If you’re looking at this article on a computer at the moment - here are a few questions you might want to ask yourself:

 

• Did you have something to eat today?

• Are you wearing shoes?

• Do you have a roof over your head?

 

And this is sort of a big one -

 

• Do you know how to read?

 

I ask you to think about it because there are millions of people on this globe that can’t say “Yes” to any of those questions. Millions of people who have no way of providing the bare minimum for themselves - or their children. Yes, I know you know. Yes, it’s tragic. Yes, you’ve heard it again and again and again - but for God’s sake, this time -  STOP and don’t touch the damn back-button yet. Because you can do something to feed or clothe or house or educate someone you don’t know within the next few minutes. Stand by…

 

You see I know something can now be done because - on a recent assignment I was forced (yes, forced) to look at an option for stepping up to the plate of human kindness that I had no idea existed. There is an organization called Kiva… Kiva? Ever heard of it? No? Neither had I. (and here I ask myself why I know how much Paris Hilton’s shoes cost but I’d never heard of Kiva) Moving on…

 

Kiva is a non-profit organization that is working to lift people out of poverty through micro-financing. What is micro-financing? You know. Financing? As in - lending money, saving money, managing money - doing something with money that might be more important than spending it on lattés? Financing as in what a few people in life may well have done for you - like your parents. Again, if you’re reading this on a computer, you have certainly - at some point in your life - been given the gift of some kind of financing. Like the food, the clothes, that whole survival thing that parents often give us a hand with. A lot of people in the world never get that kind of hand up. A lot of us do, and this research (that I was forced to do) helped me realize that I certainly did, and it just might be time for me to pay it forward. Plus - more importantly - it also showed me how to go about it.

 

Kiva helps people like me - like you - like us - who have just a little bit of money to spare - like $25 - and who want to do something more interesting with it than load their Starbucks card for the week. Kiva is an organization of amazing people that work to connect people with resources to people who have none - all around the globe. There are literally hundreds of people all over the world with stories to share. Kiva will help you find and finance them so that they can buy something that will give them a shot at an opportunity they would never have otherwise. All somebody in Cambodia, Rwanda, Palestine, Pakistan, India, Uganda, El Salvador, or Kosovo may need is enough money to buy some seed to plant, a cow to milk, a tractor to plow, some fabric to sew, or maybe just enough so that their kid can go to school. And these are just a few of the places where you can help. And it takes so little. Plus - the money is a loan, and you’ll be paid back - with interest. What kind of interest? Well - how about the interest of knowing that you gave hope to someone who had none? And that’s a hell of a lot more than the 1.6% your current savings account will net you. Works for me. How about you?

 

The reason that Kiva is so successful is that - well, you know that [groan] platitude about “give a man a fish - you feed him for a day - teach him how to fish - you feed him for a lifetime?” Well Kiva is a crowd-funding source that is - surprise - operating on exactly that principle. Kiva finds people that want to help people in need - by microfinancing them so that they can:

 

• build the boat they need to go fish.

• go to school and learn how to build the boat they need to go fish.

• grow the materials to build the boat they need to fish with.

• buy the equipment needed to fish with on the boat.

• create the canning facility to package the fish caught on the boat so that they can sell the fish somewhere else for more money, thereby bringing in the capital necessary to grow the local economy so that the citizens can then build bigger and better damn boats to catch even more fish with.

• eventually create enough financial stability to enable them to actually send their children to school where they will be able to learn how to run their country efficiently enough to feed, clothe, and educate the majority of their population.

 

That’s right. Kiva doesn’t give the fish away. Kiva loans the fish. And because of this people get more fish so they can then pay the fish back. And then other people get funded with fish. And then those fish get paid back. And thus - a cycle of poverty is broken - and a cycle of hope starts.

 

Look - you might not remember that long before there was a band calledWings Paul McCartney had another band that sang “I am you and you are me and we are all together... etc.” And that's a sentimental sentiment that could be saccharine if it weren't so true. 

 

And - oh yes - I generally click right on through this kind of sentimental plea/pitch/article because it makes me so uncomfortable. Maybe you do too, I don’t know, it’s just a hunch. It makes me uncomfortable not because I don’t care - but because the enormity of the problem makes me feel as though there’s no way I could make any kind of difference. But you see - I’ve just learned that it IS possible to make a difference - because Kiva is an organization that IS making a difference - and I can totally pitch in. I CAN do something for a person or a child I don’t know, living somewhere in appalling conditions - and I can do it now. Right. Now. And I did, and I have. And so can you.

 

Take out your debit card, a credit card - you’ve got one. You know you do. Navigate here: www.kiva.org. A few clicks. That’s all it takes. Hope costs so little…

 

Hard to imagine that $25 can literally change someone’s life, isn’t it?

 

Think about that the next time you go to refill your Starbucks card.

 

Ok. You can click on through now…

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