(1888PressRelease)
November 01, 2008 - The Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce has joined forces with Kiva, the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, to create a philanthropic lending team for Virtual Assistants worldwide to unite in the fight against poverty.
The VACOC Kiva Lending Team costs nothing to join and members can make a loan at any time to help a fellow entrepreneur out anywhere in the world. Lenders are repaid 100% in full when the loan is paid off.
How It Works
Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique enterpreneurs in the developing world. Members can lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in the developing world, and they get to choose who to lend to—whether that's a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq. As they repay the loan, the member receive his or her money back.
"In honor of the October 15 Blog Action Day theme on poverty, this was simply a perfect match," states Danielle Keister, founder of the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce. "As a Virtual Assistant organization, we are a group of women and men supporting each other's entrepreneurial dreams and success. We passionately believe in independence, financial freedom, self-sufficiency and self-determination. Creating this team allows us to share that spirit in a circle much larger than ourselves."
By joining the VACOC lending team of Virtual Assistants, members will be joining forces with one of the most respected organizations in the industry to work together in alleviating poverty. Once a part of the team, members can choose to have a future loan on Kiva "count" towards the team's impact. The loan is still the member's and repayments will come to him or her, but each member can also choose to have the loan show up in the VACOC team's collective portfolio, so that the team's overall impact grows.
Signing up is quick and simple. Anyone who wishes to join is welcome. For more information and to sign up, visit http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=2197
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