Future:Media:Change

Kiva recently hit the $100,000,000 million in loans and has been showered with praise, but is the praise worthy?

Kiva has marketed itself as a tool providing the opportunity for individuals to lend directly to entrepreneurs in developing countries.  Nobody can argue the success that Kiva has witnessed  but is their system of lending as transparent as it should be?  And does it matter?

The image above is from the homepage of Kiva.org, which implies that you the Lender will be giving money directly to Entrepreneurs in need.  Not until you click through to ‘Learn how Kiva works‘ do you learn that Field Partners actually disperse the funds.

So is this drawing the curtain exposing the Wizard of Oz or does it really change anything?  To give Kiva credit, the microlender recently changed their ‘About Kiva’ page to be more open about their policy of lending.

Here is my take.  I like most people thought Kiva was a direct lending service, which is why I was so jazzed about the site.  My first impressions were that lenders themselves were posting their projects and I was directly giving money to them.

Now when I find out about the real process, did it really matter?  Not really.  If you believe in micro-credit and the power of entrepreneurs to affect change then the process doesn’t make a gigantic difference.  Sure it’s more romantic to think you’re giving money directly to Joe Developing country farmer, but in reality maybe the vetting system that is necessary to make these loans viable requires a middle man.

So loan on.