Geoffrey Desa, my Entrepreneurial Process professor got the class off to a fast start with our first assignment. Typically, I don't expect anything outside of some reading for the first few weeks of a term. But, he set our first assignment, "Interview an entrepreneur and give a brief report in one week." OK. Well, I'm really trying to focus my class projects on areas of interest. So, the challenge was to find someone who could meet with me on short notice who was also a social entrepenuer or working in the sustainability field somehow. Good luck - right? I do love living in SF. Grace Turkis, my good ole coworker is volunteering at Kiva and she put me together with Matt Flannery. We met for an hour. I am very grateful for his time.
In short, Kiva matches lenders (not donors)with aspiring entrepenuers in developing nations. The results of this kind of micro lending development have been tremendous. The waste is much lower than working through corrupt governments and the direct empowerment is much higher.
Chris and I always have the very best conversations on our out of town trips together. We've decided to get behind someone today - it will only take $20 of our money to help some unfortunately born business person break out of the cycle of poverty. And, we'll get regular updates on how their business is progressing AND how the loan is being paid back. After a while, we'll get to repick and reinvest that money into another venture. Very very fun.
Read all about Kiva on their website. www.kiva.org
