Year 6: Team Shift Happens on Kiva

This is the sixth year that I'll be microlending through Kiva. Here's the basic idea:

I lend $25 to an entrepreneur ($25 is the minimum they accept). But I also purchase two $25 gift certificates that I then email to two members of my PLN. I’m asking those folks to then do two things.

First, they can choose which entrepreneur to loan the $25 to. Then I’m asking them to consider doing the same thing – purchasing two $25 gift certificates and emailing them to two members of their PLN (with the same request that those folks continue the cycle, sending two Kiva gift certificates to folks in their network - a Kiva Pay It Forward plan). It would also be great if they blogged about it and left a comment on this post.

Since I’m apparently always going to be connected to the phrase Shift Happens, I thought I’d try to use that to do some good, so I created Team Shift Happens on the Kiva site:

We loan because Shift Happens, and we want to be the change we want to see.

So, those email requests will also ask that when they make those loans they consider adding them to Team Shift Happens so that we can keep track of the total. They still direct where the loan goes, it just gets aggregated under the team. Joining Team Shift Happens is completely optional, and is not the point of all of this, but it's just an interesting way to try to keep track of the lending spurred by the original blog post.

Team Shift Happens has (as of this writing) 133 members who have made 1108 loans for a total loaned of $33,125. You don't have to join the team, but please consider giving. I'll be sending out my gift certificates next week (Thanksgiving here in the U.S.), but these obviously make great gifts for many of the holidays coming up.

There are many worthy causes out there, this is obviously not the only one. But, if you're like my family and you already have more than enough "stuff," perhaps you could dedicate some of that disposable income to this cause.

For those of you interested in possibly doing this with your students, Bill Ferriter has compiled some nice classroom resources you can use with students around microlending. I'm also asking my Algebra students to consider contributing. William Chamberlain is also jumping in this year with his school.

Year 5: Team Shift Happens on Kiva

This is the fifth year that I'll be microlending through Kiva. Here's the basic idea:

I lend $25 to an entrepreneur ($25 is the minimum they accept). But I also purchase two $25 gift certificates that I then email to two members of my PLN. I’m asking those folks to then do two things.

First, they can choose which entrepreneur to loan the $25 to. Then I’m asking them to consider doing the same thing – purchasing two $25 gift certificates and emailing them to two members of their PLN (with the same request that those folks continue the cycle, sending two Kiva gift certificates to folks in their network - a Kiva Pay It Forward plan). It would also be great if they blogged about it and left a comment on this post.

Since I’m apparently always going to be connected to the phrase Shift Happens, I thought I’d try to use that to do some good, so I created Team Shift Happens on the Kiva site:

We loan because Shift Happens, and we want to be the change we want to see.

So, those email requests will also ask that when they make those loans they consider adding them to Team Shift Happens so that we can keep track of the total. They still direct where the loan goes, it just gets aggregated under the team. Joining Team Shift Happens is completely optional, and is not the point of all of this, but it's just an interesting way to try to keep track of the lending spurred by the original blog post.

Team Shift Happens has (as of this writing) 126 members who have made 878 loans for a total loaned of $27,050. You don't have to join the team, but please consider giving. I'll be sending out my gift certificates next week (Thanksgiving here in the U.S.), but these obviously make great gifts for many of the holidays coming up.

There are many worthy causes out there, this is obviously not the only one. But, if you're like my family and you already have more than enough "stuff," perhaps you could dedicate some of that disposable income to this cause.

For those of you interested in possibly doing this with your students, Bill Ferriter has compiled some nice classroom resources you can use with students around microlending. I'm also asking my Algebra students to consider contributing.

Year 4: Team Shift Happens on Kiva

This is the fourth year that I'll be microlending through Kiva. You can read these four previous posts for even more detail, but here is the basic idea:

I lend $25 to an entrepreneur ($25 is the minimum they accept). But I also purchase two $25 gift certificates that I then email to two members of my PLN. I’m asking those folks to then do two things.

First, they can choose which entrepreneur to loan the $25 to. Then I’m asking them to consider doing the same thing – purchasing two $25 gift certificates and emailing them to two members of their PLN (with the same request that those folks continue the cycle, sending two Kiva gift certificates to folks in their network - a Kiva Pay It Forward plan). It would also be great if they blogged about it and left a comment on this post.

Since I’m apparently always going to be connected to the phrase Shift Happens, I thought I’d try to use that to do some good, so I created Team Shift Happens on the Kiva site:

We loan because Shift Happens, and we want to be the change we want to see.

So, those email requests will also ask that when they make those loans they consider adding them to Team Shift Happens so that we can keep track of the total. They still direct where the loan goes, it just gets aggregated under the team. Joining Team Shift Happens is completely optional, and is not the point of all of this, but it's just an interesting way to try to keep track of the lending spurred by the original blog post.

Team Shift Happens has loaned $19,050 so far. You don't have to join the team, but please consider giving. I'll be sending out my gift certificates today (Thanksgiving here in the U.S.), but these obviously make great gifts for many of the holidays coming up.

There are many worthy causes out there, this is obviously not the only one. But, if you're like my family and you already have more than enough "stuff," perhaps you could dedicate some of that disposable income to this cause.

For those of you interested in possibly doing this with your students, Bill Ferriter has compiled some nice classroom resources you can use with students around microlending.

Kiva Loans

(cross-posted from my Algebra Class Blog)

It took a while because Kiva didn't have very many available loans there for a little bit, but I was finally able to loan out the $300 we raised for Kiva today. I picked 12 different entrepreneurs/groups in Kyrgyzstan and loaned them each $25. They are all women (or the groups include women), as empowering women in underdeveloped countries is one of the best ways to help.

Here are the 12 different loans:

1. Mairambu Azimbaeva's Group
2. Bubush Rysmendieva
3. Gulmayram Sarybaeva
4. Zoya Estebesova
5. Gulnur Taylakova
6. Olmoskan Suerkulova's Group
7. Gulchahira Rysbaeva
8. Nazira Karalaeva's Group
9. Uulkan Ermamat Kyzy's Group
10. Tilebat Batyrbekova's Group
11. Jumabubu Orokova's Group
12. Nurhan Ergeshova's Group

Click through the links to learn more about these folks, and consider contributing on your own to Team Shift Happens (or just to Kiva in general, it doesn't have to be part of a team).

No Extra Credit Required

There have been some discussions in my neck of the woods lately about extra credit. It will probably surprise no one who’s been reading this blog for very long that I don’t like extra credit, don’t see a need for it, and think it actually undermines learning, but I’m not going to delve into that right now.

Instead, I wanted to reference one small piece of that discussion which revolved around offering students extra credit for charity-related activities like canned food drives or Toys for Tots. My thoughts on that are very similar, offering extra credit for students participating in charity-type activities not only undermines the learning, but it undermines the caring.

So when I wanted to give my students the opportunity to participate in some of my small activities around Kiva, I let them know there would not be any extra credit involved. It was not a requirement to participate, but I hoped they would. Now, I did challenge them a little bit with

Some folks think teenagers won’t do this kind of thing if there’s not a payoff for them in it – we’ll see if they’re right.

But it was all pretty low-key. I talked briefly about it that first day in class, referred to the blog post if they wanted to know more, then simply reminded them at the beginning of class each day that if they had any change to contribute that they could give it to me now or drop it by my office throughout the day.

Our goal was a quarter a day per student for the remaining ten days we had of class, which worked out to $62.50 for the twenty-five students in my class. We ended up at $77.26. (Including one student who chased me down in the cafeteria on the last day before break – which is three days after the last day my class meets – to hand me 85 cents.) I said I would match up to $100, so I’ll be matching with $77.26. My Dad apparently still reads my blog and he said he’d match at 50% of what I matched, so that’s another $38.63. And then Rob in Afghanistan, who I’ve blogged about before, sent me an email letting me know he would be sending me a $100 check as well.

So that works out to $293.15 (okay, I’m gonna chip in another $6.85 to make that $300). Now, I know that’s not a huge amount of money, and I didn’t take advantage of the full educational possibilities here (see some of Bill Ferriter’s excellent work with Kiva), but it will still make a difference for the entrepreneur(s) we fund with this (and, of course, when it gets paid back I’ll re-loan it again and again – that’s part of the beauty of Kiva).

Students are always going to want extra credit. At least they always will as long as we model for them that that’s the way things work. But I think if we lay out our thinking for them, they’re going to step up most of the time – just like my students did. Will teenagers do this kind of thing? Yes, they will.

And no extra credit is required.

A Quarter is More Than Just a Fraction

I just posted this on my Algebra class blog, but I thought I'd share it here as well. You're welcome to play along with your classes as well (or do something similar). Or, if anyone out there would like to join me in matching what my students raise, just contact me.

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Arapahoe, as you know, puts our collective might behind several causes throughout the year. Currently we are asking students and staff to bring in a toy for Toys for Tots (pdf). I encourage you to participate in that, not just by bringing in a toy, but also attending the wrapping party and going to Schmitt Elementary on December 15th to help distribute the toys.

But I also want you to think more globally in this class. If you happened to read my blog over Thanksgiving break, then you read about Kiva and Team Shift Happens. Here’s a brief description of Kiva:

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.

And here’s part of what I wrote on my blog about Team Shift Happens:

I lend $25 to an entrepreneur ($25 is the minimum they accept). But I also purchase two $25 gift certificates that I then email to two members of my PLN. I’m asking those folks to then do two things.

First, they can choose which entrepreneur to loan the $25 to. Then I’m asking them to consider doing the same thing – purchasing two $25 gift certificates and emailing them to two members of their PLN (with the same request that those folks continue the cycle, sending two Kiva gift certificates to folks in their network - a Kiva Pay It Forward plan).

Over break I also read this post by Chris Harbeck, a teacher in Canada, and I thought I would challenge you guys in a similar way – challenge each of you to bring in $0.25 a day for each day our class meets between now and the end of the semester. Conveniently, our class meets ten times before the end of the semester, so that’s challenging you to donate a total of $2.50.

I want to be clear – this is not a requirement. This has no effect on your grade. There’s no extra credit, nor will I berate anyone who doesn’t participate. This isn’t about you. Or about me. This is about helping empower people who haven’t had the same opportunities that we enjoy. Some folks think teenagers won’t do this kind of thing if there’s not a payoff for them in it – we’ll see if they’re right.

I wrote a couple of years ago:

Poor people in impoverished communities often don’t have access to financial institutions and capital, and microfinancing addresses this problem. It is especially helpful to women, who often are the key to raising families – and communities – out of poverty. It’s also my opinion that this is one of the best ways to help achieve peace in the world.

So I challenge you to bring in what you can. If that’s a quarter a day (or $2.50 total), that’s great. If it’s less, or more, that’s great as well. You can bring money to class each day expressly to donate, or you can simply find me during the day when you perhaps have some change in your pocket (after lunch?) and donate (no amount is too small – or too large). You can choose to participate yourself, or you can cajole your family and friends to donate some change as well if you want – it’s up to you.

Then I’ll match whatever you donate (up to $100 – I’m not completely crazy). So I’ll take the total of whatever you guys bring in by the last day we meet (our final is on Tuesday, December 14th), and match it with an equal amount, then I’ll take the total and lend it out on Kiva. (If you’d like to help me pick which entrepreneur to lend to, start looking around Kiva and let me know who you think we should fund.)

So, if you occasionally visit Starbucks, consider skipping it once in the next couple of weeks. Or perhaps you could skip that overpriced, not-really-very-healthy-for-you “energy” drink I see some of you drink in the morning. Or if you go out for lunch, skip the soft drink a couple of times. Not only will you be doing your body a favor by skipping one or all of these, but a minor deprivation for you could turn into a possibly life-changing loan for someone else.

It might only be a fraction of a dollar to you, but to someone in the developing world – it’s priceless.

Year 3: Team Shift Happens on Kiva

This is the third year that I'll be microlending through Kiva. You can read these three previous posts for even more detail, but here is the basic idea:

I lend $25 to an entrepreneur ($25 is the minimum they accept). But I also purchase two $25 gift certificates that I then email to two members of my PLN. I’m asking those folks to then do two things.

First, they can choose which entrepreneur to loan the $25 to. Then I’m asking them to consider doing the same thing – purchasing two $25 gift certificates and emailing them to two members of their PLN (with the same request that those folks continue the cycle, sending two Kiva gift certificates to folks in their network - a Kiva Pay It Forward plan). It would also be great if they blogged about it and left a comment on this post.

Since I’m apparently always going to be connected to the phrase Shift Happens, I thought I’d try to use that to do some good, so I created Team Shift Happens on the Kiva site:

We loan because Shift Happens, and we want to be the change we want to see.

So, those email requests will also ask that when they make those loans they consider adding them to Team Shift Happens so that we can keep track of the total. They still direct where the loan goes, it just gets aggregated under the team. Joining Team Shift Happens is completely optional, and is not the point of all of this, but it's just an interesting way to try to keep track of the lending spurred by the original blog post.

Team Shift Happens has loaned $10,375 so far. You don't have to join the team, but please consider giving. I'll be sending out my gift certificates today (Thanksgiving here in the U.S.), but these obviously make great gifts for many of the holidays coming up.

There are many worthy causes out there, this is obviously not the only one. But, if you're like my family and you already have more than enough "stuff," perhaps you could dedicate some of that disposable income to this cause.

For those of you interested in possibly doing this with your students, Bill Ferriter has compiled some nice classroom resources you can use with students around microlending.

Giving More Than Thanks

Last year I wrote a couple of posts about Kiva, so I'll keep this one fairly short (please go read those two posts if you want more context).

In a nutshell, this is the time of year when lots of folks in my neck of the woods are celebrating holidays, and many of us have lots to be thankful for. So, here's what I did last year and am doing again this year:

First, I’ve donated $25 to an entrepreneur ($25 is the minimum they accept). But I’ve also purchased two $25 gift certificates that I then emailed to two members of my PLN. I’m asking those folks to then do two things. First, they can choose which entrepreneur to loan the $25 to. Then I’m asking them to consider doing the same thing – purchasing two $25 gift certificates and emailing them to two members of their PLN (with the same request that those folks continue the cycle, a Kiva Pay It Forward plan). It would also be great if they blogged about it and left a comment on this post.

Since I’m apparently always going to be connected to the phrase Shift Happens, I thought I’d try to use that to do some good, so I created Team Shift Happens on the Kiva site:

We loan because Shift Happens, and we want to be the change we want to see.

So, those email requests will also ask that when they make those loans they add them to Team Shift Happens so that we can keep track of the total (they still direct where the loan goes, it just gets aggregated under the team).

Team Shift Happens has loaned $3900 so far. You don't have to join the team, but please consider giving. I'll be sending out my gift certificates tomorrow (Thanksgiving here in the U.S.), but these obviously make great gifts for many of the holidays coming up.

There are many worthy causes out there, this is obviously not the only one. But, if you're like my family and you already have more than enough "stuff," perhaps you could dedicate some of that disposable income to this cause.

Update: Bill Ferriter has compiled some nice classroom resources you can use with students around microlending.

Your Name Here

Me again, reminding you that you can join Team Shift Happens on Kiva, do some good, and have your name appear here:

World On Fire

Jeffrey Mordan pointed me to this video in the comments of this previous post. What choices could you make that would make a difference?

Consider joining Team Shift Happens on Kiva (or contributing to one of these fine organizations).

Kiva Update and a Not-So-Modest Proposal

Just a quick update on my previous post asking people to consider donating to Kiva.

Team Shift Happens currently has 20 members and has made $425 in loans (my thanks to all of you). Now it’s kind of hard to really measure this since the "pay it forward" approach means there have probably been a few gift certificates given that haven’t been loaned out yet and, when they make those loans, they may not attribute it to the team (which is perfectly fine, of course). And hopefully when people receive those certificates they are then paying it forward again, which will take some time to make an impact. My hope is that this will continue far into the future and, perhaps a couple of years from now, it comes back to me from someone that doesn’t even know it started here. Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?

Now for my Not-So-Modest Proposal. As I mentioned in my previous post, this is the time of year where lots of folks in my neck of the woods celebrate a Holiday. As part of that there are often parties: teachers from departments or entire schools, office parties, neighborhood parties, friend and family parties. At these parties there are usually copious amounts of food and drink and often “white elephant” type gift exchanges. Too often there is twice as much food and drink as is needed, and the extra either gets thrown away or added to the waistlines of the host family. And the white elephant gifts, by design, are typically not useful and get shoved in a closet somewhere, perhaps to be taken out in a few years and passed along to someone else.

Now, I’m not trying to be a killjoy here. I still think there should be parties, and those parties should certainly have food and drink and lots of laughter and fun. But my proposal is that perhaps instead of providing a copious amount of food and drink, we provide a reasonable amount. And instead of white elephant gifts, we give the gift of opportunity. I’d urge you to take the money saved on the no longer overly large amount of food and drink, and on the no longer purchased white elephant gifts and, instead, give that to Kiva to lend to others where it can make a huge difference.

At the point of the party where you typically gather around to open and laugh at the white elephant gifts, instead you could gather around the computer and view the picture and the description of the entrepreneur(s) you helped fund. Or, if you want to go all out, you could actually pick the entrepreneur(s) that you were going to fund during the party. (As an added bonus, look up their location on Google Earth and see what other information you can find about their area online.) Imagine the good that would do, and the message that would send to your students, your children, your friends, and your neighbors – and the world. You see, I think you can have a great party, have lots of laughter and fun, and still take a moment to make the world a better place.

So, please have a Holiday party, and please have lots of fun. Just please also consider making just a few small changes that will make a huge difference for someone else. Consider making it a Kiva Party. Wouldn’t that be in the true spirit of the season?

Give Until It Feels Good: Join Team Shift Happens on Kiva

I don’t completely have my head around this post yet, but I decided I should just go ahead and put it out there anyway. We’re approaching the Holiday season for a lot of folks in my neck of the woods and, while I hesitate to use the power of the “press” that I have with this blog, I felt like I should perhaps try to do some good here.

Hearing Greg Mortenson speak so passionately at NCTE reminded me of another organization that I was intending to support this year, Kiva:

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.

Kiva allows individuals to contribute a small amount of money that is then loaned to entrepreneurs in impoverished communities. When that loan is repaid (currently almost 97% are repaid), then the individual that originally made the loan can choose to loan the money out to another entrepreneur, donate it to kiva to help with their operating expenses, or actually get the money back.

Poor people in impoverished communities often don’t have access to financial institutions and capital, and microfinancing addresses this problem. It is especially helpful to women, who often are the key to raising families – and communities – out of poverty. It’s also my opinion that this is one of the best ways to help achieve peace in the world.

So, while I’m still giving some small presents to family members this year, I’m redirecting some of the money we’d usually spend to Kiva. I thought it might be nice to use the reach of this blog, and my Personal Learning Network, to try to grow this a little bit, so this is what I’m trying to do.

First, I’ve donated $25 to an entrepreneur ($25 is the minimum they accept). But I’ve also purchased two $25 gift certificates that I then emailed to two members of my PLN. I’m asking those folks to then do two things. First, they can choose which entrepreneur to loan the $25 to (they can pick the one I picked, or any of the 773 currently available). Then I’m asking them to consider doing the same thing – purchasing two $25 gift certificates and emailing them to two members of their PLN (with the same request that those folks continue the cycle, a Kiva Pay It Forward plan). It would also be great if they blogged about it and left a comment on this post.

Since I’m apparently always going to be connected to the phrase Shift Happens, I thought I’d try to use that to do some good, so I created Team Shift Happens on the Kiva site:

We loan because Shift Happens, and we want to be the change we want to see.

So, those email requests will also ask that when they make those loans they add them to Team Shift Happens so that we can keep track of the total (they still direct where the loan goes, it just gets aggregated under the team).

Shift Happens opines that we live in “exponential times” and, if these folks take me up on this, our contributions have the potential to grow exponentially. To hedge my bets, however, I’m also asking you to join Team Shift Happens as well. Yes, you, gentle reader. Whether you’re an education blogger, a student at Arapahoe (or any other school), or just some other interested reader, I’d like you to consider signing up at Kiva and contributing. (If you’re a student, please check with your parents first. Or, if you’re at AHS, I’ll happily collect and aggregate small cash donations in my office and then make the loans myself on Kiva.)

You can either make a $25 loan yourself, or, what I’d love to see, do the same thing that I’m doing (make a $25 loan, then purchase two $25 gift certificates and email them to folks you know and ask them to do the same). If you’re a blogger, also consider blogging about this and making the same request to your readers. I realize not everyone will be comfortable with that, or has $75 to spare, so please contribute what you can. If you wish, it would be great if you then add your loan so it counts toward Team Shift Happens so we can see what we can accomplish together, and leave a comment on this post.

So, like others this time of year, I’m asking you to give. Give until it feels good.

Update 12-2-08: My entrepreneur is now fully funded, at least partially due to the generosity of the folks that read this post. But there are still many more people needing funding - please consider participating.