Soon you may receive a check from the IRS. While the amount probably will not be significant in your own life, it can be life-changing as a microloan. Take a look at the Kiva.org microloan opportunities. You can make multiple small loans or put the whole amount in one loan. Once the loan is repaid, you can withdraw the money (that is, you get it all back), or make more microloans, or donate some or all of the amount. Thus instead of taking the money directly, park it at Kiva.org for a while and help someone start a new life. Here are some requests for loans.

The Eldest is a big fan of the various Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, so I spent some time yesterday looking through a few that she has. She’s right: few ingredients in each recipe, straightforward instructions and generally easy, and they look as though the result is delicious (and The Eldest assures me that’s true). So you may want to go to your library and check out a few and see what you think.

Before buying a cookbook, I think it’s a very good idea to check it out and see if you actually use it and like the recipes in it.

Ugly, but in a capitalist system the only motive is profit:

Intel has decided to finally call it quits with the One Laptop Per Child non-profit project, due to (in their own words), a “philosophical impasse.” It sounds deep and profound, doesn’t it? Seems all along Intel was deeply committed to providing children low cost laptops in developing countries even though when OLPC was first launched it mocked the program and forecast its demise.

Since those remarks put a few dings in its public relations image, Intel came to the party (albeit late) with its own low cost laptop version, called Classmate, for children in developing countries. Of course, the Classmate laptop has Intel chips in it, not AMD chips, like the OLPC model. That’s one version of a philosophical difference.

In another philosophical reversal, Intel decided to join the OLPC Board of Directors last July, and collaborate with OLPC’s mission to provide technology to children in developing countries. However, their new relationship was short lived when OLPC demanded Intel stop undercutting OLPC. Apparently, in its zeal to provide technology to children, Intel’s sales force asked Peruvian officials to drop their quarter million unit order of OLPC laptops, and buy Intel’s Classmate instead.

And now, its come to this. A philosophical impasse from which there is no return, all in the name of, well the children, of course. “We have long believed there is no single solution to the needs of children in emerging and underdeveloped markets,” Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said.

So, what’s your take on Intel’s reversal? Philanthropic or profit driven?

Full disclosure: I bought one of the OLPC computers for The Younger Grandson.

One great Christmas present for young people, I think, is a Kiva credit that they can use to make a microloan: you buy the credit, they get to choose the recipient of the microloan (up to the amount of the credit) and they get the regular reports on how the person is doing. For example, just this morning I learned that the microloan to this person has now been fully repaid. So now I can withdraw the funds, or reloan them to some other recipient(s), or donate them to Kiva. It’s extremely satisfying, and I highly recommend making Kiva microloans a part of your holiday giving. www.kiva.org

I’ve blogged fairly often about Kiva.org, which makes microloans in various countries. And now there’s BusinessIdeaoftheDay.org, which accepts business ideas for developing countries. Take a look.

Another Clive Thompson post, this one from Wired:

Bill Gates is an improbable humanitarian. He built a reputation as a nightmare boss at Microsoft, a totalitarian who screeched at employees he thought were stupid. He bludgeoned competitors with his illegal monopoly. And he’s a nerd’s nerd — someone who seems perennially uncomfortable around people and only at ease dealing with the intricacies of software code.

And that is precisely why he’s now saving the world.

As you probably know, Gates is aggressively tackling third world diseases. He has targeted not only high-profile scourges like AIDS but also maladies like malaria, diarrhea, and parasitic infections. These latter illnesses are the really important ones to attack, because they kill millions a year and are entirely preventable. For decades, they flew under the radar of philanthropists in the West. So why did Gates become the first major humanitarian to take action?

The answer lies in the psychology of numeracy — how we understand numbers.

I’ve been reading the fascinating work of Paul Slovic, a psychologist who runs the social-science think tank Decision Research. He studies a troubling paradox in human empathy: We’ll usually race to help a single stranger in dire straits, while ignoring huge numbers of people in precisely the same plight. We’ll donate thousands of dollars to bring a single African war orphan to the US for lifesaving surgery, but we don’t offer much money or political pressure to stop widespread genocides in Rwanda or Darfur.

You could argue that we’re simply callous, or hypocrites. But Slovic doesn’t think so. The problem isn’t a moral failing: It’s a cognitive one. We’re very good at processing the plight of tiny groups of people but horrible at conceptualizing the suffering of large ones.

In one recent experiment, Slovic presented subjects with a picture of “Rokia,” a starving child in Mali, and asked them how much they’d be willing to give to help feed her. Then he showed a different group photos of two Malinese children — “Rokia and Moussa.”

Continue reading.

I’ve mentioned Kiva before: a micro-lending organization that allows you to make small loans directly to small businesses (or businesses-to-be) in third world countries, where a loan of $100 can have a great impact.

Two of my loans have now been repaid, a total of $225. So now I can:

1. Withdraw the $225 and keep it,
2. Donate it to Kiva, or
3. Make more loans.

I’m going with the “make more loans” option. Take a look at the site and see what loans you might make.

I’ve mentioned Kiva.org several times: where you can make microloans directly to individuals and then get follow-up reports. When the loan is paid off, you can get your money back, or loan it out again, or donate it to Kiva.

It’s a really fine service, and is doing good in many countries. Why not drop over there now and make a little loan? $25 can make an enormous difference in someone’s life—a much greater difference than it would make in yours. Skip the Starbucks for a week, maybe.

From The Eldest:

I just found this web site to deal with my huge junk mail problem. The company is called GreenDimes. For a dime a day they get your name off direct mailing lists and keep it off, and plant a tree for you every month.

Solving my junk mail problem is great for me and helps the environment at the same time. Did you know that a typical American household receives about 70 pounds of junk mail a year? (I think it’s more at my house.) Add it up and that’s 100 million trees chopped down each year to make junk mail, most of which we don’t want and ends up in landfills.

So if you want to stop your mailbox from overflowing, see your kitchen counter again, and save some trees, take a look at GreenDimes.

Jesus of Nazareth was poor, and born into a poor family. He spent his life among the poor, helping as he could. This fact is glossed over in many wealthy Christian congregations, who are uncomfortable about the fact of poverty in our nation and world and ignore it to the extent possible. (I’m not thinking of George Bush in particular, but he’ll do as an example.)

Paul Krugman has an interesting comparison:

It’s the season for charitable giving. And far too many Americans, particularly children, need that charity.

Scenes of a devastated New Orleans reminded us that many of our fellow citizens remain poor, four decades after L.B.J. declared war on poverty. But I’m not sure whether people understand how little progress we’ve made. In 1969, fewer than one in every seven American children lived below the poverty line. Last year, although the country was far wealthier, more than one in every six American children were poor.

And there’s no excuse for our lack of progress. Just look at what the British government has accomplished over the last decade.

Although Tony Blair has been President Bush’s obedient manservant when it comes to Iraq, Mr. Blair’s domestic policies are nothing like Mr. Bush’s. Where Mr. Bush has sought to privatize the social safety net, Mr. Blair’s Labor government has defended and strengthened it. Where Mr. Bush and his allies accuse anyone who mentions income distribution of “class warfare,” the Blair government has made a major effort to reverse the surge in inequality and poverty that took place during the Thatcher years.

And Britain’s poverty rate, if measured American-style — that is, in terms of a fixed poverty line, not a moving target that rises as the nation grows richer — has been cut in half since Labor came to power in 1997.

Read the rest of this entry »

A commenter very kindly provides a link to a podcast of a talk by Kiva.org’s president. (The link is to his comment, which contains the link to the podcast.)

Get references:

A pregnant woman in this Dallas suburb [Allen, TX] came home to find a strange man in her bedroom with a frightening story: He warned her that he had been hired by her husband to kill her.

“Your husband wants you murdered,” the man told Roxane Sterling, according to police reports. He then told the woman, who is eight months pregnant, to call police.

The man had entered the empty house while the woman’s husband and their 3-year-old son were visiting relatives in New Mexico.

The husband, Albert Jackson Sterling II, faces two counts of criminal solicitation of capital murder, one for his wife and another for the unborn child. He was being held in lieu of $1 million (?760,000) bail in the Otero County jail in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

An extradition hearing is set for Friday.

The man who entered the couple’s home was not charged with any crime, police said. They did not release his name.

“He did not go there with the intent to murder her,” said Capt. Robert Flores. “He went with the intent to warn her.”

Investigators said Albert Sterling, 38, offered the man a large amount of money to kill his wife while he was away and helped him get into the home.

Albert Sterling flew to visit family in Alamogordo on Nov. 21. That afternoon, the man stood in the couple’s bedroom and warned his wife, Flores said.

Police said they had not been called to the family’s home before and there was no indication that Albert Sterling had any prior convictions in Texas.

Roxane Sterling, 37, left for Louisiana to be with her family.

I like the opportunity, but I’m unhappy that it’s necessary. Shouldn’t public schools be funded at reasonable levels, and teachers paid good salaries, for the good of the country at large? Why is this sort of effort even necessary? But it does allow one to help.

When you make a microloan through Kiva, you periodically receive reports on how the recipient of the loan is doing. Here’s one loan recipient:

Ham Sokhorn is requesting a $500 loan to build a proper house in the plot she was recently allocated by the government in Phnom Penh far suburbs. Ham Sokhorn is not employed; she stays at home and takes care of her children, while her husband is self-employed as a mason. He leaned his skill when employed by a Chinese company, which ceased its activities 4 years ago. He sustains his family with around $5 daily but his income is not steady. He has to propose competitive bids to be in charge of the works, but as he is a gifted worker, he is not worrying about unemployment.

With the $500, Ham Sokrom will purchase materials and her husband will built the house in addition to his casual workload.

Ham Sokhorn would like to start a business of catering for the neighborhood, if the village becomes more populated.

When I read this, a loan of $125 had been made, so I loaned the $375 balance. Today I got this report: Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Kelly on Cool Tools has a list of places where you can make micro-loans on-line. As you probably know, I like Kiva.org, which (oddly) doesn’t appear in his list, though Kiva has cooperative relationships with some of the ones listed.

At any rate, think about making some micro-loans. It’s very satisfying.

The organization Ukes for Troops sends ukuleles to troops overseas. The ukulele goes into and out of fashion, but it’s a fine instrument. Christmas is coming. Think about it.

I received a very nice comment to my microloan post below, and that got me thinking about things Kiva might do to increase microloan activity and loaner satisfaction. For example, their site could include, in a section titled “Giving Ideas,” things like this:

The idea earlier suggested by The Eldest, using a microloan as a gift: “I just gave a gift of $100 in Kiva credit for a Bar Mitzvah boy. He can choose how to invest his $100, and after it is paid off, he can either take the money out and buy something for himself or he can reinvest it. Parents were pleased, kid thought it was cool. A very satisfying gift.”

Another idea: As a class project, a classroom raises money and makes a microloan: first step is planning and executing the money-raising project; then a discussion of the options for the loans, possibly with reports and presentations; then actually making the loan; and then following the progress of the entrepreneur, perhaps with letters sent to him/her from the class.

I can think of many classes, in elementary through secondary school, where this would be a wonderful project: fun, real-life, and educational. And the usual foes of educational innovation—social/economic conservatives—would likely embrace the project as supporting entrepreneurship, individual initiative, etc.

Kiva can publicize and support the idea by making available a “classroom packet” that includes (say) a map of a target country (selected by the teacher from a range of options at the time the packet is requested), a teacher guide that contains a list of possible money-raising projects and templates for the plans, discussion guides for the class, and a form the teacher can use at the end to evaluate the projects and the materials and make suggestions for improvements.

Of instead of maps, Kiva could use Google Earth to locate loan candidates and recipients: click on a candidate or recipient to see their location via Google Earth.

To start the effort by creating the initial packets of materials, Kiva could seek volunteers among social studies teachers (here and in target countries).

Further: the packet itself is a series of .PDF files on the Kiva website, easily downloaded by teachers and easily updated as the comments and suggestions come back in.

Another thought: A downloadable file—e.g., a Word or Excel file—with a template that helps an individual loaner build and track a portfolio of loans on a particular theme—loans for a particular type of business, for example, or for a particular country. This sort of thing activates the collecting instinct, so that the loaner will probably add more and more examples to his portfolio, to try to “complete” it in one way or another—e.g., a loan to each province ina country.

Probably you can think of other ways that Kiva could encourage more microloans. The comments section is now open.

I’ve often touted Kiva.org in this blog, including this post whose comment provides an innovative use. And now the guy who pioneered the whole microloan idea has received the Nobel prize:

The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, for pioneering microcredit — using loans of tiny amounts to transform destitute women into entrepreneurs.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Dr. Yunus and Grameen for their “efforts to create economic and social development from below.”

Though it is not the first time the committee has chosen to honor economic development as a contribution to world peace, rather than the more usual diplomacy, rights advocacy or philanthropy, it is the first time the prize has been awarded to a profit-making business.

The selection seemed to embody two connected ideas that are gaining ground among development experts: that attacking poverty is essential to peace, and that private enterprise is essential to attacking poverty.

Dr. Yunus founded the bank in his native Bangladesh to lend small amounts of cash — often as little as $20 — to local people, almost always women, who could use it to found or sustain a small business by, say, buying a cow to sell milk or a simple sewing machine to make clothing.

Traditional banks considered such people too risky to lend to, and the amounts they needed too small to bother with. Dr. Yunus’s simple but revolutionary idea was that the poor could be as creditworthy as the rich, if the rules of lending were tailored to their circumstances and were founded on principles of trust rather than financial capacity. He found that they could achieve lasting improvements to their living standards with a little bit of capital. Read the rest of this entry »

A sometime correspondent recently emailed me to ask whether I had actually made any loans through Kiva, and how well it worked if I had.

I’ve made quite a few loans through Kiva. Reading the stories of the struggling entrepreneurs in Honduras, Bulgaria, Uganda, Cambodia, and other countries, one is irrestibly drawn to making a loan. A small loan of $25 to $50 can be a big help, and you regularly get reports of how they are doing.

It’s very easy to make a loan: you can use your credit card, and it’s just like an on-line purchase—only it does more good.

When the loan is fully repaid, you can make new loans with that money, or donate it, or get it back.

Take a look. It’s a fine way to help.

Via BoingBoing, a site that enables you to find loving homes for your surplus books—and new books for your own home. BookMooch is the site, and the idea is simple:

BookMooch is a community for exchanging used books.

BookMooch lets you give away books you no longer need in exchange for books you really want.

- Give & receive: Every time you give someone a book, you earn a point and can get any book you want from anyone else at BookMooch. Once you’ve read a book, you can keep it forever or put it back into BookMooch for someone else, as you wish.

- No cost: there is no cost to join or use this web site: your only cost is mailing your books to others.

- Points for entering books: you receive a tenth-of-a-point for every book you type into our system, and one point each time you give a book away. In order to keep receiving books, you need to give away at least one book for every two you receive. Read the rest of this entry »