Microfinance Business Kiva Announces Grand Opening for New SL HQ
by Alphaville Herald on 02/01/08 at 6:44 pm
by Urizenus Sklar (cross posted from The Microfinance Report)
Via Fleep Tuquevia Linda Zimmer of the Business Communicators of Second Lifecomes the very interesting news that well known microfinance business Kivais opening a new office in the virtual world Second Life. Kiva has had a presence in Second Life for some time, but it isobviously looking to make an impact with this January 5 opening party. But why exactly?
One possibility is that social networks are nice tools forraising small amounts of money from a large community of lenders. But can they also be used to vet potentialborrowers? Zimmer suggests that Kiva mightbe thinking in terms of the power of social media spaces for establishingreputation.
We’re sharing more and more of ourselves in virtual spaceslike these – far more than we may share on our loan application, that’s forsure. Is it really such a stretch that reputation becomes at least asimportant as a credit score – or that eventually credit scorers find a way to“quantify” our social graph? Is it such a stretch as we “live” more in "virtual" placesthat who we are actually hangs on reputation and a bit less on “identity?”
It’s an interesting idea, but at the moment it is difficult to see that the typical customers for microloans would be located in virtual worlds like Second Life. However, that could change very rapidly.
Astonished Reader
Jan 3rd, 2008
I don’t see how; it takes a pretty high end configuration to even run SL properly. And let’s face it, SL is an activity. It may one day be a viable environment for business, but not in the near future.
Those who truly need microloans would have better things to do than being in SL.
Thaumata Strangelove
Jan 3rd, 2008
I have about 14 personal loans out on Kiva right now and have been a member of the SL Kiva group for a very long time. Here is my personal guess with what is going on: The group used to be run by a regular SL citizen with a big heart and good intent… but absolutely awful ability to manage the group professionally. The builds they were using for offices were REALLY rough, like a newb built them, and the notices were so full of typos, run-ons and CrAzY CaPiTaLiZaTiOn that I could barely read them and eventually gave up. Kiva is so awesome and I was embarrassed for them that this was how they were being represented in SL, and it’s also why I never put any Lindens into the group pool there. I found the SL Kiva group through the Kiva blog, so I know they’ve always known about it, but I would imagine they finally checked it out and realized that they had better be more careful about their representation in the virtual world. The notice they sent out about this new opening event was LIGHT YEARS better than anything I’ve ever seen from the group, and I am happy to see the positive changes. SL would be a great place to raise money for some loans, and the great thing is that they recycle forever, as long as someone is taking care of them.
julia
Jan 3rd, 2008
Thanks for posting this. For the record, Kiva in SL is run 100% by volunteers who were mostly hanging around SL anyhow and think its fun. This is all a volunteer, grassroots effort. So if anyone is interested in helping and sharing ideas and creativity, please drop by. All are welcome.
Archie Lukas
Jan 3rd, 2008
Just an olde fashioned money lender with a pretty mask on
Kris
Jan 3rd, 2008
It should be noted that the Kiva Second Life presence is more about raising awareness of the organization and trying to inspire Second Lifers to join the real life Kiva site. I don’t think Kiva is looking to actually “do business” in Second Life. Not at this time anyway.
It’s a multi-volunteer effort to help promote Kiva in this platform. As Thaumata mentioned above, Kiva has posted about Second Life on their official blog and is aware of what is being done in-world. I think they also help manage the Kiva account created by the Second Life group. Naturally, due to the Second Life experience level of volunteers, some projects have been better than others. I think this Nonprofit Commons office is the best virtual manifestation so far because I believe it’s being run by people that are closely connected with Kiva.
Donating Lindens is also encouraged, which the Second Life Kiva group converts to cash to fund real life loans on the site. That’s very interesting and unique. It looks like they’ve funded quite a few people so far, which is amazing considering you need over 250 Lindens to make $1.00 and the minimum needed to make a loan on the Kiva site is $25.00. The group has raised enough Lindens to fund an astounding 28 loans so far, according to the page at http://www.kiva.org/lender/secondlife1494 That’s a total of $700 which, if my math is correct, means they took in over 180,000 in-world Lindens to be able to pull off! And that was BEFORE this more organized effort! I can’t wait to see what they do now.
I think they’re all doing a wonderful job!
Linda Zimmer
Jan 3rd, 2008
Hi, Urizenus. In my post about Kiva’s offices I actually wasn’t suggesting that Kiva was in SL to explore social media as reputation systems. Kiva’s philosophy has always been wrapped around reputation. What I was (probably badly) suggesting is that Kiva and other peer-to-peer lenders are a distruptive force for traditional finance organizations and that we may eventually see reputation becoming a factor in rw lending practices – partially based on models used by micro lenders and driven by social media transparency.
Prokofy Neva
Jan 3rd, 2008
I always thought Kiva was interesting, because like so many granola-eating Birkenstock-wearing hippie leftoid kind of do-good places, they actually put the former Soviet Union in the batch and figured out that it’s the Third World, too, and that socialism there was destructive and not a positive ideology, and that it’s just fine if a guy in Baku wants to start a repair garage and asks you for $17 US to buy some paint. I thought that was great!
They need to think how to use SL other than just a fund-raising gimmick however. I wrote about this on my blog and did a podcast. Basically, they need to have those “cases” or projects you fund appear in SL. Oh, sure, we realize these recipients don’t have broadband — but…maybe they do. or maybe they have at least email. Or maybe somebody visits them with a laptop and a sat phone…or something. There surely must be a way to bring the projects to life, so you can walk around 3-D versions of them. If you could walk around a project’s representation as actual 3-D interactive stuff, not just a billboard with a screenshot, and actually hear from the people how they are coming along, you might be more motivated to right click and pay these anonymous avatars’ objects…
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2007/06/we-need-a-new-k.html
SO I think it has a lot of potential, and that all such projects really have to get away from just straight fund-raising or they have no purpose. You can fundraise better with a can in your local deli or barber shop if you are talking about actual money. It’s more important you can create an interactive campaign to make people engaged, which is the hardest thing about caring for volunteers in NGOs.
Astonished Reader
Jan 4th, 2008
Wow! Prok makes some really good points…and without name calling or abuse!
I said this once before: Prok CAN be a class act!
julia (julles boucher)
Jan 4th, 2008
Linda you have some great ideas. We actually do have some cases in our kiva office. If you go through the door pictured above you see an aisle with a book of all of the loans our group has funded – the loans and journals. There is also a bulletin board with the ‘latest loan’ of the group. And when you donate money (over $250 i think) you get a personal thank you from our treasurer telling you exactly what loan your money went into and you can follow the clients journal to see what happens to your lindens.
The display that is pictured (the door) was actually photoshoped (by me)to show the actual progression of lindens to loans, through slexchange, paypal, kiva directly to the person. I was trying to get the personal connection you speak of, I agree that its important. I also tried to have displays that you could walk through and walk around and didn’t look like a box in an art museum. We have a holodeck and have discussed making scenes of our clients businesses, and have avatars ‘work’ in them. We’re hoping some advanced builders will donate some time for this project.
The other missions of Kiva in SL are to find translators (we need hundred of volunteers to translate the loans), kiva fellows (people willing to go work with the MFIs), as well as to find lenders and fund raise. We weren’t thinking people would seek loans here. Most Kivaclients
Thanks for your time and suggestions and hope you all can make it to our opening and/or our office.