I’ve been meaning to say something about this for a while, but there’s frustratingly little to say.
The women of the Nabweru III 2030(c) Group, to whom I loaned some money via Kiva, have made their second repayment, on schedule.
But that’s all I can say. Presumably they’re too busy running their poultry business to blog, and that’s OK with me. But I wonder whether BRAC Uganda, the Field Partner, would enjoy even greater success if they issued more frequent news on the enterprises they’re working with.
Come to think of it, this would be a great study, asking whether groups that provide more information find it easier to raise more funding. There are teasing hints: compared to other lenders, BRAC Uganda raises less per loan and needs longer to raise it, but I can see that there are all sorts of other factors that could be involved in that. And BRAC Uganda has no journal entries, while other “Kiva Partners“ average about one journal entry per loan every three years.
But this is quibbling. I just want a stronger connection with my loan. Selfish, I know, but there it is.
2022-06-08: In the interest of fairness, I looked again at BRAC’s numbers. Their time to fund a loan is now well below the average of all Kiva partners, even though their journaling rate (and comments per journal and recommendations per journal) are even more out of line with averages. So, data!
Two ways to respond: webmentions and comments
Webmentions
Webmentions allow conversations across the web, based on a web standard. They are a powerful building block for the decentralized social web.
“Ordinary” comments