Sange Sherpa
109530194
ISE 312
Benevolent Computing.
Human beings have distinguished their selves from other animals because of their intellectual and compassion. People have invented many technological devises that once thought impossible, using their intellectual quality. Most of the inventions were driven by profit and few were driven by welfare of human beings. One of those invention (idea) is the crowdfunding website called Kiva. The main goal of it is to fund the poor people in developing countries who have potential to do something. Unlike the banks and other financial institution Kiva does not require any loan security and interest from borrowers. In 85 countries Kiva have many volunteers who help the borrowers to go through the process of loan application therefore a typical end-user does not require to have knowledge about computers. The only requirement of this platform is the internet access. It is completely different approach of getting loan from traditional approach therefore many user (borrower and lender) may not know in detail about it. The core mechanism of this platform are the benevolent lenders and the sincere borrowers. This platform will bestow the power to the poor people of remote areas to create the opportunity by themselves on their field of work.
Kiva.org is a peer-to-peer-lending platform that raise capital in order to provide loan to entrepreneurs in developing countries. It is a nonprofit organization founded and developed by Jessica Jackley and Matt Flannery on October 2005. The first 7 borrowers that got the loan via Kiva was termed the “Dream Team” on April 2005. Within this ten years, Kiva has become global force for good where we can witness the mutual respect, kindness, and faith every day. The headquarters of Kiva is at San Francisco, California. Its mission is to bring the benevolent lenders and the needy borrowers on the same platform to alleviate the poverty from this world. It has benefited so many potential entrepreneurs from developing countries to start their own small business or to upgrade their existing small business. As of today Kiva has 1,348,320 lenders who has lent total sum of 773, 943, 575 dollars to the borrowers. Lender can create the opportunity all around the world by lending as low as 25 dollars leveraging the internet and the worldwide network of micro finance institutions. Its repayment rate is 98.47 percent which shows the borrowers sincerity and honesty toward this organization. There are 302 field partners, 450 volunteers in 83 different countries to operate the function of Kiva efficiently.
First of all, both borrower and lender need to register in Kiva.org website. The registration form for borrower and lender is the same and very simple. Once you registered in the Kiva.org it asked to invite your friends and families to lend you at least 25 dollars via Kiva. Unlike banks and other financial institution Kiva lends the money based on the character of borrower. Therefore, it is important to get the loan from some of friends and families to show that you can be trusted as a sincere person. In addition, the volunteers who works with the field partners in different countries check your application’s validity. The application form provides the information about the borrower including their name, photo, location and the description of the nature of loan (e.g., loan amount, loan purpose, and loan repayment term). The applications that passed appear on the list of borrower on Kiva with information about the field partner (microfinance institution) that sourced the loan and that ultimately will manage it. Once the borrower is on the list of Kiva website, the lenders can browse and loan them. Finally, the borrower gets the loan money from the microfinance institution near them as soon as the fund is raised to the sum that borrower has applied for.
Next, Kiva lenders chooses a borrower by browsing through the list of borrowers currently seeking funding. Lenders have option to select the loan amount from 25 to 5000 dollars, in 25 dollar increments. Lenders are able to see and analyze the potential borrowers profile, business plan, loan requirement, previous loan history, repayment schedule, and their personal history. Once lender loan the money to borrower they may need to wait from 6 months to 3 years according to borrower’s repayment schedule to get the amount back. When lenders get their money back they can loan the money again to other borrower or withdraw the money out. In their article, “Microfinance Decision Making: A Field Study of Prosocial Lending.”, Jeff Galak, Deborah Small, and Andrew T. Stephen concludes that the group size of the borrower and the social and occupational similarity of borrower and lender manipulate the lending decision significantly. The borrower in a group have more tendency to repay the loan successfully than an individual borrower. The lenders are more biased toward the group of people who shares their ethnicity, culture, and emotions.
Kiva does not charge borrower and lenders any kind of fee neither it charges the microfinance institution that circulate the loan money on the field. Kiva is primarily funded through the support of lenders making optional donations. It also raises funds through grants, corporate sponsors, and foundations. Lending team is the group of people that share same interest, culture, or location. Lenders can create their own team or join as many team they want. Kiva is operated and maintained by the group of people working on Kiva headquarter in San Francisco, branch office in New York and the volunteers working with microfinance institute and the borrowers in 85 different countries. In addition, it also maintains its website via crowd sourcing system that allows the passionate developer around the world to contribute their work on the development of Kiva’s website. The interface of Kiva is very easy to navigate and the documentation about it has made it much easier to understand the mechanics and the core value of the organization. The speed and response time of the website is also fast and don’t has any dead link on it. Kiva has done the marvelous work by presenting the stories of people from the darkest corner of the world to connect with the benevolent people all around the world. Kiva has truly injected the humanity in each line of its code.
In conclusion, Kiva has helped the people in need by providing safe, affordable access to capital to create better lives for themselves and their families. Kiva’s work has touched the lives of millions of people all around the world. I would like to recommend this platform to you, so you can keep your humanity alive in this world where material greed has shadowed the spiritual and human values.
Works Cited:
Galak, Jeff, Deborah Small, and Andrew T Stephen. "Microfinance Decision Making: A Field Study of Prosocial Lending." Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) 48. (2011): S130-S137. Business Source Complete. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.
Mittelman, Robert, and Asbjorn Osland. "The Controversial Launch of Kiva in The United States: Mission Drift or Market Extension?" Journal of Critical Incidents (2014): Academic OneFile. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.
Heller, Lauren R., and Kayla D. Badding. "For Compassion or Money? The Factors Influencing the Funding of Micro Loans." Journal of Socio-Economics 41.6 (2012): 831-835. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.