Making The World Turn

What makes the world go around?

Love, of course.

Money, is good, too.

Money, seeds, milk, honey, gasoline, wheat, rice, shoes, books, pencils, bricks, cement, irrigation systems, solar heating, cell phones, childcare, eldercare, trees, and of course, coffee.

How can you help make the world go around?

Lend twenty five dollars to a good person with a good idea.

And then, after they make something good happen with that twenty five dollars -
get your money back.

That's right, get your money back.

At www.kiva.org you can people from around world, including right here in the Bay Area,

(that's the San Francisco Bay Area for those of you reading this somewhere else)

twenty five dollars so they can create or build their own business.

And 97% of those people will pay you back.

What happens to the other 3%?

Well, as they say, sometimes life happens. Sometimes things go wrong, people have problems, wars start, and other crazy stuff. But it's just twenty five dollars. It is worth the risk.

That's what microloan programs are all about.

Wait - what's a microloan program?

Micro - small, teeny tiny, itsy-bitsy, small, very small
Microloan - a small loan
Microloan program - small loans with big results

Barack Obama's mother helped build one of the most successful microloan programs in the world.

"Ann's most lasting professional legacy was to help build the microfinance program in Indonesia, which she did from 1988 to '92—before the practice of granting tiny loans to credit-poor entrepreneurs was an established success story. Her anthropological research into how real people worked helped inform the policies set by the Bank Rakyat Indonesia, says Patten, an economist who worked there. "I would say her work had a lot to do with the success of the program," he says. Today Indonesia's microfinance program is No. 1 in the world in terms of savers, with 31 million members, according to Microfinance Information eXchange Inc., a microfinance-tracking outfit."

Time Magazine, The Story of Barack Obama, April 9, 2008

So what does this mean to you?

If you visit www.kiva.org and you lend someone twenty five dollars, what is going to happen?

Well, that twenty five dollars could help someone buy a cow or a sheep or more groceries for their corner grocery store. Or it could help someone start a childcare business. Or grow more fruit.

And then they will make money.

And pay you back.

And take care of their family.

And help their neighbors.

And feel good.

Feel that big, happy feeling when you have done something hard, when you have helped yourself, when you have helped someone else, when you have been helped by someone else, when you have loved and been loved.

And then there will be a little less hunger, a little less poverty, a little less anger, less hate, less fighting, less war.

Can you live with that?

Can you live with a little more love?

Give and receive some.

Visit www.kiva.org today.