Kiran Jonnalagadda’s Blog

I made my second loan at Kiva today. I’ve been lax. Despite having promised to loan once each month, I missed January. I can attribute this in part to having been far too busy, but there’s something to be said about the Kiva experience too.

First, Kiva’s US non-profit status means nothing here in India. I don’t get tax breaks for the money I send them. While this isn’t such a deterrent given these are fairly small sums, it does add to the overall costs.

Second, money loaned via Kiva stays within the system. I don’t get anything back. Even if Kiva had (has?) a means to pull out money, the pain of getting PayPal funds converted into Indian rupees is not worth the bother. The way it effectively works, therefore, is that I donate the entire loan amount to Kiva and they in turn loan it to whoever I nominate. No tax breaks on this donation either.

Third, when I visited the site today, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my previous beneficiary was already repaying his loan. I wish I had better insight into his progress. The only entry in his journal was when he received the money. If anything, it would have encouraged me to come back earlier.

When looking for another business to loan to, I found I couldn’t tell them apart. Row after row of picture, description and loan status. Who do I loan to? How do I tell who is more deserving? I might as well have rolled dice and picked the corresponding row. I can’t imagine what Kiva could do to make this better apart from signing up with partners in geographic areas I’m more familiar with, like India or Southeast Asia. Places where I could visit the businesses in person to learn more.

Maybe one way is to help the businesses or at least their funding partners have a better web presence? The current picture plus description plus stats page is rather limited. Having had some exposure to microfinance in India, I’m aware that what appears to be a small amount can have a significant impact on the beneficiary’s business. I’m also aware that conveying this story to an external benefactor on a per-case basis is not always feasible, and yet, being presented these stories would greatly increase their propensity to continue participating despite the limited returns.

I’m going to keep with the loaning for another few months to see how this goes.