Last time, it was Vittana, which is like Kiva but for education (and my man Jose Maria Muños Vera still needs $170, by the way). Today we have United Prosperity (hat-tip to Triplepundit), which is like Kiva but more . . . I don't know, financey.
Green logo with a plant in it? Check!
Basically, the way the thing works is you put up some money to guarantee a loan from a bank - your loan serves as collateral. Once a certain amount of money is put up, a bank sends the recipient a loan that's bigger than the collateral. On this one, for example, if United Prosperity can guarantee $508, a bank will lend $924. If all goes well, all involved get their money back. If the recipient can't pay back, you're out of luck.Maybe they can explain it better than I can.
I haven't signed up for this one - don't want to spread myself too thin. But if you do, let me know how it goes.
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2 comments:
Dont be afraid to spread thin, on united prosperity.org you can as lend / gurantee as litle as 1 $. So you can if you want too lend one single dollar to every loan on site.
I have a profile there http://www.unitedprosperity.org/us/guarantor_profile/225.
As you can se i have currently 92 loans, Each loan is to an average of 5 people with family so for a few dollars i have made a positive impact on the lives of 92*5*5 =2300 people!
The website is still in beta and could still need some development to become more "sexy", The most important thing is that it is possible to help the developing world trought loans there. The managment are also open for adding more countries there. They are slo very friendly and open for suggestions fromt he community. http://unitedprosperity.ning.com/
Kiva does not provide laons for India. In India more than 75% of people lives for less than 2$ a day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_poverty#Absolute_poverty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_population_living_on_less_than_$2_per_day_2009.png
What i like about UP is that the loan is twice the gurantee, so your moeny will have double impact, its like kiva on steroids! And there is no currency risk. And the borrower builds ordinary credit history.
The progress reports so far are exciting too read: http://www.unitedprosperity.org/us/progress_reports
Many new webistes are regarding MFI is growing up these days, they probably wont survive all. One new is http://www.30df.org/ As i am a very creative person, my first thought was, hi there is a lot of positive forces and people working on both http://www.unitedprosperity.org and http://www.30df.org/. Why dont they join forces? I have a feeling that the result could have been much larger that each of them.
As is, some people like you are taking a wait and see aproach. Well, if all poeple did that , we would still be waiting for kiva. I think its important that if we like an idea, that we also put some money into it to test and support it, and for us to help spread the word about the possibility to help developing countries trough MFI. Who of us wouldnt be proud to be among the first 100 or 1000 to lend trough Kiva? The time for action is now, show the people who use their time developing united prosperity that you like their efforts. I challenge you to make an gurantee on 1 $ to every loan ont the website http://www.unitedprosperity.org
http://www.nextbillion.net/blog/2010/03/29/the-model-of-united-prosperity
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