Kiva Fundraising

Kiva fundraising was a real rush. People chose different things. For instance, Julianna and I did a bake and jewelry sale. Other people did things like cooking dinner for people, or organizing book sales. We had to raise a minimum of $25. It was very fun and exiting when you got your first customer (or any customer).

The fundraising was fun but there were also some challenges like trying to make the people want to buy your product. It turns out that you have to, as they say, “sell it”. You have to say things like “cookies, brownies, lemonade, all homemade, come and get them fresh…while they’re still here!” It was hard for some people because of shyness. To help the people understand more about Kiva we printed pages from the website but most of the people already knew about Kiva!

All in all, it was fun and hard but what really felt good was the whole idea that we were helping souls get back on their feet so they could pursue their goals or develop their talents.  It felt great to make a loan.

By Elizabeth

Mac Parish

Mac presenting to us about Kiva

In Fifth Grade we got to raise money for Kiva and loan it to a person who either needs it for personal needs or is starting a business. Kiva is a micro-finance organization that puts entrepreneurs on their website, and people who have a credit card and/or PayPal account and a computer can donate to them. So to learn about that, a former student of our teacher came in to talk to us about Kiva where he works. His name is Mac Parish and he lives in Kenya. His job is the Field Support Specialist for Anglophone Africa, more specifically, to help build sustainable relationships with Kiva borrowers. So that’s the background info about Mac, but here’s the info about the presentation and what we learned from it.  

Mac taught us that when you loan on Kiva, it works like this:
1. Kiva partners with a MFI (Microfinance Institution or Field Partners)
2. Field partners upload the loan and stories onto Kiva’s website
3. Lenders browse through people to lend to, then they lend
4. Kiva disburses the lenders money to the borrower
5. The entrepreneurs or borrowers repay the loan
6. Kiva gives the repayments to lenders

To show us how to loan on Kiva, Mac decided he should loan some money to a person of the grade’s choice. Originally, what happened was we were about to loan to a person who needed some money for... pesticides! At MCDS we are very organic so Mac (and our grade) made an executive decision to not loan to that person. We ended up loaning to a person who looked nice so she was our solution. It was that simple. Now that you know how Kiva works, you should try it for yourselves. Just 25 dollars can make all the difference.

Posted By Henry S