BANTUAN MODAL DUNIA KIVA

First United's interest in Kiva grew out of my own involvement which began a couple of years ago after reading a business week article about kiva. In late 2007 I was sharing my enthusiasm about Kiva with the pastor of our church. The “spark“ of Kiva's mission apparently caught and she suggested I present Kiva to the congregation in place of a sermon one morning. So I did a slide presentation a few months later in which I explained the establishment of microfinancing by Dr. Yunus and described the history of Kiva and how it operates. And I thought that would be the end of it for us.

But, the spark again apparently caught and several members approached me afterward asking, “Is there any way we could do this as a group?“ Some don't use the internet, so this was the only way they could participate and several internet-savvy members were also interested.

We formed a separate bank account under the church's name and had our first meeting in June, 2008. We collected several hundred dollars for deposit, and then linked our new bank account to Kiva via PayPal. Using the church's wireless internet connection with my laptop and projector, we as a group accessed Kiva's website and searched out several loan applicants we liked and lent $100 to each. We had another meeting about a month later to review our first loans, collect new money, and do some more lending. We currently have 10 couples and individuals active in the group. We'll probably meet every other month or so now that were past the start-up phase. Several congregation members have also started Kiva lending on their own.

Kiva is an excellent fit for our church because peace and social justice issues, international as well as domestic, are very prominent in our thinking. For its small size, our church is quite generous in its mission program. Since much charitable giving is for short-term disaster relief, we feel that Kiva provides a good balance that enables us to invest in long-term improvement of life for our brethren in developing countries, too. We also like the fact that it enables recipients to use their own initiative in helping themselves and that microlending isn't just another handout.“