By Richard Frisbie on
The world-changing charity Kiva is featured in former President Bill Clinton's new book, Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World, released September 4, 2007. Chapter 2: Giving Money includes Kiva.org as one of the resources considered to be “great places to start.”
The Giving website’s stories of giving include two Kiva lenders, Brandi B and Glenda D. A quote from Glenda’s story is found at the top of every page on the site: “I have more than I need, and there are many thousands of people all over the world who have far less than they need. I just want to equalize things a little before I die. It’s as simple as that.”
As part of the book’s first-day promotion, Matt Flannery and his Kiva co-founder wife Jessica appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show featuring President Bill Clinton and his new book.
From the Oprah Show website:
Matt and Jessica Flannery were newlyweds working in East Africa when they came up with the idea for Kiva. According to Matt, $10 million in loans have been made through the organization—and 99.7 percent of the money has been repaid!
Matt says it takes about 1.5 days for the average entrepreneur to receive funding for a project through the website. “We use PayPal, who provides us free payment processing,” he says. “People loan through PayPal through Kiva, and we wire that money directly to the field partner that gives it to the entrepreneur.”
Jessica and Matt were first inspired by seeing entrepreneurs in East Africa doing great things with their families with small amounts of money.
“It’s their shot. And they just soar. They take it and they run with it,” Jessica says, and describes her delight not just “to see so many borrowers, to know that that’s happening with thousands of individuals because of Kiva, but also to know that other people can be connected and participate in the stories the way that we were.”
As a “warm-up” to the Oprah Show, Kiva also was featured on the Today Show, Monday, September 3, 2007.
Kiva is working to change the world one loan at a time. Learn more at www.kiva.org, and read Matt Flannery’s blog post about his and his Kiva co-founder wife Jessica’s appearance on the Oprah Show.
Copyright © 2007 Look to the Stars
