Give up your birthday for a cause!

What is Kiva.org? Well as explained by their website, Kiva allows people like you and I to donate a small amount of money in order to help entrepreneurs in rural countries get their business’ going! Check out their About Us page. The cool part is that a single dollar to us is worth 20 times over to them because of our power of currency. So, these people at Kiva take our spare change, and turn it into opportunities for these rural entrepreneurs. Now, the money isn’t just given away like other charities you might have heard of, instead the donation works as a loan, similar to note you might borrow at a bank. Once the entrepreneur is up and going with their business, convenient store, automobile repair shop, furniture making business, they then make payments back to you until the entire loan has been repaid. The people at Kiva, supervise this process to make sure the entrepreneur stays on track and meets their payments. In fact, similar to a credit check that we might go through, these rural citizens vote within their communities to decide who should be allowed to take the loan. This democratic process is another way to ensure success! According to Kiva’a statistics 95% of all loans are returned in full. It gets better; we can now use that money to fund another entrepreneur, so the same dollars we have collected continue to work again and again and again. It is like a one time donation, benefits a life time of people!

As you know, I recently graduated from FSU with a degree in finance, and having just acquired this knowledge, I felt obligated to participate in a micro financing non-profit. This way I can really put my skills to good use. This year I decided to give up my birthday for a good cause and donate all the money I would normally receive as gifts to this cause. To double our impact, I decided to match dollar for dollar, the total money raised! That means that if we were to raise $20, we would actually raise $40 dollars. If we raised a total of $500 dollars, that would mean $1000 total. So, if you were going to send me a birthday gift, I kindly ask that instead you make a donation of the amount which you think I am worth. If that amount is only $5, I understand. If that amount is only $10, I will be happy with that. If you happen to feel I am worth $20 or more, I will be super pumped. The fact is that you will feel good and be contributing to an ongoing social investment!

Christian Mpambara ($650)

Enter Christian Mpambara; he needs 650 dollars in order to continue expanding his General Store in Rwanda! I have chosen him because 650 dollars is not a large amount for us to raise and it looks to me like he is organized and has management skills, having already hired 2 employees. In fact if I collected only 325 dollars in birthday gifts, that would cover his loan. You can read about his story by clicking on his name above! After you have made up your mind on the amount you want to donate, click on the button below. Thanks for supporting my birthday cause!

UPDATE: Christian’s loan has just been fully raised as of last night October 25th. So we plan to sponsor another entrepreneur!

Yao Koudjrame (550 still needed)

Yao lives in Badou, which is located west of Niger. He lives with his wife and one child. He owns a general store which he operates out of his house. His goal is to expand his business and then purchase more land to open another store. He plans to use the loan to expand his inventory to includes items such as soap, oil, milk, canned foods, sugar, and rice! You can read about his store by clicking on his name. The field partner we are working with has loaned out close to one million dollars with a full collection of every dollar and a %100 return raite. The We need to raise at least 275 dollars in order to match his total of 550. When you have determined the amount you want to contributed, click the button below! After you have donated, please answer the poll below. Thanks, for supporting my birthday cause!

~Shaun