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What happened to the microfinance company Kiva?
- push-to-prod 3y agoGreed happened, by the sound of it.
- _benj 3y agono surprises there, but it still makes me a little sad...
- bwb 3y agoHoly crap that is a huge CEO salary for a non profit
- krsrhe 3y agoNonprofit just means no shareholders. Direct employees and vendors can still get rich. In Kiva's case, the local partner banks do really well.
- satvikpendem 3y agoFYI you are shadowbanned and have been for quite some time, it seems. All of your comments show up "dead." Edit: why the downvotes? Are we not supposed to tell an account it's been shadowbanned?
- j_crick 3y agoCampaigning is real vOv
- JohnFen 3y ago> All of your comments show up "dead." Not for me, they don't.
- satvikpendem 3y agoDo you have showdead on in your HN profile settings? This is what it looks like for me: https://i.imgur.com/ev5jvEt.png https://i.imgur.com/ev5jvEt.png
- viraptor 3y agoThey may not be shadowbanned. Many of those comments are just low quality and likely downvoted.
- satvikpendem 3y agoEvery single one seems to be dead: https://i.imgur.com/ev5jvEt.png https://i.imgur.com/ev5jvEt.png I'm not sure why some of those comments would have been flagged normally, they don't seem to break any HN rules at all. Given the fact that they're all dead, I was leaning towards being shadowbanned.
- viraptor 3y agoCheck further pages - some are up. They're not flagged - that would show up differently then just dead. They're just likely to be downvoted, because they're mostly low quality.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoI run across dead comments occasionally that have nothing rule breaking about them. Offend too many of the snowflake brigade and you too can be killed. You're not supposed to be downvoting reflexively to suppress unpopular opinions. I always vouch for those that are worthwhile, substantive comments even if it's a statement I don't agree with.
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoFYI you are shadowbanned as well, this comment shows up as "dead".
- satvikpendem 3y agoYeah looks like I was downvoted below -4.
- Hitton 3y agoIs there even such thing as shadowban on HN?
- boeingUH60 3y agoThat doesn't even register on the grand scheme; https://nonprofitlight.com/ https://nonprofitlight.com/ Example; Roger Goodell - National Football League - $30.3 million.
- cameldrv 3y agoGotta hand it to the #2, Holly Lang, adoption director of the Minnesota Companion Rabbit society for her $24 million salary though.
- boeingUH60 3y agoThat's actually a glitch...her salary was $24,694, and ProPublica ‘s website somehow picked that up as $24,694,000, which that website cited. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/201864550 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/201...
- tonymillion 3y agoThanks for clarifying, I looked at the site from GP and I WTF’ed loud enough to wake my dog.
- bombcar 3y agoSee you wouldn't have that problem if you had a companion Rabbit, for the low low price of all your money.
- david_allison 3y agoIt shows $24,693,084 in the filings for 2018. Definitely inaccurate data
- callalex 3y agoWow they didn’t even bother to fact check the top 2 data points? ProPublica is a useless joke.
- cobertos 3y agoIs it? I looked at another non-profit (the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, which manages the post-humous funds of the guy who made Fairchild Semiconductor) and the president makes $500k+ https://beta.candid.org/profile/6906786?keyword=Sherman+fairchild+foundation https://beta.candid.org/profile/6906786?keyword=Sherman+fair... I do love IRS Form 990 in this way...
- Gustomaximus 3y agoFor people that didn't see article: "In 2020, the CEO took home over $800,000. Combined, Kiva’s top 10 executives made nearly $3.5 million in 2020. In 2021, nearly half of Kiva’s revenue went to staff salaries." Also interestingly I spoke to someone about running AdWords campaigns for them as a volunteer and got ghosted. Always felt that was a bit rude. Say if they found another preferred or decided to not run the ads. But from this I wonder how much additional staff not in the salary stats is voluntary if they used volunteers for various kinds of internal activities.
- xunil2ycom 3y ago"he individual Kiva lenders earn no interest;" That's why I never bothered with Kiva. You want my money but you're not going to give me even a small cut? No thank you.
- akudha 3y agoNot everything in life needs to make a profit. Kiva is not an investment instrument for making profits, it is to help people who are less fortunate than us. I am now out of touch with Kiva (though I still make loans) but I have been to many of their events, met some of the employees, met some terrific lenders who are genuinely passionate about helping people. I am disappointed how Kiva has turned out these days, but they were doing good work. Their lender community is insanely passionate. There are lenders who are worth 8/9 figures and then there are people who can only spare 50$ a month and everyone in between. If you don't trust me, just go read their teams messages. So yeah, if you are looking to make a quick profit, Kiva (and Kiva like orgs) is not for you
- nocoiner 3y agoI agree that many things should not be subject to the profit motive. But I’m going to put my capital at risk for no return - in the best case scenario - while the CEO of a middleman takes home $850k? No thanks.
- callalex 3y agoAre you aware of the human concept of a donation? What about a gift?
- prepend 3y ago> Kiva is not an investment instrument for making profit For sustainability it needs to have a return for the investor. It seems odd that I would “loan” my money and not get a return. I donate to charities. That seems more efficient. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just build in a return to investors to attract more people willing to learn. Kiva is making money. The CEO is making money, it seems odd not to pay people who lend money. As it is now, I’d rather donate and get a tax deduction and be done with it and have the firm lend out my donation over and over.
- ROTMetro 3y agoWhy does the current incarnation of Silicon Valley have to always be shady? Why can't it say 'our service is X' and then deliver service X, not some who knows what other agenda? A car parts store just sells car parts, they don't change and offer refrigerator parts since they already have a distribution system for parts and then tell their customers 'we have to do this in order to keep selling car parts'. Also, 'we are shifting our required by law in store oil recycling to 'contractors' and if they happen to just be dumping it into the river not our problem, wasn't us, we tried' (narrator: they didn't try). Silicon Valley deserves the hate and bad reputation they now have. They've acted in bad faith for too long while fostering an air of 'trying to make the world better'. I'm so glad they've lost their sales tax exemption and I hope they get kneecapped on every other 'advantage' they have (i.e. 'we don't have employees, we are empowering independent contractors who happen to look just like employees'). America had so much optimism for tech and now they hate it, maybe reflect for a bit on why.
- antisthenes 3y agoInformation asymmetry is how capital extracts maximum possible value from the consumer in whatever fields they can get their grubby hands on.
- Biologist123 3y agoInformation is power, as they say.
- ironmagma 3y ago> Why can't it say 'our service is X' and then deliver service X Anyone can do that. It takes a real businessman to know how to scam as many people as possible at once.
- fred_is_fred 3y agoSome interesting dark patterns here when I tried to pull my money after reading this. I had $30 or so. 1. Login, start withdrawal process. Get sent email verification link. 2. Click link, continue. Select which PayPal account to send to. 3. Site logs me out. 4. Log in again. Continue process. Get a 2nd verification email. It notes that Withdrawals are manual from the accounting team and take 1-2 weeks. 5. Click 2nd verification email. Dropped back into account with no confirmation. 6. Withdrawal information arrives.
- wwtdtgotiatl 3y agoUtterly bewildering statement by the VP Guis in here: > she found it odd that an American would be offered 0% interest while borrowers in poorer parts of the world were being charged up to 70%, according to the estimates posted on Kiva’s website. “I don’t see why poor people in Guatemala should basically be subsidizing relatively rich people here in Minnesota,” she told me. Guis disagreed, telling me, “I take issue with the idea that systematically marginalized communities in the US are less deserving.” She said that in 2022, nearly 80% of the businesses that received US loans were “owned by Black, Indigenous, and people of color.” Do Black Americans really put themselves on par with Guatemalan subsistence farmers? Seems like such an egregious thing to say. Not trying to handwave away real issues but these two groups couldn't be further apart.
- krsrhe 3y ago[dead]
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoIs it the case that black Americans are putting themselves on par with Guatemalan subsistence farmers, or that the VP is doing so?
- scarmig 3y agoIt's just corporate wokewashing. Make a profit-oriented decision, then offer a post-hoc rationalization of why it's good for racial minorities and hope to get some good press out of it. Nothing new or surprising here. Guis, it bears pointing out, is a white woman, not Black, and it's silly to attribute her shoddy ideas to Black people en masse.
- bhouston 3y agoWell, it looks like Kiva got taken over by leadership who are aiming to maximize the return to themselves rather than driving the original vision. As a Kiva donor for about a decade, it is probably time to move on. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.
- waveBidder 3y agogivewell has much better ideas, with give directly going in a similar vein of putting money in the hands of the global poor
- m_rcin 3y agoI tend to agree, although the salaries and transparency in give directly also raise questions. https://twitter.com/carolinefiennes/status/1600067781226950656 https://twitter.com/carolinefiennes/status/16000677812269506...
- Apocryphon 3y agoGuess Cory Doctorow's thesis continues to apply for all sorts of websites.
- erlend_sh 3y agoEnshittification spares no platform business.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- Baeocystin 3y agoKiva has been one of my main ways to give for many years. I've noticed that the pickings have been slimmer, and variety worse, for the past few. I'd chalked it up to effects of the pandemic, but damn. I've certainly noticed how much harder they push for donations to them when checking out. This really bums me out.
- nostromo 3y agoGive small loans to your extended family and friends instead. You’ll be surprised how many will pay you back, even when you tell them they don’t have to pay it back ever, or can when they’re able to. This is how financing worked for a long time. You’re the best judge of your network’s need for money, and if it’ll actually be helpful or be wasted on something wasteful or destructive like drugs. Larger loans to help family buy a home or a small business can be transformative. You can even ask for equity or to be repaid with interest when the property is sold (this makes it a loan and not taxable income). These human connections to your lending are incredibly fulfilling for everyone involved. Just be sure you can lose it entirely with no hurt feelings or holding it over them.
- MuffinFlavored 3y ago> Give small loans to your extended family and friends instead. I feel like amongst the entire HN userbase that this will touch, somebody has to chime in and say the opposite on why you shouldn't do this?
- convolvatron 3y agook, I'll bite. I've done this a fair amount - and while it feels good to help your friends and neighbors and family - its gets weird. old friends calling me up asking if I want to buy the bar they work at because they hate their boss. people who've I've helped a lot turned out not to really like me very much. but I still think the sentiment stands
- berkle4455 3y agoNever give loans to friends or family. Give gifts.
- theogravity 3y agoAgreed. You give money to friends and family knowing it won't be paid back. Less emotional pain when you realize this.
- 3y ago
- Animats 3y ago> as Kiva began to launch new programs like Kiva Capital, as well as Protocol, a blockchain-enabled credit bureau launched in Sierra Leone in 2018 and then closed in 2022. Uh oh. Here's Kiva's own hype about that.[1] It's about identity verification with fingerprints and tying financial information to that. [1] https://www.kiva.org/protocol/ https://www.kiva.org/protocol/
- tlogan 3y agoKiva seems more focused on selling good feelings than truly caring for those on the other side. That is case for 99% of non profits. I do not know if this is a new trend in US or it was always like that. My opinion is that this is a human nature. I grew up under communism, where, despite the prevalent notion of equality (or whatever), party leaders often enjoyed disproportionate wealth and luxuries like seaside homes.
- lacrimacida 3y agoCorruption or greed is human nature but so is fighting back against it when it gets way out of balance.
- nathanmurfey 3y agoAnyone got any tips for a Kiva alternative?
- Biologist123 3y agoLend with Care.
- rasengan0 3y agoFirst loan 2012. Last loan 2021. Now I wonder if those small amounts invested in those home countries would have had a better return over the 9 years in one lump sum to a few select lending cooperatives.
- Biologist123 3y agoSome brand name not-for-profits pay surprisingly high salaries to their senior executives, some in the range of USD1M/year. It’s led me to believe that whilst not-for-“profit” in the technical definition of the meaning, they are certainly run as “for-the-benefit” of their management. There are many which do not play this game - apparently not Kiva - and seem truer to their charitable purposes. Some will say: does it logically matter - if higher salaries win improved achievement of charitable purpose? The answer then is why not structure as a business rather than not-for-profit? Edit [additional point]: microfinance is a high cost, high risk business. Organisations at the sharp end of loan management need to charge interest rates which cover costs, including defaults, currency hedging etc. I find that fair enough. What irks me is a management hiding behind a not-for-profit status to enrich themselves without taking risk.
- anotherhue 3y agoI've been using this for a while, according to the stats I've cycled about 4k through [0]. Since I'd rather not fund the CEO's 800k lifestyle I'll be closing it all down now. Parasites as ever. 0: https://imgur.com/a/eg4PpoH https://imgur.com/a/eg4PpoH
- viknesh 3y agoIt's disappointing that they only talked to one Kiva partner. If it is truly the case that the new model is widely preferable to the old model for the partner agencies, why is the evidence so weak? Instead, it just reads as if the example was just cherrypicked to allow the author to segue into a discussion about the Western lenders being out of touch with reality.