The Power of Giving
Giving is in the news a lot recently especially with the publication of Bill Clinton’s book, Giving. I’ve mentioned previously that i am a big fan of Kiva and today some of my first loans were repaid. So far i’ve made 15 and 4 have repaid all ahead of time which is great.
So with new money available to re lend i searched out some new potential borrowers but could only lend $25 at a time and then just two loans in total. Why?
Because Kiva is so overwhelmed with support that there are not enough businesses to lend to. They want to make sure as many people as possible get to be involved.
That’s great news on all fronts.
Ultimately we are moving towards a point where money will be viewed more and more as energy, not to be stored up but to be spread around. P2P finance, as well as other forms of exchange, have the opportunity to subvert current systems because it is people led. Social capital via the web is being built at an astounding rate.
Giving is just one way of building this social capital which will be so important to the success and prosperity of society.
Raf - I love your optimism but could the low uptake perhaps be that the people who really need microfinance are a little busy being malnourished and malarial to surf the net for good ideas? Kivi is a beautiful concept but it needs to happen on the ground and at th level of the people it is targeted to….
I think it’s more about allowing as many people as possible to give rather than too few businesses. Micro finance organisations are working all over the world at local level but they key to a service like Kiva is that it allows people to act globally so others can act local.
A great example of this can be found at http://www.discoverhopefund.org which is run by a Zaadzster called Mags, a goddess of inspiration at http://magszoe.zaadz.com
The Internet has contributed to a deepening of social capital in many respects as social networks have proliferated. But equally so the limitations on the availability of Internet still tends to delineate the economic border between the “haves” and the “have nots”. And how do you grow trust and understanding via email?
However, I do like the concept behind microfinance. Notably, Sam Morgan was involved in setting up such a scheme in Samoa recently.
That’s a good and important question Paul.
Trust and social capital are crucial in the well being of our societies and i would argue in the success of our economies. Our approach (at VortexDNA) to build trust, social capital and relevance within the web space is based on the idea of our individual web genomes, what we call our webDNA. We plan to use that to link people together with others who have similar DNA profiles. We believe this will allow better connectivity within a system where no one knows who they are dealing.
As the system builds more coherence, trust will grow. We’re talking about a core infrastructure for the next generation of the web.
On a more practical level, access to the web is coming in many forms, mobile predominantly leading the way in the “have not” areas. Note how in Bangladesh mobile phones came into out of the way areas instead of landline systems, much of that development as a result of the success of microfinance in opening up the village economy and connecting them with the town city economy.
Solar enabled, satellite communication devices should be able to open up new networks wherever desired. Nokia is a big investor in these types of markets and that shows in their recent results.