Archive for 20 June 2009
Tune in to “As the Microfinance Mundo Turns”
Stay tuned for upcoming episodes of “As the Microfinance Mundo Turns.”
Pissed Off Kiva Lenders
By John Briggs, KF8 Kenya
Update on sentiment shift: On June 23, Tom, the team captain for the (formerly) Pissed Off Kiva Lenders, changed the team name to Unhappy Kiva Lenders. Tom explained the name change in a posting on the team page: “I want the day to come soon when the team name will be ‘Delighted Again Kiva Lenders’ but the step above in the name change reflects current progress.”
Some Kiva lenders are pissed off about Kiva’s recent launch of loans to borrowers in the United States. Their angry cry has been heard in Kenya.
I arrived in Kenya two weeks ago to work with new Kiva field partner KADET. My marathon orientation-and-training tour is in full swing: this week I met dozens of KADET branch personnel in the western cities of Kisumu and Eldoret.
Successfully setting up Kiva-related operations poses many challenges for MFIs, but my new KADET colleagues made quick work of it. Both branches were able to post borrowers to Kiva on the same day they were introduced to it: Kisumu posted Maulyne’s loan and Eldoret posted Monicah’s loan.
Both loans were funded overnight, and the KADET staff was jubilant. At the Eldoret branch I joined KADET staff in poring over the Kiva lenders and lending teams who had supported Monicah. One lending team for Monicah’s loan jumped out at us: the Pissed Off Kiva Lenders.
Pissed off lenders? People at KADET were surprised. This wasn’t in the Kiva orientation I’d given them. Stephen Makanga, KADET’s integration and donor relations manager, and I decided to open the Pissed Off Kiva Lenders team page to find out more.
Image from the Pissed Off Kiva Lenders' team page
A statement on the page announced, “Kiva’s stated mission is to ‘alleviate poverty’. 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?”
Stephen gave the page an incredulous stare and kept reading.
