BellaOnline Forums Money Charity Traumatized about Kiva

I have thought about donating to Kiva, but have never taken any action on it. I did browse through some individuals on their website a few weeks ago and was impressed with the "personal" feeling of it all.

It is extremely misleading and I don't blame Lisa for being disappointed/frustrated/angry/upset. There should not be a place to select a profile of a person if there is no way to directly help that person. It makes you question if the profile is a "composite" or an actual person.

Kiva would be wise to match people with lenders, because people feel much better about donating to something concrete and specific. Several years ago my museum started a "Capital & Replacement" campaign where each department creates a wish list of items we would like to have, along with a price for purchasing it. Donors send checks for a specific purchase for a specific staff member. Even in the midst of this recession, we are still getting donations for our 2009 campaign. People like knowing exactly where their money goes.

I understand that people are still being helped, but once the integrity of an organization is brought into question, it is like a house of cards. What else aren't they telling us? How much of the lenders' money actually funds people's projects and how much goes to some mysterious "overhead" charge?

It just feels wrong to me. I think we should look elsewhere for a project to support. If nothing else, rescinding our free ad space will send a powerful message about what the CEO has spun as "miscommunication."

Just my two cents!

I do appreciate all the different points of view on this and will keep pondering it. I know for my own personal investments, once the money gets repaid that I will be putting that money elsewhere. I really like to choose who, specifically, gets the money.

There are other charities which specifically support women's education, and for example I would rather support them vs supporting a "random" microfinance group which supported male taxi drivers who already have cars. It's just not what I feel is highest on the scale. Yes they have a need, but there are others with what I feel is a more pressing need, and I have limited funds. So I want to make sure I use them in as targeted a manner as I can, to align with my beliefs.

If I had millions then certainly I would support lots of charities that were more generic

It's truly sad. You can't be sure that what you give is going to the intended place.

Kiva has been very deceptive in their practices. They have failed to fully disclose their practices.

Perhaps it's just time to move on to a more proven charities that completely disclose their practices.

Kiva did respond to the articles, here is their statement -

Kiva Response

So is there any conclusion to this on your end, Lisa?

When Kiva repays my loans back to me, I've been withdrawing the funds to consider a fresh use for them. So I still have the Kiva ads in the ad mix, but I am no longer supporting fresh accounts with our BellaOnline money. I thought that was a fair compromise while we saw how things moved forward with them.

That sounds fair. Are you still happy with heifer.org?