    - You get to know their hopes and aspirations through their write-ups.

    - You are able to assess the reliability of the micro-finance agencies on the ground.

    - You get ot see the excitement of people getting funded in days, and within hours in some cases.

    - Because of the historical success rate of the micro-finance loans, you know that a major portion of you money is coming back to you. That is, if you lend $25 each to four entrepreneurs, you know that at least $75, or even $100, are coming back to you, typically, after a year for your to lend it back to three more people.

    - Think about it. If I get to be able to donate $25 each to 40 entrepreneurs, just imagine how much excitement I can have few months down the road when I see how these 40 entrepreneurs are doing. I am sure that most are going to succeed, some are going to fail, and yet some others will work hard to make their payments so that they can borrow the next bigger loan to expand their business to even higher level. Just imagine one of the Kiva.org entrepreneurs making it to the Nasdaq!!!

    I think that, Oprah or not, above are good enough reasons for me to lend through Kiva.org.

  • http://www.imaginif.com.au/~ima33724/blog/ Megan over at Imaginif

    What a FANTASTIC post. I wonder when the market researchers will wake up to the power of the collective blogging voice!
    Interesting points you raise. I have struggled with the same questions most of my career. It used to sicken me that money from the wealthy appeared to be more about making them feel good than actually being given to help disadvantaged. However, thankfully, maturity is now on my side.
    I am these days thankful for the rich and famous encouraging philanthropy so that at least some in need get some help! The charisma of power is indeed massaging to the person on the street. If power and notorioty says “I recommend this,” then the followers follow.
    I am motivated to give by the thought of children growing up disadvantaged. My chosen area of constant support is child sexual abuse but I am ready to give and help for the vast majority of child focused causes.
    I get annoyed that sports clubs raise so much through fund raising but that child abuse prevention gets less than crumbs.
    Oh dear….don’t get me going. I just hope that we can all enact the power of one and at some stage encourage just one more person to give to a society that is not as giving as it would make out.

  • DaveOlson

    Liaquat Ali… first of all welcome to the site. I hope you enjoy what is offered here and return often.

    You offer some great reasons to get involved with Kiva. Just to add to your comment, I have found Kiva to have not only great communication but great integrity as well. I recently had a loan that I made refunded to my account because Kiva discovered that one of it’s partners had inexplicably not forwarded the advertised loan. Rather than make excuses they shared the exact details of what had happened and refunded the money so that I could reloan it. Unheard of!

    I’ve also found the repayment of my loans to be 100% through Kiva. I think at this time I have supported about 15 or 16 entrepreneurs so that’s a pretty impressive record.

  • DaveOlson

    Megan…

    I’m glad that we can focus on the results more than the process. I agree with you that it’s great to see people really being helped. Whatever it takes to help people become more generous then so be it. Although I’m not sure I want to see another dog care program when there are so many people suffering.

    Great to see you here again.