Maybe you first heard about micro-lending ages ago. How entrepreneurs in developing countries are given a small loan as seed money to start a new business. And how women, especially, have had such a good record in repaying those loans. 

 

I first got excited about micro-lending in the 1990s, by a program inspired by the work of the Bangladeshi banker Mohammed Yunus who has since won the Nobel Peace Prize: http://www.undispatch.com/archives/2006/10/mohammed_yunus.html .

 

Now, there’s an organization that does online micro-lending that appeals to me in a way few groups have. From reading the profiles of the loan applicants, I feel as if I’ve met some of the most ambitious people in the world. And I have.

 

It’s called Kiva. The website is: http://kiva.org/app.php?gclid=CP309KPIw44CFQwsOAodOzvOwQ Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, in his new book Giving, have been getting the word out.

 

Micro-lending isn’t philanthropy but it stirs in me the same sense of responsibility and desire to help those in need. And it was philanthropy that got me to this point.

 

Every year around September 11, I research new ways to support children who have lost a parent. I also care deeply about the homeless and affordable housing but I’m still looking for a way to make it happen, something like Brad Pitt’s green housing in New Orleans. And I love supporting Operation Smile and enabling a child to have a cleft lip and cleft palate operation. So little to change a life. 

 

I’ve always thought what a great substitute philanthropy would be for wedding shower gifts. I’m not very fond of showers. So wouldn’t Kiva be a good substitute as well? Maybe not so much fun for the bride. But making a loan for a frying pan that will start a restaurant business instead of giving a red enamel frying pan to a bride who has so many resources, and will likely receive two other red enamel frying pans anyway makes sense to me. Besides, I’m still using the same cast iron skillet I’ve used for 40 years.

 

I think of the approaching holidays and family gift giving and wonder how I can be creative this year. When our kids were in junior high and high school we used to adopt a family at Christmas with all the cousins, aunts and uncles, instead of giving gifts to one another. We’d shop for clothes and toys together, meet over lunch at one of our houses to wrap, and then one or two of us would deliver everything to the family, which was always slightly overwhelming for the family, and a little awkward for both sides. 

 

This Christmas, I’m doing my shopping early and giving a present to myself by picking my own Kiva loan recipient. I’ve chosen a 30 year old mother from Mengo, Uganda, Juliet Kayondo, who is asking for a six month loan of $1000 to purchase a lorry of matoke, just to keep up with the demand of the food market products she is selling. I didn’t know what matoke was so I looked it up. It’s a fruit like bananas and they use it in a yummy sounding dish of meat, served on a leaf. She has received many loans just in the short time I have been writing this blog.  

 

I can’t explain why micro-lending inspires me more than other projects. It’s probably the true grit aspect of starting a business on a shoestring, and because I need to surround myself with people who have lots of courage and faith. The online aspect feels even more personal, and less awkward, than wrapping presents for that one family.

 

These folks in developing countries are following their dreams. Those dreams are to rise out of poverty, and have enough to eat. That is asking for so little. I read about one family is Viet Nam that was living off the income from artificially inseminating the two pigs they own and selling the piglets.

 

Hard working folks deserve my vote and my heart and they have it. I feel like I really am cheering for them after seeing their pictures and reading their goals. 

 

Here’s another loan applicant that inspired me, a young man in Bolivia who wants to buy a printer. He looks so earnest and he has raised nearly half of what he needs in the last 10 minutes. The link may not be there even if you read this right away: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=18206 ….But there are so many others who need help. You can even pick your country.

 

Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times met the baker he made a loan to in Kabul. What fun. That’s the kind of adventure my life needs now; talk about an escape! 

 

“Loans that change lives” is the Kiva tagline. Just meeting a few of these entrepreneurs online, and giving a modest amount to one loan recipient, has motivated me to get out there and be more giving, take more risks and get more done.

 

Courage is so contagious, in how we live our lives and how we connect to folks we’ve never met.        

 

With wealth comes responsibility, but with global communications comes responsibility, too, and a chance to make a difference one person at a time, which is the way that sticks.