Made my Kiva micro-loan for the month of July

I made a new micro-loan through Kiva for the month of July. My intention is to make a new micro-loan every month, in large part from repayments for past micro-loans.

This one was for a married woman, with married children, in Managua, Nicaragua who farms. It is a 14-month micro-loan for a total of $625, of which I lent $25. The money is to be used to buy fertilizer and supplies. I did not realize at the time I made the loan, but replayment is at the end of the term (14 months, August 2010) rather than monthly. I'm not sure I want to put much money into this form of loan, although this one time is fine. Need to read all the details more closely next time.  The micro-loan was already disbursed to the micro-entrepreneur on June 18, 2009 by the local partner. Kiva is raising funds to essentially buy that loan from the local partner.

Here is my Kiva public lender page: http://www.kiva.org/lender/JackKrupansky

Note: This is all real and good, but these micro-loans do not net any interest to us micro-lenders. Kiva's fine print:

Lending to the working poor through Kiva involves risk of principal loss.
Kiva does not guarantee repayment nor do we offer a financial return on your loan.

Still, at least we know our money is really helping somebody better their lives in a visible way rather than put the money in a bank account or money market fund where who knows what it helps to pay for or what good it does and for only a few pennies of profit in our pockets.

-- Jack Krupansky