Perhaps that I feel some works of charity should not be hyped. I’m very old fashioned in that regard and view that charity should not come with strings nor attention but times are changing. I’ve always admired when an athlete or celebrity engages in some charity but demands there be no publicity. May the angels come to your rescue if you publicized all-time hockey great Bobby Orr spending an afternoon with a Cancer stricken child and family in his own home.
That being said, I’ve been asked to mention that since April 2015 a portion of our client fee’s have been donated to Kiva.org
The current administration’s view of withdrawing financial aid to needy countries and causes places everyday people and organizations to fill in the gaps. I expect we’ll see some form of activist funding to fill in the gaps voided by new administration policies for the Arts, Planned Parenthood, school lunches, homelessness, military family support, climate change and technology, LGBT rights, etc.
We’re just doing our bit.
If you never heard of Kiva.org they’re a non-profit micro lender for small borrowers around the globe. They offer funding to vast array of borrowers and purposes in some of the most dangerous and remote parts of the world.
Quarterly, we allocate a portion of our collected client fees and assign them to Kiva for loans. When the loans are repaid (some do default) the funds are recycled to new loans. In my mind there is no “profit” in these loans and we don’t intend to ever reclaim the funds. We intend to let them recycle through the Kiva system indefinitely.
We’ve made 44 loans since 2015 and rank in the top 8% on Kiva for loans made with just 3 defaults and only 4% delinquency rate. Our loans have been apportioned to 22 countries. I generally have a theme to our loans: Education, small business support like Taxi’s, transportation and clean water. The loan destinations won’t be making Travel and Leisure’s hot list of cool countries to visit anytime soon. More likely to be found on the list of “most dangerous countries to visit”.
Anyway, it just feels good.
Brad Pappas