This is a bit old, but still very relevant to me considering my newfound obsession with MicroPlace. A press release announcing their “Small change. Big change” campaign.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080602/20080602005989.html?.v=1
I came across a great new opportunity for my company today going through the Social Actions Blog. Peter Deitz wrote a quick synopsis on a company called MicroPlace and how it differs from Kiva.
As he puts it, MicroPlace is essentially Kiva without the “warm glow”, which is a pretty good way of putting it I think. What he means by this is that whereas Kiva does not provide a return on investment to its lenders, MicroPlace does. At first, I thought to myself, “Well that just seems like a more selfish form of Kiva.”
When I thought about it a little more, though, I realized that if lender behavior at MicroPlace is anything like I imagine it is with Kiva’s lenders then this is actually a really good thing. I know that a lot of Kiva lenders just put their repaid loans right back towards a new loan. If MicroPlace lenders do the same thing then not only would they put the money straight back in, but they would have accrued a return as well to supplement a larger loan or put towards multiple loans.
Even if lenders do not re-invest the money, it’s still a fantastic thing to have another company reaching out to developing world entrepreneurs. Any investment in these initiatives is good investment. Click the link below to check out Peter Deitz’s full analysis on his blog.
http://blog.socialactions.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2062983%3ABlogPost%3A2361