in_the_blue | what goes around comes around

What an interesting weekend.

So I was reading an article in Time Magazine about community service. You know, that whole taking-care-of-each-other thing that makes us socialists? In it were links to a couple of organizations set up to encourage peer-to-peer lending. If you read my entry yesterday, you know that things like this have been on my mind. We decided to go see that commie Michael Moore's new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story and on our way over, we were talking about being socially responsible and doing something to make a difference. I mentioned that one organization I'd read about encourages entrepreneurship in rural China. Now, by "entrepreneur" they're not talking about people seeking millions in start-up capital to run internet businesses. They're talking about people looking for loans to buy wheelbarrows so they can sell their coal more easily, or to buy a cow so they can have and sell milk.

When we got back from the film (which I highly recommend for a wide variety of reasons, not least of which is that Moore is a damn good filmmaker), my daughter and I looked into a few peer-to-peer lending organizations and decided on Wokai, which serves two provinces in rural China. The number of loans they give out at any given time is very small, but that didn't scare us off.

I wanted to invite you to join Wokai (http://www.wokai.org), a non-profit that lets you contribute microloan capital to a rural entrepreneur in China for as little as $10. You choose who to contribute to - whether a small business woman in Inner Mongolia looking for $400 to open a breakfast dumpling and noodle stand or a farmer in Sichuan looking to build a public road to help his village.

As a contributor you'll received regular progress updates from your recipients and can also redistribute your contribution to another recipient on Wokai once the loan is repaid.

You'll also receive invitations to special events held by Wokai's chapters in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Hong Kong and Beijing.

To join Wokai, click here.

About Wokai
Wokai was founded in 2007, has raised over $90,000 in microloan capital, and has recently been featured on CNBC, MSNBC and Newsweek. Feel free to contact Wokai at info@wokai.org with any questions or if you're looking to get more involved with Wokai's efforts.

If you're interested and want me to send this letter directly to your in-box, just let me know and I'll do it. It will help Wokai track the word-of-mouth network, but either way works for me.

So now we get to follow the path of our investment. At Wokai you can redirect the loan once it's repaid (and the repayment rate on loans is beter than 98%) three times. After that, it's absorbed into their general fund and directed by the company itself. I wish our entrepreneur success! It's pretty exciting.