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Kiva Loan Repayment

Microlending Made Easy

July 18, 2014 by brianmichaelsteck Leave a Comment

Kiva Logo
Kiva – Loans that Change Lives
This isn’t a trip back to economics class. No this is way more cool and fun! Microlending is the process of loaning money out to small businesses to help them get started. Kiva makes the microlending process easy by allowing you to transfer money from your bank to hard-working villagers around the world.

The loans you make get paid back at an incredible repayment rate of 98.85% (as of this post date). To put this into comparison, the US Department of Education estimates that less than 87% of student loans get repaid in the United States. “Two out of five student loan borrowers – or 41%- are delinquent at some point in the first five years after entering repayment.” (asa.org) This should bring comfort to the minds of those who worry about giving money internationally and not receiving repayment.

Now, the way Kiva works is that you transfer money to your Kiva account, then select businesses from countries all around the world using a simple loan selection process. You are able to view photos of the actual people you are lending to, as well as learn about what they intend to use the money for and how much they are asking. In general, each loan is about $25, so you can mitigate risk alongside others who are giving to the same borrower.

The microloan borrower, after receiving the funds, continues to grow their business and make repayments as they go. Little by little, your loans get repaid back — and here’s the kicker — interest free.

Your loans are truly gifts, because you’re not giving to receive. You’re giving to change the world.

In my experience, the loans are repaid promptly and in full, allowing you to relend the credits to new business owners. This allows your original donations to be re-used, over and over, to fund entrepreneurs in small towns and villages all over the world.

The reporting features that Kiva provide are fascinating. They let you get a snapshot of all the donations you’ve made, as well as what types of industries and countries you have supported.

Kiva Social Performance
Kiva Social Performance
Kiva Business Sectors
Kiva Business Sectors

Kiva Business Activities
Kiva Business Activities
Kiva Countries
Kiva Countries


Kiva, as an organization, operates off of donations that you can make using the repayment loans or additional funds you deposit. They don’t take a fee off of what you donate, so 100% of the loan goes to the micro-loan borrower (less any fees the borrower may pay to their local micro-loan organization, who manages and reports on the progress of the business and loan repayment). So you can choose whether to give 100% of your loan to the borrower, or let part of it serve as a donation to support Kiva as an organization.

So what are you doing with your extra cash? More Starbucks, clothes and dinner’s out? Consider microlending as a new form of entertainment. Make a Kiva Loan today!

Find a Kiva Loan

Filed Under: Stewardship Tagged With: Kiva, Microlending

Spring Waters

How to cure stinginess

June 24, 2014 by brianmichaelsteck Leave a Comment

Have you ever clenched your fists around the money in your pocket as you passed the beggar? Have you ever taken a bathroom break, knowing that one of your co-workers were coming office-to-office raising funds for their kid’s project or the next 5k race they were running? Do you tense up as you leave the grocery store, knowing that the girl scouts are waiting right outside? I do. And if you’re like me, you don’t want this to be true about you. I’d like to know how to cure stinginess.

What is the grip that money and time hold on us? At the root, I believe a lack of love is at work. This lack of love produces pride and fear. Protecting our time and quenching our desires is the result of living out of an insufficiently filled “love tank”. Self-preservation becomes the focus and we put ourselves before others.

Pride causes me to shake my fist at the red light while I’m running errands. Fear prompts that small internal voice to say, “No, I won’t share that last piece with you.” Stinginess is simply the outflow of a heart that is living in fear.

So what is the cure to fear, pride and stinginess?

It’s love. It always comes back here, doesn’t it.

How do we grow in love? The same way we survive dehydration in the wilderness. When you’re out of water and are at risk of dehydration, you can’t just drink out of the stream next to you. Even clean-looking mountain streams carry bacteria that can make you sick and speed up the dehydration process. So you must head to the source, where it is pure.

Carrying this analogy out, there are a few ways to find pure water. Rain water can be trusted, because it’s untouched, yet it comes in sprinkles and dashes. Creating a solar still will allow you to collect water that evaporates from living plants and the ground; but evaporation is a slow process that yields very little. The best method, though not always available, is to find the water that comes from deep in the ground: a spring or a well. This water is abundant and pure.

I’ve often said that my time with the Lord in the morning is what keeps me a nice person. My wife knows what kind of person I can become when I don’t maintain that appointment with God. This is my time to go drink from the well. A service on Sunday or a book I’m reading — those are like solar stills and rain water — they help, but they are insufficient for the long haul. But time with the Lord is my “well”.

Recognizing that God first loved and that He still loves me with abundance, despite my selfish sin nature, enables me to walk in love towards those around me.

My selfishness over my time and my money shows that I don’t trust that God is going to provide and protect. It shows that, in my mind, I have placed myself above God. I’ve begun to rely on my own abilities to get the project done on time or have enough saved for that home downpayment, instead of believing that He loves me enough to take care of me.

Curing stinginess, at it’s root, means heading to love’s source.

When is the last time you lowered the gates of your heart and let God’s love simply wash over you?

Filed Under: Stewardship Tagged With: Fear, love, Pride, Stinginess

The Founders Bible

Debt is an attack on liberty

July 15, 2013 by brianmichaelsteck Leave a Comment

The Founders BibleI was recently gifted “The Founder’s Bible“, compiled by signature historian David Barton, which is a conglomeration of historical writings from men who founded the United States. Proverbs 22:7 makes this observation:

“The borrower becomes the lender’s slave.”

Thomas Jefferson made it a point that in order to live in freedom, we must avoid debt, both as individuals and as a country. Debt is an attack on liberty.

Jefferson writes:

“I am for… applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to discharge of the national debt. But if the debt should once more be swelled to a formidable size, its entire discharge will be despaired of and we shall be committed to the English career of debt, corruption, and rottenness, closing with revolution. The discharge of the debt, therefore, is vital to the destinies of our government.”The Founder’s Bible, David Barton

The clarity with which scripture and our nation’s founders had regarding debt is brilliant, and we would be smart to avoid debt, both personal and public, at all costs.

“My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, if you have shaken hands in pledge for a stranger, you have been trapped by what you said, ensnared by the words of your mouth. So do this, my son, to free yourself, since you have fallen into your neighbor’s hands: Go — to the point of exhaustion — and give your neighbor no rest! Allow no sleep to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids. Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.”Proverbs 6:1-7

Filed Under: Stewardship Tagged With: Debt, Finances, Financial Freedom, Liberty

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