July 7, 2009 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Kiva.org’s recent addition of entrepreneurs from the United States has spurred spirited –- and sometimes rancorous –- debate among people who make loans through the Web site.
The San Francisco charity has been enormously successful matching entrepreneurs in developing countries with people who want to lend them money. Since its founding in 2005, visitors to the group’s Web site have made loans totaling more than $75-million.
Last month, Kiva began testing the idea of also including U.S. entrepreneurs –- a decision that does not sit well with Tom Behan, a Seattle man who has started a group on the site called Unhappy Kiva Lenders.
“Kiva’s stated mission is to ‘alleviate poverty,’” Mr. Behan wrote on the group’s page on the Kiva site. “Poverty is defined as: ‘the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions’. Does that sound more like the situation for US Kiva borrowers or borrowers from the third world countries?”
Mr. Behan is calling on fellow lenders to join him in refusing to make loans to U.S. entrepreneurs, and asks Kiva to stop including American entrepreneurs on the site. So far, more than 420 people on the Web site have joined the group.
Of the 1,600 people who have voted in an online poll, 48 percent of respondents –- 779 votes –- said they agreed with the decision to add loan requests from the United States, compared with 43 percent –- 695 votes –- who said they did not. Roughly ten percent of the respondents –- 158 votes –- said they weren’t sure.
Comments made by people who voted in the poll and on Kiva Friends, an online forum for lenders, reflect a wide range of opinion:
“Each loan to a U.S. person could be used for several people in less developed countries to do much more with. Poor people in the U.S. with the stability to pass the partner loan requirements aren’t actually poor.”
“I am amazed that people are upset about loans in the U.S. — if a person doesn’t want to loan in the U.S., they shouldn’t. But it’s obnoxious that a person would want to prevent someone else from doing so by trying to stop Kiva from making the option available. How incredibly offensive that one person thinks they have the right to impose their own personal belief system upon another.”
“‘Needing’ $6,000 dollars to develop a Web site for your business idea is a world away from ‘needing’ $600 to buy two goats to raise so that you might feed your family.”
“At this time I am not planning on lending to first-world countries but it is nice the option exists. If opening first-world countries like the USA brings more working capital to Kiva and does not reduce the amount to third-world countries, this would be perfect.”
Officials at Kiva say that they expected the decision to be controversial.
“The interesting thing is that we’ve had for years people upset with us because we haven’t been in the U.S.,” says Fiona Ramsey, a spokeswoman for the organization. “There are a lot of people who want to help in their own backyards.”
Kiva has invited both supporters and opponents of the decision to talk about their opinions on the organization’s monthly community conference call on July 15.
Ms. Ramsey says the organization is listening carefully to lender feedback, which it will consider when it decides whether to permanently add American entrepreneurs to the site, a decision that she says is likely to influence Kiva’s expansion.
“How this plays out will play a very strong role into whether or not we do add other developed countries,” says Ms. Ramsey.
What do you think about Kiva’s decision?
