We try to keep Sundays dedicated to the other stuff that supports our business lives but that which often gets ignored - Goal Setting, Productivity, Motivation, Review, Health (we’ve categorised these under “Constant Progress”) and Higher Purpose (giving back to the community and feeding your soul).

Kiva is one of the few charities where donors often get their donations back. This is because Kiva is a non-profit organisation that facilitates micro loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries.

The process (as the diagram below shows) is that you look through listings of entrepreneurs who need financing, choose one, send $25 or more to Kiva and they pass that on to the relevant micro financing organisation in that developing country that lends it to the entrepreneur. When the entrepreneur pays the loan back to the micro financing organisation, it goes back through Kiva to you - you can then lend it to someone else if you want, donate it to Kiva to help with their operating costs or withdraw your funds.

And because Kiva partners with micro financing organisations on the ground in developing countries, you can be assured that the entrepreneurs’ stories listed are genuine.

Here’s a video that explains what Kiva is:

Here is an example of a Kiva loan request:

I was happy to see the Thirty Day Challenge (will be explained next week if you haven’t heard about it) chose Kiva as their charity to support.

Micro finance (also known as micro credit and micro loans) goes beyond charity and empowers people in the developing world to create self sustaining businesses. It also means that one donation can have multiple lives as it able to be recycled to fund future projects.