How I did it: I'd received an email from Kiva saying my funds were available for reloan. I started reading about borrowers and reloaned the money. ($50) I felt good that I had made 4 loans.

Then I started looking at lenders and found some people had made thousands of loans! After reading their stories and seeing how the Australian team was very high on the list of givers, I decided to give some extra loans, and decided I could afford to give $100 extra.

It says on the site that the average Kiva user has given 8 loans. I'd already been a member for two years (bit slow I am) so started reading borrowers' stories and ended up making four extra for a total of 10 loans.

I need money for other things right now so I'm leaving it there for the moment. I'll be following the borrowers to see how they go. it makes me feel really really good to do this. It's a way that we can all make a difference in the world. Those of us who have shelter, running water and Internet access are really privileged, and there are so many in this world who need our help. And this is not in the way of handouts either, they're resourceful people who are entrepreneurs in their countries all over the world.

Lessons & tips: It's pretty straightforward, just log in to www.kiva.org and select some

borrowers to lend money to, and pay with paypal. Each borrower has a little story about them and why they need the loan.

You can filter the borrowers by

gender, country, purpose of loan, amount of money left to fill the loan, the repayment terms (if you

would like your money returned quicker for more lending select a borrower with a shorter repayment term), or those loans

that expire soon and need money urgently. You can also look up the field partners and how

reliable their track record is in repaying previous loans.  Each field partner manages several borrowers.

When the borrower pays back the money you can reinvest it into further loans. There is a small risk that some of them may default on the loans. I tend to pick ones that I think are likely to pay the loan back.

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Apr 08, 2012, 04:07PM PDT | 0 comments | 8 cheers