Give a gift that keeps on taking

I've been talking about politics too much lately. It's Iowa, I can't really help it. A short digression is in order, however.

For Chanukah this year, my uncle in New Jersey gave me a generous $75.00 gift certificate for this website called Kiva. You may have heard of it. It's been getting a lot of press lately, not the least from Bill Clinton giving it a glowing review on Fox News. Basically, it is a non-profit organization that finds flourishing businesspeople and entrepreneurs in third-world countries and puts them on this web site, and people can donate money through the internet to help get their business off the ground. Supposedly, after their business is getting going, your money is then reimbursed, and you can choose to either withdraw it or lend it to another business. Conceivably, you could help multiple businesses get going using a very small amount of money.

I've been having a hard time donating anything in the past few days, mainly because of all the press it's been getting. Every time I look for a new business it usually says something like, "Thanks Kiva lenders, together we have funded every single possible business on this site." So I have money to burn and no one wants it. Basically, it's becoming like eBay, where I have to religiously monitor the site until an opening comes up. I don't think most philanthropists have that problem ever.

Yes, Kiva is kind of a way for lazy white people to feel slightly better about themselves, but I think overall the cause is pretty righteous. I would recommend it to any of you that have any disposable income that you'd like to share, which I'll admit is fairly rare among college students. Look at it this way though: if you need some money, you can always just withdraw it at some point if you really want to. I can't really think of anything bad about this organization, unless one wants to argue that it is pushing "capitalist western values" upon the unsuspecting third-world populace, which I don't think really applies in this case.

In case you were wondering (and divulging this information absolutely runs counter to Jewish law), I donated money to Shamim Hameed's group in Pakistan, reasoning that Pakistan needs all the help it can get right now. Some day, you will know me as the man that singlehandedly saved Pakistan.