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Non religious charities?

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    #32
    strobe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,872 ✭✭✭strobe


    ShooterSF wrote: »
    Oh and for all year round Kiva.org where you can lend interest free loans from $25 up to start up businesses in the developing world which I think is a much better idea than continuous aid and also it's completely transparent as every penny you lend goes to the loanee with an optional extra donation to the organisation itself for upkeep.

    Not to rain on people's parade regarding Kiva but while the loan can be interest free as far as you are concerned, the intermediary organisations who actually loan the money you donate with Kiva, do charge fairly high interest rates to the loanee, sometimes higher than the standard commercial rate. Also, the money you donate doesn't necessarily go to the loan you would like it too, and often goes into a fund which is dispersed across loans you may not be interested in supporting (a small business you do not find ethical, for example). Also several of the intermediary loan organisations have been accused of fraud and/or mismanagement of funds.

    While I'm not suggesting any deliberate wrong doing on the part of Kiva, and think the basic idea is a good one, perhaps people would consider one of the alternatives, such as Zidisha, who allow actual unilateral loans where you can set your own interest rate as low as you like, and so cit out the middle man system with all the above problems.


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