An Explanation

After years of never doing nothin' for nobody - in fact, actually doing everything I could to make life worse for other people - I decided to change it up like Scrooge on Christmas morning and start buying geese for everyone.  Metaphorically.

In making a choice for my metaphorical goose-chute, I settled on Kiva, an organization that facilitates microloans to entrepreneurs in other countries.  I thought about describing the Spirit and Purpose of Kiva, but all I'd be doing is copy and pasting from their About section.  That's right here if you want to check it out for yourself.  Go ahead and skip the first part, which is 100% pablum, and go right to the nuts and bolts that start right afterward.  I settled on this method of goose disbursement for a few different reasons, which I'll outline later, unless I decide it's boring.

 

Above: Buckle up, entrepreneurs!  Here they come!  Metaphorically!

I'm going to use this space to talk about Kiva and microfinance in general and to describe my personal experiences as a Baron of Microfinance. Because if you don't talk about it on the internet, it's like it never happened.

I'm two loans at the moment now, and I'm planning to add to that regularly.  I'm extremely excited about this right now, both by the concept and the practice, but I'm going to try to remain objective.  I won't proselytize; at least not until I know more about the whole thing.  I don't want to wind up like some poor sucker who sent a bunch of money to Wyclef only to find out that about a nickel of it went to Haiti, and I extra don't want to wind up telling someone else to do it.

Next time: I explain what drew me to this particular method of goose-lending and why it's fun.