Kiva and Social Responsibility

I don’t know anything about Kiva. Or, at least, I didn’t. I still don’t know that much, but from what I have learned, I believe Kiva.org is making a huge difference in the lives of people all over the world.

One of the largest questions I had when I first started researching was, “How does Kiva support itself?” If a company takes your money, lends 100% of it and then returns 100% to you, who is paying for their operations? According to their website they have some additional fees which are like a donation to help Kiva keep operating. They also have received some venture capital and angel funding. I would be interested to know what sort of return these VCs and Angels are hoping to achieve and what their motives are for donating the money beyond a tax write-off.

I was also noticing Kiva’s target market seems to be the individual user rather then the company or group. However, I was reading through a blog written by a gentleman by the name of Matt Wiseley on fastcompany.com. In his post entitled, From One Startup to Another, he speaks about how his company, editme.com, uses some of their deferred revenue for loans on Kiva. If you go to his company’s website there is a link to their Kiva profile on the homepage. In the blog he admits he does this for charitable reasons but also for positive marketing. People see his profile on Kiva and may become interested in thier company. It is not exactly active advertising, but it is good p.r. for his company and good for Kiva if they keep donating.

Editme.com is not the only company doing this either. Mansueto Ventures, parent company of Fast Company and Inc. magazines also donated to Kiva. In another blog on fastcompany.com the author, Kevin Ohannessian, writes about his thoughts on whether it is proper for companies to give like this. He poses two questions at the end of his short post which I think are pertinent for every business person to think about. “How does your company embrace social responsibility? What do you think are the best ways for companies to be socially responsible?”

I think we as college students need to contemplate these questions. Someday we will be the ones making the decisions. The better prepared, the more we have thought about, the more we are exposed, the better off we will be.