I love kiva! Thanks for greate work!

This was a great illustration of how kiva works, and also why it is so powerful. I guess I need to go check my kiva account today to see whether I have any loans repaid to lend again.

Such a wonderful and easy way to make everyone feel good. Even my grand-daughters get Kiva gift vouchers. Great video. Thank you Kieran Ball and friends.

Janet Z. Denver
This type of video is so great for people who want to know exactly how it works and that many people are a part of the transaction, and are carefully training and monitoring the debtor to the highest of expectations. They want to see the financial process so they can be assured they are not just giving money away; they are not just enabling or crippling someone, or are giving to people who are not hard workers. I believe these individuals have spent their entire lives focussed on earning, guarding, and identifying themselves as wealthy people with higher level life styles and owners of many things. I believe a large number of them have good hearts and would like to feel that they are contributing to the betterment of others who do not have the opportunities they had in their lives. I think they're financial success has negatively colored their view of the poor in our world. They are wary of people getting something for nothing. Some of those citizens completely believe that hard work always brings financial success, "so pull up your bootstraps and get to work." They want to know there have been some obstacles in their way, but that they are still pushing forward wth all their might and with lots of supervision to meet their goals.

My only recommendation for the next video aimed towards those mentioned above is to give a glimpse of the training and process of elimination the applicants must go through, along with an attached optional financial statement showing the records of success in different countries and of KIVA itself.

Now, speaking for people like myself who have some where around lower middle class incomes, who don't care if we get our money back everytime, we would love to see a video of a few recipients and how they live, work and the struggles and joys of their daily lives. I would love to hear their own words. I realize this is too intrusive for many, but my experience has been that there are many who would like to share their stories. Maybe it's not in KIVA's goals to expand the awareness and understanding of all the cultures of our world, but it certainly seems like it might help others to see their own enormous prosperity and to recognize how they have the ability to empower, not just to feel pity, to so many others while just giving a small amounts of money. I personally would like to know which borrowers are having harder times and still have some hope of doing better, even if they fail a few times first. I know I can look at the stars given for each loan, but I would love a pull down categories with an option of high risk instead of popularity. Well, I'm off track now. Of course the biggest gift would be to recognize the world citizens as part of our own family.
I would like to congratulate the maker of the video and encourage her to do many more. It's certainly a gift that was greatly needed. I will pass it on. our own family

Many thanks! The impact of video gives a sense of engagement and 'presence' that the written word often lacks. Time to re-invest my Kiva balance!

Love it. Thanks so much for making this video. I am a Kiva lender and I promote Kiva on my websites and in my subscriber newsletters. But it's hard to explain to people in words how the Kiva process works, and why it's such a brilliant concept. I have embedded this video on one of my sites and will be using it onlne wherever I can.

This video could be the butterfly that flaps its wings on one side of the world and causes a tsunami somehwere else. Hopefully everywhere else.

Thank you so much! I run a middle school Roots & Shoots club that has been loaning to KIVA for a couple of years. This will go a long way toward helping them visualize and understand what is happening with the money we lent. Even my 11 and 8 year old sons, who are also KIVA lenders, watched the whole video and it helped them understand. Thanks!

Wonderful! I have been a Kiva lender for a couple of years now, but I will use this to recruit friends.

Fantastic! I've been a Kiva lender for a while myself, love the whole empowerment philosophy. Will definitely blog about this video and add to the viral process!

Great job! Thank you for your time.

Beautiful. We love Kiva! And as an editor I know how much work putting that together was. Thanks for both your editing and Kiva work. Good on ya.

Awesome video...I've been trying to explain Kiva to people for a couple of years now, so this will be great to pass along...thanks to all, for the work you do and for the priviledge you afford the rest of us as well. This is what changes the world, bit by bit, and brings out the best of humanity. I am grateful for the hope you inspire, the empowerment of those you help, and the opportunity to contribute myself. God bless you all!

Fantastic video; well-edited and very informative. I would second the motion for more details on what the loan recipient does with the money, but as an introduction to Kiva, this is great! Beautiful work.

Really great. Loved the images and the music...
My daughter and I love lending... What an inspirational organization!
Thank you for the opportunity to be part of it!

You make me so happy that I cry!

Great video - thanks for posting it.
We often get asked about Kiva and how it works...this explains the whole thing much better, clearer and with more fun than I even could.

Wonderful and exciting. How can we extend this concept to support people's basic needs on a one to one basis? Not just small businesses.

Great work, Kiva!!!

Love the video! It's informative and entertaining. It made me laugh and it made me proud to be a Kiva donor. Great job--despite of your right handedness :)!

The video is awesome--love the photos, the satellite maps, the music--wow, the music--and then the message of how it all works. Just great! Thanks, Kieran Ball! Great work!

Congrats for a great video!
Don't want to lower the value of such initiatives (I lend through Kiva and offered a Kiva gift certificate for Christmas), but to make the circle complete, I'd love to know which company/country gets the fertilizer money and whether the chemical choice is sustainable for their soil and rivers... ;)
Keep up the great micro finance job and communicate!

Wonderful! Thank you so much for making it more real! I had no idea so much was involved in my Kiva loans, to get from me to the borrower.

Impressive - this really brings it home! Great Job Kieran! I'm going to send the link to some people I'm trying to interest in joining Kiva. Hope it goes viral - it deserves to be spread.

Absolutely brilliant, Kieran! One of the things that makes Kiva such a wonderful choice is the fact that it's not only transparent and accountable, but that it puts a face to things. You know who you are helping, and how. It makes it so much more personal that a traditional form of outreach.

I'm part of an online community where I created a tool called the "Giving Tree", inviting customers and friends to buy a leaf from it. I sponsor an entrepreneur and put their picture in front of the tree so that people know who they are helping to lift up. When they purchase the leaf, they get a framed picture with the story from Kiva and the link. This works because people are able to contribute very small amounts and yet still know they are making a tangible difference. This video you've crafted will give me one more way to make the giving "real" at a time when we are looking to scale the program up significantly for 2009. We were able to make 42 loans from April through December because of the eye-heart connection that Kiva makes possible. Your video will boost this so much more!

Thanks, Kieran, for a wonderful tool, and most especially for your leap of faith in the form of a choice to leave job security to go volunteer abroad.

Namaste,
Sue Stonebender,
The Giving Tree Program, Second Life online community.

What a great video! It inspired me to take a few seconds out of my day and make yet another loan!

Fabulous!! It is easy to follow the route of the money and learn more about Kiva. What a great idea and so inspiring! Congratulations to you Kieran

The Video is so wonderful. Thank you. I feel so proud to be a grain of sand in this wonderful endeavour. It does my heart good to see people helping people. Thank you for the opportunity to help.

Wonderful. If there's a way we could see videos of the folks 'doing what it is they do', I'd love it even more. Thanks for helping us transport our hearts to those in need. A business model of true beauty, that is making a difference. So refreshing and uplifting. You all just rock! Now, to send more $ to kiva!

Very well done!

Lovely video, I have a few Kiva loans through AMK so was especially relevant. Thanks for making it and sharing.

fantastic ! well done !! I cried, because I found it very moving. Keep your good work up! We still have to climb the mountaintop to see the promised land !

Great video to really show how the process works and some of the real people involved.

It is so well produced that it would be wonderful to see some shorter videos of the same standard to explain Kiva quickly to newcomers to the idea and really get them excited

Good luck Kieran in your work as a Kiva Fellow

Seeing is believing, actions are louder than words, giving back pushes forward. This puts a perspective on what we can do.

Time to make a loan! Thanks Kiva Folk!!

I "joined" KIVA about 14 months ago. I wish now that I had made my first loan then. This vid has inspired me to make my first loan! What a better time of the year than January?

Wonderful! I love Kiva. What an easy way to make a big difference in someones life.

kiva.org makes me happy.

Fantastic!

The video was touching and definitely hit on a deeper emotional chord (already being a lender). It was a great "detailed" explanation for people already very interested; However, a 2nd version would be better if you could crop a shorter 2-3min (max 5 min) for busy people (or those with short attention spans =) when you're just showing it to someone for the first time they don't always need all that detail. Keep the personal/story elements of the borrower, a little on the lender, and speedup or crop the rest. It runs a little too slow/long for most newbies. Otherwise, very impactful for my kind of audience-- thank you! Kiva is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

This was great to see how Kiva actually works. Inspiring and creates a better understanding of the opportunity Kiva provides.

GREAT JOB Kieran! I love this organization. I will forever be BIG supporter of KIVA efforts.

I got a loan gift certificate for christmas and just lent to someone. I'm glad to know how it all works. Thanks so much for working so hard to create it.

Great job Kieram. You show us how a small amount can really work.

Awesome, Kieran. A few months ago, I did a blog entry about Kiva and one person totally hated the whole thing (got really nasty with me!). This will explain far better than I am able what Kiva is and does. Thank you!

I love it! Seeing the realness behind it all is making me post my second loan. Thanks for the "behind the scenes" look at kiva. Please the soundtrack was fabulous

Makes me proud to be even a small lender. Nice video. I will recruit my family with it and build our lending power.

have followed keenly on kiva and am now convinced its a good thing tom be in it
thanks
bravo kiva

Vraiment explicite cette video ! pour les anglophones .
Please make it with subtitles in different languages
Je ne regrette vraiment pas mon premier prèt .

Long life to Kiva .

heading straight to the kiva website to check it out! super interesting video!

small amount given, big results. I really believe in micro credit. Thanks for this excellent video - it gave me a good picture of where "my" money is going.

This is a great video. My 8th grade social studies students will be making a loan through Kiva soon. I have already shown them the Frontline video,,I will have to try to fit this one in as well. Thanks for making it!

Bravo!

Ok, am I the only one to notice.... She was making a payment of "about 9 dollars" and her re-payment to Kiva was just over "2 dollars" so that's roughly $7 interest on $2 principal or 350% interest per year! Now I am a Kiva Member, and I've loaned out a BUNCH of money, but till now I've never seen the other side of it. Nor has ANYONE ever explained it. So here's a couple questions... 1. does ANY of that money (interest) get paid back to KIVA? 2. If they say no, how do we know for sure? 3. Is there any way to "cut out the middle man" and get the interest rate lower for the borrower. I fully understand that someone has to be paid to do all the work of lending, collecting, tracking etc. but come on... 350% interest? I also KNOW that the woman seemed happy to have gotten the loan, and that it's likely she would not have been able to get this loan ANY other way. But this just seems like another way for someone (companies) to get rich off the back of the poorest people. So I'll leave it this way, HOW does someone make it even better?

Hi everyone, thanks so much for your amazing comments. I'm really really pleased that the video has reached so many people.

d Ruiz - you are actually only the second person to question the $9 payment, and you'll be glad to know that Mrs Van Makara is not paying 350%.

She is on a special loan product from AMK designed for farmers which means that she pays interest only for the first 4 months to allow her rice crop time to yield. The $9 represents one month interest on her $300 loan, so 3% per month.

This rate is the standard AMK rate. We actually asked her and other borrowers in the area what their alternatives are and they told us either another MFI at a similar rate, or local money lenders at around 10-20% per month.

I had included all this in the video but thought it made it over-complicated so I took it out, in hindsight I should have taken the $9 bit out too as this can be confusing. It was a trade-off between providing lots of detail and making the video easier to watch, in this part I chose the latter.

In answer to your other questions, Kiva gets no interest back as this would require them to be SEC regulated, so all the interest is kept by the MFI, as is normal practice. This interest is used to cover the high transaction costs faced when giving small loans to many people in remote areas. AMK makes a small profit but all of this is retained for use in the business, it does not pay dividends to shareholders.

As Abby said above, the questions you pose are common in microfinance and the microfinance gateway and Kiva blog are great places to start learning about the different schools of thought.

I'm happy to answer any further questions you have, just message me on my Kiva page kiva.org/lender/kieran6711.

Thanks,
Kieran

Great Video - should help explain this to many people - including grandkids whom I want to "gift" with their first Kiva loan. Kieran, thanks for making it & doing such a fine job. Also, thanks for clearing up the interest issue. Good job, all!

That is fantastic, what a wonderful Video. thanks for sharing.
I will be lending on Kiva.org very soon :)

this is great! an organization that I belong to lent to Kiva, and I can't wait to share this video with them.

Good video, explains very well!

Hi - Just joined vimeo - as a four year lender with Kiva.org, I appreciate the explanation of the process and especially since I just did a big loan of $500 from my project, Red Pants for the World - thanks for great video - judi romaine

Fantastic video! Thank you so very much!

I am a Kiva Member, and am always trying to share the joy of lending :o) . This video will make it much, much easier for others to understand! I've posted it on my Facebook profile, and have added it to my email signature, as well as embedding it into my blogs and web page.

Many thanks.

Terrific! Amazing story deserving of wide attention and praise.

Love this video...I know why I support and loan to Kiva but it's nice to share the process with my friends through videos like this....
THANK YOU!

Great video.

----
hghzonecenter.com

This was incredible. Thanks for the inspiration. All the best

Kieran, this is a great video. Some of the reasons it really speaks to me are: it communicates a vision; it makes it easy for people to feel good about Kiva and what Kiva stands for; it addresses basic human needs - e.g., to feel connected, to help others; it's serious, passionate, and humorous, all at once; it speaks of collaboration; it reflects the potential of good storytelling; the list goes on.... Thanks.

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Kieran, this video still rocks every time I view it. So informative and also entertaining, with a great soundtrack to boot. :) KIVA was lucky to have you as a Fellow, and so were we lenders...

As someone who is a lender that will probably never have the time or ability to travel as a fellow (although I would love to have the ability some day), it is nice to see a high quality video production that gives a bird's eye view of the "journey of the money" and trip around the world....in less than 10 minutes! As close to being there as possible for me. Bravo on the film, and carry on all you dedicated and intelligent people using high technology for the true betterment of humankind....it brings great hope to see such fine work and caring.