Microfinance in China, Helping the Rural Poor

Several months ago, a young individual shared a story with me about his experience giving a microloan to China. Through Wokai, an organization facilitating microloans to the rural poor, he made a small contribution to help another person living in Inner-Mongolia. Wokai are the Chinese words for “I start” and demonstrate their commitment to enable the poor to help themselves. I invited him to write this contributed article sharing about his enthusiasm for Wokai.

Editor, give and tell

"I was first introduced to Wokai when I attended a talk by Courtney McColgan, one of the co-founders of Wokai. Wokai is a Kiva for China, connecting lenders in the first world with micro-borrowers in rural China through the Internet. Courtney and her co-founder Casey initially intended to spearhead the formation of Kiva China, but soon realized that Kiva would have regulatory difficulties expanding into China. They decided to form their own organization instead. Many thousands of dollars, months, and the formation of a Chinese on-shore corporation later, Wokai officially launched in the fall of 2008.

"When considering which organizations to support, Wokai has risen into the top of my list for the following reasons:

1. Money lent to a Wokai borrower will be recycled into a new loan of the lender's discretion. Although lenders will not be able to repatriate their money due to regulatory issues in China, this means that contributions will have years to change many lives!

2. Every gift, however small, is a very efficient use of capital. Because the loan amounts requested are small (hundreds of dollars), every marginal dollar contributed to a borrower has a large impact.

3. Wokai's operations are currently focused on Inner-Mongolia, which just so happens to be where my father's family is from."

Contributing Author

Links:
[1] Wokai. http://www.wokai.org
[2] “About a gift that keeps on giving” yGive, giveandtell.

Disclaimer: The information presented here is based on the contributing author's research and experience, and in no way reflects the official opinion of Wokai or Kiva.

About a gift that keeps on giving

I don't know about you, but I want every dollar I spend to work hard for me. There is a certain grand satisfaction in knowing that I just helped make the world a better place, and maximizing that effort maximizes that joy.

Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency
I came across a Charity Navigator top-10 list one day that shames 10 charities that are drowning in administrative costs, consuming more than half of your donated dollars for anything not directly related to the mission you intended to support. I got curious about thinking about the most efficient ways to give financially and I ultimately landed at opportunities in microfinance, particularly with an organization called Kiva. Giving to Kiva is wonderfully efficient because 100% of your donation goes to the project you want to fund, and afterwards you can make a separate designation for Kiva if you wish (their suggestion is only 10% of your transaction). Also, once the loans have been repaid, you can relend that money to other projects perpetually.

It takes money to make money
Microfinance is a banking principle of providing financial services like small loans to clients with few or no assets, and in my area of interest to the poor in developing countries. With Kiva, you and several other investors can choose to bankroll any amount of the small business needs of any number of people in a shopping cart style. Once they get their need met, they go and make use of the money and return the loan at low-interest. It is said that credit is an incredibly powerful financial tool, and it is, but it is quite generally unavailable to the world's poor. The poor of the world then are not able to take on costly endeavors that jump-start their small business and bring themselves out of poverty: it takes money to make money. Therefore, microfinance has its place in the fight against systemic poverty.

Give it a spin
Microfinance is an incredibly rewarding experience for me, though admittedly I'm helped by never having experienced a default on my loan (but most people don't, since the average default rate is less than 4%). Instead, I've seen people all around the world make wonderful use of their immense individual resourcefulness and my small, humble, financial contribution. If you're interested in business and investing, and you want to see people do well with just a small kick start, microfinancing just might be the game for you.