As soon as she heard the clinking of the keys approaching the door handle, she perked up and got ready to meet her boyfriend’s eye line. The news was just too good to be contained any longer. This she had to share immediately.
PENNEY: Hi. How was school?
BILL: Such a horrible day. Can’t believe it.
PENNEY: Oh? [her heart was sinking] What happened?
BILL: What happened? First, I lost my calculator so I had to buy a new one. Then I got a ticket cause my parking permit at school apparently expired last week.
PENNEY: Oh.
BILL: This is turning out to be a pretty expensive day.
PENNEY: Oh.
BILL: How was work?
PENNEY: Well someone at work told me about this website Kiva.org and how it is trying to end poverty by –
BILL: Oh another nonprofit asking for donations?
PENNEY: No. Listen. It’s a website based on the idea of microlending.
BILL: Huh?
PENNEY: Microlending is an idea developed by this guy from Bangladesh, I think. It’s slowly helping people in developing nations inch their way out of poverty.
BILL: How is this charity different?
PENNEY: For starters, it’s not a charity in the traditional sense. Kiva, the organization, allows lenders from all over the Internet to personally loan to a specific entrepreneur in a nation halfway across the globe. They have this cool video that explains it pretty good.
BILL: So wait. It’s a loan that I give to people? So does that mean I get my money back?
PENNEY: Yup.
BILL: That’s definitely NOT a charity then.
PENNEY: Nope. Pretty cool, right?
BILL: Yeah but how much can we really loan to businesses. I mean, like, aren’t start up costs like in the thousands of dollars?
PENNEY: Actually you can start up a business for about a hundred dollars even here in the U.S. but no, you do not need to loan thousands or even hundreds of dollars.
BILL: Really?
PENNEY: You can make a loan for as little as twenty five dollars.
BILL: Twenty five dollars? And that will help?
PENNEY: Whatever you loan is added to what other people loan and with everyone around the world loaning, it is easy to meet the needs of single entrepreneurs one at a time.
BILL: Hmm. Interesting.
PENNEY: So we should definitely start loaning, right?
BILL: Well maybe after we recover from my unexpected expenses today. We’ll think about it.
PENNEY: You mean you were not expecting these expenses? That’s what our emergency fund is for.
BILL: Oh yeah I forgot we started doing that.
PENNEY: Yeah, together we have put enough in there to cover your little financial mishaps for today.
BILL: What would I do without you?
PENNEY: Well, hopefully, you keep on lending. I really think we can make a dent with this concept.
BILL: Ok. I’m on board. Cool, what’s for dinner?
PENNEY: Spaghetti again.
BILL: Really?
PENNEY: Just kidding. There’s some fried chicken on the table.
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Related Posts:
- Money Talks–CHAPTER 5 (SEEK YE THE TRUTH)
- Money Talks–CHAPTER 4 (HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT, TOO)
- Money Talks–CHAPTER 3 (WHY NOT KIVA?)
I need to shape up...
