Fastlane Team @ Kiva.org

EDIT: For those having difficulties joining the team you can find it @ http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=1586 after joining Kiva

Hey, hope this is not considered spam.

I've been a huge fan of Kiva.org for a while now and just felt it's a perfect match with our community, so I decided to start a fastlane group there:

http://www.kiva.org/team/fastlane

For those of you that don't know it Kiva.org is a place where you can make loans to entrepenours in third world countries (mainly Africa, South America and Asia).

I love it because inteasd of giving out some money or food you have a chance to help someone build their biz. This means three things to me:

(1) your money is not used only once, after it's repayed you can loan it again and
again (deliquency rates are low), meaning you can help many more people

(2) you're helping the right people, the ones that are willing to work hard and have a stake at risk in the future of their communities/countries

(3) the business the people develop will have spill over effects in their communities, they will hire workers, spend money, etc.

take a look at their site if you're not a member yet or join the team if you're already registered.

more info on how it works @ Kiva - What Is Kiva?

I love this idea! ++rep

Micro-lending in third-world areas actually have a higher repayment rate (in the upper 90%) compared to lending here in the States, not to mention how beneficial small enterprise can be for these areas.

Thanks for bringing this up.

I just sent my request to join.

Just accepted the request

Thanks

right now delinquency rate at Kiva is 3.67% and the default rate is 1.41%

Limit to how much you loan?

Do you earn interest or just lend to help out others?

On the the site, if I am not mistaken...it says the average loan yielded 5.5%.

well, Analyzer, it seems it is only you and me in the group... who else is joining us?

too bad that nobody else has joined the group so far. Maybe this type of charity and help provided is not in alignment with the members here.

Well, it's not for a lack of trying! I followed all three links in the messages above but couldn't find the "sign up" button. I'll be the first to admit it's probably my own blindness / ignorance. But I think this is a neat idea!

I also just tried. I got all my personal info in and then when I said "fastlane" it said a team with that name already existed, so no go...

do you have a login in kiva.org?

go to this page:

Kiva - Loans that change lives

click on the REQUEST TO JOIN button (for the one with the lambo icon, just in case there are new teams with the "fastlane" word in them).

this will take you to the Register or Login page. Once you log in the system should send a request to the creator of the team (Analyzer) and he should approve you guys.

I'm glad others want to join.

I requested to join!

I think this is a GREAT idea.

I'm in. Thanks for setting this up!

cool, I see the team now has 4 members...
so, who are we going to lend to?

I propose this group of women working on growing their businesses:
Kiva - LAS PUNTUALES Group

I sent in my request to join. Great idea. Thanks.

Hi,

Just accepted all pending requests and did the first loan for the team

Not sure why some people are having trouble joining/finding the team, post here your questions and someone should be able to help.

You can find the team page @ Kiva - Kiva Lending Team: Fastlane

Thanks...just sent you my request.

Accepted