Kerry

Matt Flannery one of the founders of Kiva recently wrote a very interesting blog post  titled Catfood and Commoditization which tread very lightly on the concept of cultural sensitivity.

A discussion followed on the KivaFriends forum in which some people found the subject trivial, while other felt upset that they were being asked to remove their beloved pet photo from their lender profile.

As I see it though, the pet anecdote took the focus from the real subject that Matt raised in his title and yet never expanded on; that being the idea of commoditization of the Kiva entrepreneurs.  In economic theory, commoditization occurs as a goods or services market loses differentiation across its supply base.  This would be a very bad thing to have the individuals requesting support for their livelihoods through Kiva and its partners considered commodities by their lenders.

This is the introduction to visitors to Kiva.org:

Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

 

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

 

The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community.

 My concern with the reaction to Matt’s blog by the folks at KivaFriends is that many of the people who spend time there are very frequent loaners.  Some of the posts there do in fact verge upon treating loans as commodities.  It is hard when you have to keep a spreadsheet to keep track of your loans to recall that there are people on the other side of that data.  It makes it difficult to recall that those real, unique individuals are receiving a loan that can help them to improve their quality of life in a very real way, and that they might be interested in the real, unique individual who has taken an interest in their lives.  In a real way, the KivaFriends enthusiasm for help others through microfinance seems to be interfering with their ability to focus on the Kiva mission.

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The White House has said it is studying the latest decision."

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