

Everyone Can Learn Angel Investing Using Kiva - adammcnamara
http://adammcnamara.com/learn-angel-investing-using-kiva/

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JumpCrisscross
Kiva loans have a negative expected (financial) return with no possibility of
making back your money in real terms - you cannot, by definition, "invest" in
a Kiva loan. Kiva is a fun place to do some good. I do not think, however,
that it is any kind of training for investing.

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swombat
If you're running a successful startup and looking for some kind of charity
outlet for some of those profits, I highly recommend Kiva loans. Find some
entrepreneurs trying to start tough businesses in tough environments, like a
tailor in Liberia or a corner shop in Congo, and loan them solid chunks of
money (e.g. $500 at a time).

If they repay the loan (which the ones I loaned to have so far), then:

1) you've helped start a business in a deprived part of the world, possibly
changed someone's life

2) you've got the money back to help another business

And in either case:

3) you've done something very tangible to help another entrepreneur who is
dealing with business risks you are lucky to never need to consider in your
entire entrepreneurial career.

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wmaiouiru
Alternative to Kiva, there is lending club. I wonder if there are any startups
that could aggregate all these investment opportunities...

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GFK_of_xmaspast
I'm not comfortable with microloans for a number of reasons, most importantly
because I don't want to be a usurer. (forex:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/world/14microfinance.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/world/14microfinance.html))

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testrun
The article you link to is about loan sharks. You can loan money out to people
using Kiva at 0% interest.

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rhc2104
With Kiva, you can lend money at 0% interest to a microfinance institute,
which utilizes the interest-free capital to give a loan at a slightly lower
interest rate than it otherwise would.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiva_%28organization%29#Current...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiva_%28organization%29#Current_interest_rate_statistics)

As of January 7, 2010, 35.21% is the Average Interest Rate and Fees Borrowers
Pay (Portfolio Yield) to All Kiva Field Partners.

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dragon1st
This is awesome, but I think this is more likely charity rather than
investing.

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dylanblanchard
This is awesome.

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orionblastar
What if you don't have any money to invest because you are out of work or
disabled?

