Diaspora Matters

Today we  tackle cost cutting measures or cost containment measures by families. Our intention was to dive straight into cost cutting by business but decided to start with  families first and business last. They say good things start at home, in business we can trace a lot of qualities about a business person right from his or her doorstep! We cannot expect one to manage business finances well when they struggle with own home  finances. This is why we have decided to start at family level before moving to business level. So how do you ensure your costs remain low in an ever changing environment of price increases? How do you survive in a challenging economy where prices keep rising but income remaining constant?

One of the toughest things on earth is to adjust to a low income life when you would have been used to good life. To start drinking scuds when you have been used to drinking my favourite Castle Lite or Amstel. The other time i attended a Prize Giving Day at Tynwald Primary School where the Headmaster Mr Mujeri was telling parents of the difficult period parents face when they have to transfer kids from private schools to government schools-it can be real torture!

We  recently witnessed the increase in the price of beef and a few other goods due to the increase in Value Added Tax. Fortunately the increase was reversed although the order to reverse the price increases is still to be witnessed by consumers-Economists say ‘Prices are Sticky Downward’ and may help explain why prices have not gone down. The only price to go down seems to be the internet charges from Telone, Thank you Mrs Chipo Mutasa and Telone!

Anyway so how do we manage to stay within our means? There is no clear formula for this but we will try our best in helping our members and followers.  We believe that the key to survival is in how you manage costs. You can also add how to increase your income during your spare time. We are currently witnessing various strategies  by our members  such as buying groceries in bulk, transport pools,growing own food and  buying second hand clothes.  We will cover supplementary income ideas in future but for now lets look closely at cost containment measures.

Ideally one should not just begin by drafting cost cutting measures. You need to have a look at the big picture, why should you cut costs? Where is the economy going? Any lessons from the past? What is the make up of your monthly budget? What are the major cost drivers of your family budget?How are other families copying? Who is involved in cost cutting, should it be parents or the bread winner only leading the cost containment exercise?

There are a lot of questions involved in belt tightening measures. It is not an easy process to see your income going down but costs remaining the same or even increasing. So we have started with the family first and next time we will cover in detail cost cutting measures at your business. Your homework is to google search a business process called Value Analysis.

Lets hear  what our members have to say about managing costs at family level:

Yvonne Wadzanai Matyatya boiling beans dzakawanda then toisa mumapackets mufridge(saves electricity)

Missy Ree Ree Nyatananga We cld start nekudzinyika mumvura overnight dzokasika kuibva (more saving)

Micheal Tafadzwa Mapfumo Using public transport for going to wrk instead of using own car everyday. Convertung airtime into bundles,buying maize and make it done at a local mill,adopt a health diet calender which doesn’t include meat everyday.

Chloe Razemba Forming transport clubs that car pool together so you give each other a ride to and from work/town/church. You save on fuel and tollgate fees. Also car pooling for school run. Also using delivery services like District Services to get groceries bought and delivered home to you. Way cheaper than driving

Mai Anashe Tagwirei Family planning methods eg depo provera, loop, jadell

Taonga Taonga Family planning yes, but have you done an independent research on the negative effects of all these products

Prince Jay Ngwadzayi Work up early and use public transport to work.

Howard Takura Tsvangirayi there is a paraffin heaters I saw them mostly in S.A. heat the home in winter whilst you are cooking. they are not smelly at all or use marasha

Mabhiya Oxman use gas for cooking, its cheaper and no electricity cuts. use solar to power your entertainment, solar geyser and fridges, its very cheap in the long run. you can cut your electricity bill to zero. if you have space at your place, grow your own vegetables and save those coins for other pressing issues. if you use better roads to work, its time to downgrade from that 3l engine to a 1l engine, you may cut your fuel cost by half. also if you happen to have many girlfriends madhara, reduce to one girlfriend your wife, the savings will surprise you kkkk

Chloe Razemba Oh and I forgot we only iron clothes as they are worn in my household. You waste electricity ironing them after washing and then packing them, then ironing again before wearing. Once is enough. Also don’t carry cash whenever you leave the house, sesu madzimai hushayi chekutengera vana kumba. If you don’t need the cash, leave it at home.

One of our key focus this year will be the promotion of partnerhips by our members. Partnerships by locals as well as locals and Diasporans. Partnership is not an easy field because in most cases it results in the other party being shortchanged. Diasporans have already been partnering with relatives back home and wee have heard many sad stories where locals abused funds received for partnership projects.

Below we cover advice from www.entrepreneur.com for the benefit of our members

Pitfalls abound when entrepreneurs decide to become partners. Know what they are ahead of time so you can set up guidelines that allow people to walk away if things go wrong.

From powerhouse financiers like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to retailers like Baskin-Robbins to IT pioneers like Hewlett-Packard, business partnerships have been an important part of entrepreneurship and startup success. The reasons are simple: complementary skill sets, shared equipment or expenses, and the idea that one person with “hard” money capital can create synergy with the intellectual capital of another person so both can profit from their venture.

In theory, a partnership is a great way to start in business. In my experience, however, it’s not always the best way for the typical entrepreneur to organize a business.

The tough thing about most partnerships is that they are just like marriages, and if you know anything about those statistics, you know half of all marriages don’t survive. Making a marriage work involves handling a volatile mix of partnership issues: ego, money, stress, monthly overhead and day-to-day expenses. Throw in some employees you must manage, and you have a good idea of the work required to make a business partnership successful.

If you’re thinking about a partnership, consider the following list and avoid the potential pitfalls:

1. Sharing capital instead of expenses: Whenever you share your own capital–be it money, resources, information or property–you automatically give away your enterprise ability. In a perfect world, the person you are partnering with is upright, full of integrity, and not at all tempted to take this gift and run with it as his own. However, the world’s not perfect. So be careful. Instead, work out an arrangement where expenses are shared in an “associative” arrangement. It also makes it easier to walk away if things go wrong.

2. Partnering with someone because you can’t afford to hire: This is a partnership killer right from the start. The scene is always the same: Bob has a business idea and Fred has the business skills, but Bob can’t afford to hire Fred as an employee, so they decide to share duties, expenses and profits. What happens is both Bob and Fred end up working against each other, and Bob finds himself liable for Fred’s obligations (financial and otherwise) under the partnership agreement. If you’ve got the idea and someone else has the skill, simply hire him or work out an independent contractor agreement. Don’t give away what you don’t have to.

3. Lacking a written and signed partnership agreement: Due to the nature of partnerships, every detail and obligation must be clearly defined and written out, and agreed upon by all parties. This is best done with a written legal agreement drafted by a well-qualified, mutually agreed-upon lawyer. Just make sure the attorney is well-versed in business partnerships, and be sure to keep her card handy at all times. You may need that person again when things go wrong.

4. Overlooking a limited partnership: One of the main downfalls of a partnership agreement is the assumption of liability each partner makes for the other. A way around this is a limited partnership, where the limited partner is not liable for the actions or obligations of the general partner. Again, make sure an attorney well-versed in partnership agreements writes this arrangement.

5. Lacking an out or an exit strategy: Big-time marriages start with a pre-nuptial agreement. In business and contractual terms, a pre-nup is analogous to an exit agreement. In any partnership agreement, define the terms of an exit strategy that allows you or your partner to walk away from the partnership, or that provides options to buy out the other party. This can be done very clearly and simply–and without imploding the operations of a successful business.

6. Expecting the friendship to outlast the breakup of the partnership: Again, from the perspective of a marriage, how many ex-couples do you know who are truly friends? Not many, I suspect. So don’t go into any partnership with a friend expecting to remain friends after a partnership breakup. It may sound great to do business with your friends, but remember, in the business world, it’s always business first and friendships second. Also remember, most times when the business ends, so does the friendship.

7. Having a 50/50 partnership: Every business, including partnerships, needs a boss. If you decide to go the partnership route, make it a 60/40 or 70/30 split. Then you and the business have a point person for accountability and overall operational control. Also, keep your buyout or exit strategy clear and in your favor–benefitting you and saving problems down the road.

As a final note, I leave you with an interesting solution to the partnership issue from one of the companies mentioned earlier: Baskin-Robbins. Hopefully, it provides additional perspective.

When Burton Baskin and Irvine Robbins first considered partnering in the ice cream business, Robbins’ father advised against it, thinking the compromises each man would make in getting the partnership to work would kill the product’s potential. So the men each worked on their own businesses for two years before combining Robbins’ five shops with Baskin’s three stores under one name decided by the flip of a coin. Only after successfully launching and running their own separate businesses did the subsequent partnership actually work.

That’s one partnership formula I do know of that proved effective. And if it worked for those two pioneers of retail success, it just may work for you.

Angola Market Survey Angola has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world with an annual growth rate of 11.1% being observed for the period 2001-2010. There is significant foreign direct investment and the economy is dominated by oil which is exported mostly in its crude form and lesser quantities in the refined form. The country offers a wide range of trade and investment opportunities as it is undergoing a re-building phase following the civil war.

i. Government priority setting The Angolan Government is keen on diversifying into other economic activities in order to reduce dependence on oil, which currently contributes at least 80% to government revenue. The target sector for diversification is agriculture due to the existing potential.

ii. Resource endowment Angola is a resource rich country with oil, fertile soils, huge water bodies and unexploited deposits of various minerals, fish, forests and a growing population. These offer opportunities for mineral exploitation and processing, agriculture and timber and furniture manufacture.

iii. Opportunities in Angola There are trade and investment opportunities in Angola for Zimbabwean companies and Zimbabwe as a nation.

One of the key trade opportunities lies in the focus of the Angolan government on agricultural production and processing in that despite interventions in the agricultural sector by the government, there is still need for further investment. Investment in agriculture has presented an opportunity to the imports of farm implements especially those ox-driven. Meat and dairy products have export potential in Angola. Potential exists for pharmaceuticals, nonetheless with need to be aware of stiff competition; partnering with locals presents better avenues for market entry and export opportunity exploitation.

Clothing has potential although noted that the common fashion trends follow those of Brazil in addition to the preference of international brands and labels. Future prospects exist forprotective clothing exports to Angola. Very few construction companies currently use protective clothing although plans are underway by government to streamline and enforce health and safety regulations at work places.

Products with potential in the Angolan market include among others meat (fresh beef, pork, chicken), processed meat products, dairy products, farm implements, designer clothes, protective clothing and building materials.

There is also a gap in Angola in respect of human capital availability. Generally there is a shortage of English tutors/schools and artisanal skills. There are opportunities to establish English language training institutions and translation services for Government, diplomatic services, business and tourism activities.
Despite the availability of a wide range of opportunities, market entry into Angola has its own fair share of challenges and weaknesses.

iv. Import sources Angola imports about 90% of all its consumer goods and utilities. Currently trade is dominated by Portugal, Brazil, China and South Africa being the only main exporter from the SADC region. These countries have established their own niche markets, which to some extent are difficult to penetrate.

v. Trade prospects and opportunities for Zimbabwe There are generally good relations between Zimbabwe and Angola. It remains for Zimbabwe to take advantage of these good relations in accessing the market. There is work-in-progress towards finalization and implementation of a bilateral, economic and technical cooperation trade agreement which has been in the pipeline for some time; it is anticipated will pave way for future trade and investment initiatives.

vi. Investment opportunities Investment opportunities derive from the fact that Angola is still in need of infrastructural development which includes, road construction, housing and industrial development. Thecountry is endowed with a wide range of natural resources to support this sector including raw materials especially for the manufacture of bricks and cement.

There are a wide range of investment opportunities in Angola with countries like Brazil, Portugal, Spain and China having made significant market penetration in most economic and social sectors. Opportunities for investment are in agriculture (horticulture, poultry), animal husbandry, property development (residential, commercial and industrial), production of cement, schools that can teach English and skills development.

For Zimbabwean companies to make a breakthrough into the Angolan market, a medium to longterm strategy coupled with local partnerships is recommended. In addition to this, enterprises need to collaborate for them to have the financial edge for market penetration and also understand the business culture of the country.

Credit : ZIMTRADE

Mwadzukwa Bwanji, Good Morning ZBIN members and followers, so this morning I bring you Great News! Your favourite business forum has a new initiative to help our members in marketing their products and services. We are launching Southern Africas’ first Online Car Boot Sale! All regional adverts in one boot, the sale will be run every Sunday reaching all the 4 corners of Southern Africa.

As you already know, ZBIN reaches several African countries in Southern Africa such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Lesotho, Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa. We are therefore inviting members and followers from these countries to submit your adverts if you are interested in your adverts reaching a wider audience.

One Car Boot Sale for Southern Africa, connecting Southern Africa business in one place! Do send your adverts to my Whatsapp Number +263774081808 and I will compile and consolidate all posts and publish every Sunday at 7:00pm.

Remember the service is absolutely free

Ke a leboga

At ZBIN we have officially adopted Mozambique as our investment destination, this because no one talks positively about Mozambique. The only time the international community talks about Mozambique is when there are natural disasters like the current Dineo Cyclone which recently ravaged the beautiful nation. So if you want to read positive news about Mozambique then ZBIN is your number 1 choice. We have also decided to look for best business practice from countries that are rarely covered in Zimbabwe such as Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Philippines, Malaysia and Israel.

So this morning we would like to cover an important business practice called Benchmarking. Some of you already do benchmarking without knowing it, it is not an entirely concept. Let me provide you with a definition below:

Benchmarking is the process of comparing your own organization, operations, or processes against other organizations in your industry or in the broader marketplace. Benchmarking can be applied against any product, process, function or approach in business. Common focal points for benchmarking initiatives include: measures of time, quality, cost and effectiveness and customer satisfaction.

In short Benchmarking is to compare your own operations versus competitors and to generate ideas for improving processes, approaches and technologies.

Benefits of Benchmarking

1. Enables you to systematically monitor competitor’s shifting strategies and approaches.
2. It enables you to generate ideas for improving own operations
3. Benchmarking can help to reduce costs and increase profits.
4. Enable you to strengthen customer loyalty and satisfaction
5. Helps to identify and eliminate gaps in service or product delivery or to gain a competitive edge.

The Limitations of Internal Benchmarking:

There is a danger of being preoccupied with benchmarking such that you easily lose track of competitor and broader-world innovations and changing demands of customers. If you are not careful you can end up responding to competitor actions and not focus on your strategy.

So do not operate your business in isolation, always check what is happening next door, in your industry or across the borders. In simple terms this is a process of learning from the best, the crème de la crème in your industry. In Benchmarking Part 2, we will cover how to carry out a Benchmarking exercise and provide a few practical examples.

Enjoy your weekend

Lets hear what ZBIN members have to say:

Rutendo Faith kurima mavegs in garden like green beans.peas.carrots.butternuts.green pepper mushroom etc depending nenzvimbo

Tori Elles Mum Why paLong Chen chete Mdala Wa Rue

Mdala Wa Rue We will move from area to area, next week its going to be Birchenough Bridge…the other one Chipinge, Nkulumane and so on…We will even cross the border as our members are also found outside Zim. So for those familiar with Longchen just put yourself there….you have been given $100 and with $100 you are supposed to grow it so that u can be self sustainable

Maria Gapara Konyango He can buy a 20ltr bucket of honey for $65 which will give give him 60bottles of honey. Use the rest of the money to buy bottles to pack the honey in. Oita target macustumers epaLonchen achitengesa at $3.50. He will make kanice $210 kake. Ah regai nditokaitawo kabusiness kacho…😜

Sir Emmanuel Angel Dausi i will get stuff like kids toys , toiletries and resale them in town or kughetto they are very cheap palongchen

Tendai Mazike Jani Buy green vegetables at mbare musika and sell them to supermarkets

Vongai Tongesayi Akatora $100 anouya kuSunony otora manatural products omatengesera machinese nemablacks achirapa vanhu sezvandiri kuitawo at 100percent profit

Micheal Tafadzwa Mapfumo I will buy chemicals for waterless car wash. I will then negotiate with motorist in the car park so that l will get their cars done whilist they do their shopping

Zet’Kay Davyd Will go for airtym business

Wayne Teflondon Zimstar Nice brainstorming maboss

Tee Earl Tee It’s sunny these days so I think making those paper caps with a string behind for both kids and parents would give you a good return. They just need to be branded with the cartoon characters or a cool meme

Mdala Wa Rue Great answers Thanx guys: For our analysis these are important facts-Economy not expected to grow slowly with a targeted rate of 4% in 2017, liquidity challenges continuing to affect Zimbos, forex challenges a key factor in the Economy.
A look at Long Cheng (Thanx for corrections), shoppers mostly visit the area for the Ivato Supermarket,Ivato Hardware,Kids Park and other shops. Other shops consist of boutiques, liquor, night clubs, health and fitness, electrical shops and video game shops.
Its agreed $100 cannot do much at this popular place which is largely visited by parents visiting the Kids Park. We can however segment visitors and identify (Parents and Kids) as a key customer segment. Someone has identified toys,hats etc…great stuff. You can distribute fliers for schools and creches for a commission too-this does not require a lot of capital.
Perhaps the biggest business u can do at Long Cheng is to create your own online Longcheng (Already one exist but is not good enough). Create a website for $80, have a basic site like what ZBIN did when we first registered our site. On the site place all shops that exist at the mall…..sell the idea to retailers at the mall that you will host them on your site and help promote them, highlighting products and services-discounts etc. You can have a shop feature interviewing shop owners.
You can create a hype-create followers of Long Cheng and convince them why they should visit the mall, what else to see besides the Children’s Park. New developments at the mall, new shops and why people should visit it. Initial resistance from shop owners to be expected but they will accept if you can show results…charge them for the service.

Risks
An existing website exists so you need to discuss first with Long Cheng for the use of their name.

Justice Mungwini ndirini ne $100 ndonotora hangu ma ice cream pa dairiboard…or kutopindira chibage chinyoro mu Mbare ndosvikoita gochi gochi pa entrance…zvikafaya ndo expanda ndaakutotora nenyimo nyoro ndotengesa dzabikwa…ndichiisa mari pa side till ndatenga ka bakkie…

So there you are some of the brilliant responses from our members. Do add if you have additional contributions.

At ZBIN we only give free investment information, we do not take funds from members for investment. What you do with the free information we provide you is your business. Our aim is to enable you to make informed decisions when it comes to investment. We like to see more people investing and creating a lot of opportunities for themselves and the nation.

We have a ‘No Thanks Policy’, you just obtain free information and disappear without saying Thank You to the admin. So we have given you a lot of investment information covering Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe-we feel proud of the number of hits of the posts we covered this week. More should be coming your way next week as we cover various investment options.

Online Forex Trading fraudsters

We have decided to end the week by looking at Risk Management. As you know investment and risks zvinoti gedye gedye-pane ma opportunities panozara mbavha. Some time back we encouraged our members to be wary of fraudsters and specifically covered Online Forex Trading where we encouraged members to learn to trade on their own and never allow anyone to trade on their behalf. Do not part with monies by being hoodwinked by Online Forex Traders.

Some are offering free lessons on forex trading and after that encourage members to open accounts and trade on behalf of them. All of these schemes are resulting in a lot of people losing their hard earned monies. As I write this article, I have in my inbox a sister who has provided me with names of 2 Online Forex Traders who received thousands of dollars from a group made of 64 members. Each member contributed funds ranging from $200 to $1500. Initially a few people who invested funds got good returns before the fraudsters disappeared without trace.

As ZBIN we have an Online Forex Trading Group where members get free information and resources, you do not pay joining fees, we encourage members to get confidence trading on dummy accounts before going live. Avoid paying funds to people forming WhatsApp groups claiming to give good returns on investment-most of these people are fraudsters who will disappear with your monies after you have gained confidence in them.

Poultry Fraudsters

The second group of fraudsters comes from people with poultry schemes who visit farmers and selling broiler chicks. They later ask farmers to sign contract forms to join poultry schemes where they pay monies upfront for more chickens with a promise of a guaranteed market. After farmers have parted with their monies, the fraudsters disappear for good. This is rife in rural and peri-urban areas.

So we are coming back again and encouraging our members to be wary of crooks who are coming up with new schemes. The schemes initially give good returns to a few people just like the MMM scheme but with time collapse leaving a lot of disappointed investors.Do not join any new group promising good returns on investment.

We took the following photos during our first forum business tour of Cidade De Tete which is located less than 360 kilometres from Harare.

A lot of opportunities exist in the city and our brothers and sisters from across Limpopo have taken over. South Africans have established their own shopping malls where you can find sops such as Shoprite and PEP.

Our next business tour to explore Mozambique is  during the Easter Holiday in April 2017. Interested in travelling? If you are interested in travelling we have good news for you-there is no need to pay any joining fee or travel costs to the group-you can just bring  your car and friends  and join the fun in discovering Beira.

More information to come in March 2017. Do check out some of the photos that we took (apologies for quality).

ZBIN covers 6 countries in Southern Africa namely Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. Our posts mainly target nationals from those 6 countries and we also include the Diaspora. We have 2 business groups under the ZBIN umbrella for South Africans and Malawians, in future we hope to cover Namibia, Zambia and Botswana.

We continue with our vision Towards a Diaspora Strategy where we hope that governments in Southern Africa will appreciate the importance of the Diaspora community and develop strategies for engagement with this important community.

We start with a few highlights from the World Bank MIGRATION AND REMITTANCES FACTBOOK 2016 THIRD EDITION BOOK

1. More than 247 million people, or 3.4 percent of the world population, live outside their countries of birth. Although the number of international migrants rose from 175 million in 2000 to more than 247 million in 2013 and will surpass 251 million in 2015, the share of migrants has remained just above three percent (of world population) for the last fifteen years.
2. The top migrant destination country is the United States, followed by Saudi Arabia, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Spain, and Australia. The top six immigration countries, relative to population, are outside the high-income OECD countries: Qatar (91 percent), United Arab Emirates (88 percent), Kuwait (72 percent), Jordan (56 percent), and Bahrain (54 percent).
3. In 2015, worldwide remittance flows are estimated to have exceeded $601 billion. Of that amount, developing countries are estimated to receive about $441 billion, nearly three times the amount of official development assistance. The true size of remittances, including unrecorded flows through formal and informal channels, is believed to be significantly large.
4. The cost of remittances is the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa and in the Pacific Island countries (for example, it costs more than 20 percent to send $200 from Australia to Vanuatu, and 19 percent from South Africa to Zambia). As of the third quarter of 2015, the average cost worldwide remained close to 8 percent—far above the 3 percent target set in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Below we look closely at micro finance involvement in the diaspora remittance sector. This is a key missing link especially when one looks at Zimbabwe where close to a US $1 billion was remitted in 2016. The figure can double or triple if an enabling environment is in place to encourage investment by the Diaspora. We encourage Researchers and Policy Makers to look closely at the organisation called Kiva and the link with micro finance institutions.

Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Give a woman microcredit, she, her husband, her children and her extended family will eat for a lifetime.’ Bono

According to Johnson and Sedaca many experts feel that increasing the involvement of credit unions and microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the remittance transfer process is a promising means to expand financial access to the poor, particularly in rural areas with no access to the larger commercial banks. Microcredit and microfinance are relatively new terms in the field of development, first coming to prominence in the 1970s and they are recognized as effective tools to alleviate poverty. ‘Broadly speaking, microfinance for loans (i.e., microcredit) is the provision of small-scale financial services to people who lack access to traditional banking services. The term microfinance usually implies very small loans to low-income clients for self-employment,

There are said to be at least nine traditional features of microfinance:

1 Small transactions and minimum balances (whether loans, savings, or insurance)

2 Loans for entrepreneurial activity

3 Collateral-free loans

4 Group lending

5 Target poor clients

6 Target female clients

7 Simple application processes

8 Provision of services in underserved communities

9 Market-level interest rates.

It is reported that microfinance institutions are increasingly looking to diasporas as a source of funding for small enterprises. To that end, the World Diaspora Fund (WDF) was launched in 2010 and it is an initiative of the Working Group of the International Migrants Remittances Observatory for Least Developed Countries in partnership with several public and private organizations. The WDF is intended to offer migrants a secure investment vehicle (microcredit organizations) that will contribute to the development of their countries of origin.

The WDF will invest through loans, guarantees, or even taking stakes in microfinance institutions in the South. The Fund will also participate in financing infrastructure identified by the migrants. The Fund will invest through guarantees, loans and equity in microfinance institutions that are regulated and sustainable. It will also participate to the co-financing of infrastructures proposed by the migrants. Furthermore, organizations such as Kiva.org provide a channel through which diaspora members can provide microfinance to the homeland. Kiva is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world. Kiva works with microfinance institutions on five continents to provide loans to people without access to traditional banking systems. One hundred percent of the loan is sent to these microfinance institutions, which Kiva call Field Partners, who administer the loans in the field. Since Kiva was founded in 2005 it has made $203 million in loans through 568,876 Kiva lenders with a 98.65% repayment rate.

‘If you look at Kiva.org, people with a very modest amount of money can make a huge positive impact all around the world. There are so many people who want to give but don’t really know how to do it. Through Kiva.org, people around the world can become micro-bankers to developing world entrepreneurs, who have their own ideas, so we can give them a chance to raise their kids with dignity, send their kids to school, and in troubled places like Afghanistan we can marginally increase the chance that peace can prevail, because people will see there is a positive alternative to conflict.’ Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States