Kiva Blog

Please tune into our next community conference call!

Here's our recording of the last Kiva Community Conference Call from October 20, 2009. Thanks to all who could attend!

Here's our recording of the last Kiva Community Conference Call from September 28, 2009. Thanks to all who could attend!

Please tune into our next community conference call!

Just a quick reminder that we'll be holding our monthly community conference call today - Monday September 28th.

Mark your calendars -- this month's Community Conference Call is coming up!

When: The call is scheduled for Monday, September 28th at 4 pm US Pacific time/7 pm US Eastern time.

Dial in US: 866-740-1260 Access Code: 6415483

Dial in (Outside US): +1 303-248-0285 Access Code: 6415483

In the coming weeks, we'll be posting an agenda for the call.

We hope to hear you on the line!

Here's our recording of the last Kiva Community Conference Call from August 19, 2009. Thanks to all who could attend!

Just a reminder that our monthly Community Conference Call is tomorrow. Details below:

After last month's format, we'll be returning to a regular Q&A format for the August Community Conference Call. This time, all you have to do is dial in to our conference line to attend the call.

In addition to Fiona's recap, we wanted to provide a recording of July's Community Conference Call as well as an opportunity to see the presentation we showed at the beginning of the call. Here they are:

Thank you to all those who joined the Community Conference Call today. We had approximately 80 people participating, and heard directly from 16 lenders who shared their thoughts and comments on the call.

There were many different thoughts that were shared. In summary, they included:

• Lenders should choose - Kiva is a conduit from the lenders to borrowers. Kiva should not be forced to choose the level of poverty lenders lend to.
• The idea that US entrepreneurs cannot benefit from small loans is wrong.
  
• Lenders should vote with their dollars, Kiva should not play a restriction game.
• Working poor is working poor, the definition may vary by geography but they are still working poor.
  
• Including U.S. loans adds concern about "competition" between loans of different regions.
• Kiva's values and principles have changed.
• U.S. is a place where loans are needed the least, not the most.
• Loans to developed nations do not fight poverty.
• Loans to developed nations dilute and divert resources from the developing world.
• Kiva should alleviate poverty in the developing world before it starts working in the developed world.
• U.S. loans displace loans to the poorest nations.
• U.S. loans send an image to the developing world that we care about the U.S. over the developing world.
• U.S. loans are insulting to lenders from around the world who believe they are in a worse financial situation than borrowers in developed nations.
• Choice is one of the founding principles of Kiva and we should hold true to that.
• Adding U.S. loans has resulted in a greater wealth of giving overall, furthering Kiva's mission.
  
• Kiva should stay within its niche of lending to the extreme poor.
• There are Field Partners that Kiva could work with in the U.S. which would provide borrowers in greater poverty.
• We all know people in the U.S. who are poor, your geographic location shouldn't define whether or not you are considered poor.
• Poverty is in the system, not the person. The system knows no boundaries, neither does poverty.
• Kiva's mission statement doesn't define lending to alleviate "extreme poverty". Lending to poor people in the U.S. is within Kiva's mission statement.
• U.S. loans are closing the gap between lenders and borrowers, and countries.
• It's about loans to people, not loans to nations.
• If you are suggesting that only developing world countries are worthy of receiving loans, you should rethink how you feel about being American. Suggesting that Americans will not put their loans to good use is insulting.
  

We value everyone's comments that were made today, and have taken note of them as part of our efforts to collect feedback from the community on the U.S. pilot. If you would like to make give your feedback and did not do so on the call today, please email our customer service team at contactus@kiva.org. Customer service emails are also a part of our efforts to collect feedback on the pilot.

If you have any questions about the presentation that was given on the call, please email your question to contactus@kiva.org. There was a significant amount of data analysis done for this presentation and we would be happy to clarify any areas around the data that was unclear.

We recognize that we restricted today's call to only being a feedback session, so that Kiva could receive feedback from lenders, and we did not answer any questions from the community. This was to maximize the time we could spend hearing lender comments. In all, we managed to hear from 16 lenders, calling both from the U.S. and internationally, in the hour we had scheduled for the call.

Kiva will be posting a response to the feedback that we have received during this period since the launch where we have been listening closely to what you have been saying. We will also let the community know what our next steps are in relation to this issue. This message will be posted here, on the Kiva blog, late next week.

In the meantime, the presentation given in today's Community Conference Call and an audio recording of today's call will be posted here, on the Kiva blog, within the next few days.

To echo Matt Flannery's comments today, we're proud to be part of a community of people who care so much about this organization, and we thank you for being so engaged.

A friendly reminder that on Wednesday, we'll be having our July Community Conference call.

We'll be giving a short presentation, then we'll listen to your feedback on the Kiva US Pilot.

We are expecting a high number of participants to join this call. In order for us to facilitate the call and maximize the number of participants, we will be using an online web conference system. Please note that you will not be able to speak on the conference call unless you are logged in to the web conference.

The online web conference system will allow us to:

• Share a presentation online with all participants
• Manage requests to speak on the call through a feature where the caller "raises their hand"
• Improve sound quality for all callers by restricting the number of lines speaking to the audience
  

For those who have attended previous Community Conference Calls, you will notice that this is a little different to how we've done things in the past. Previous calls have had an "open floor" format where anyone was able to speak up and "take the floor". While this has been successful for past calls, we are expecting this month's call to require more organization.

The web conference system will allow each caller to electronically "raise their hand" to speak. They can also communicate directly with the call facilitator via instant message, to give a short description of their comment. This way, we can make sure that we are hearing from all sides of the conversation, and prioritize those whose comments have not yet been heard. All phone lines will be muted, until the caller is called upon to speak, to reduce background noise and improve sound quality.

So, don't forget that this month, if you would like to contribute to the call, you will need to take two steps:

1. Call in to the conference call
2. Log in to the web conference system

To dial in to the call:

When: The call is scheduled for Wednesday, July 15th at 2 pm US Pacific time.

Dial in US: 866-740-1260 Access Code: 6415483

Dial in (Outside US): +1 303-248-0285 Access Code: 6415483

To use the web conference system:

1 - Go to www.readytalk.com
2 - In the "Join a Meeting" section enter the access code 6415483

3 - When prompted, enter the required information.
4 - You will then be able to view our online presentation and you'll be able to "raise your hand" to speak.

The call will be recorded, and the recording will be posted on the Kiva blog within a few days of the call being completed.

We hope to hear you on the line!

On June 10th, the first loans to entrepreneurs in the United States were listed on Kiva. This has sparked an active discussion within the lender community about whether or not Kiva should facilitate loans to entrepreneurs in the U.S. This month's community conference call will focus on community feedback to the this issue.

Every month we hold an open conference call as an open forum for lenders and Kiva staff to talk about what's going on. Please join us for our next call, scheduled for Wednesday, July 15th at 2 pm PDT.

The call in info is:

Dial in US: 866-740-1260
Dial in (Outside US): +1 303-248-0285
Access Code: 6415483

We hope to hear you on the line!

Our next Kiva Community Conference Call is scheduled for tomorrow - Wednesday, June 17th at 2 pm PDT.This is an opportunity for Kiva lenders to call in and ask us anything! The call in info is:

Dial in US: 866-740-1260
Dial in (Outside US): +1 303-248-0285
Access Code: 6415483

We hope to hear you on the line!