PRESS RELEASE: Atheists Loan $10 Million Globally to the Working Poor

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Peter
Web: http://atheist-monkey.blogspot.com

Atheists Loan $10 Million Globally to the Working Poor

Since August 2008 the community of Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious (AASFSHNR) at Kiva.org have raised $10 million (USD) in interest-free loans to help end poverty. Kiva.org is a US non-profit organization that connects lenders with borrowers, from around the globe, who need a micro-finance loan. Peter, the AASFSHNR community team leader and founder, commented "Financially, the world is an unfair place. What we are discovering, on the Internet, is the more we engage each other with peer-to-peer technology the fairer the world becomes. We are providing access to opportunities. We feel it's our responsibility to step up and help shape the world for the better."

The AASFSHNR community has raised more than any other community on Kiva, followed by the Kiva Christians at $6.4 million.

Most of the world's poor live without access to banking. Without collateral they cannot arrange for a loan or open a savings account. Kiva.org has made it possible for an ordinary person to proactively contribute to making a positive change to this situation.

Kiva's co-founder Matt Flannery has put out a call that "now is a time for the world's privileged to demonstrate to the world's poor just how compassionate and resilient we are."

Micro-finance is the brain-child of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mohammad Yunus. Yunus realized decades ago, on a visit to a poor village in his country of Bangladesh, that the local people were caught in an endless cycle of debt caused by loan-sharks. He realized what a difference it would make by "removing the barriers faced by the poor so that they can unleash their creativity and intelligence in the service of humanity."

Whoohooo $10 million in loans

Congratulations team we have achieved $10 million in loans. Doing our small part to help alleviate globally poverty. Our goal was to break this mark by the end of 2012 but the timing is much less important than the feeling of reaching such a big number. It's clear at this point when people look for examples of secular generosity they will always find us :-)

Time to set the next goal?

PRESS RELEASE: Atheists Raise $6 Million in Microfinance Loans To Alleviate Poverty

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Peter Kroll
Web: http://atheist-monkey.blogspot.com
Kiva: http://www.kiva.org/lender/AtheistMonkey

Atheists Raise $6 Million in Microfinance Loans To Alleviate Poverty

In just over three and a quarter years the community of Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious (AASFSHNR) at Kiva.org have raised $6 million (USD) in interest-free loans to help end poverty. Kiva.org is a US non-profit organization that connects lenders with borrowers, from around the globe, who need a micro-finance loan. Peter Kroll, the AASFSHNR community team leader and founder, commented "Financially, the world is an unfair place. What we are discovering, on the Internet, is the more we engage each other with peer-to-peer technology the fairer the world becomes. We are providing access to opportunities. We feel it's our responsibility to step up and help shape the world for the better."

The AASFSHNR community has raised more than any other community on Kiva, followed by the Kiva Christians at $3.4 million and Team Europe at $2.4 million.

Most of the world's poor live without access to banking. Without collateral they cannot arrange for a loan or open a savings account. Kiva.org has made it possible for an ordinary person to proactively contribute to making a positive change to this situation.

Kiva's co-founder Matt Flannery has put out a call that "now is a time for the world's privileged to demonstrate to the world's poor just how compassionate and resilient we are."

Micro-finance is the brain-child of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mohammad Yunus. Yunus realized decades ago, on a visit to a poor village in his country of Bangladesh, that the local people were caught in an endless cycle of debt caused by loan-sharks. He realized what a difference it would make by "removing the barriers faced by the poor so that they can unleash their creativity and intelligence in the service of humanity."

New Years 2012 Loan-A-Thon

2011 has been a great year for our team. We have continued to make impressive contributions to alleviating poverty through micro-lending. In 2011, we're 98% of the way to our goal of $6 million in total loans ($2.6 million for the year 2011)! ...... Let me say that again, in 2011 we lent over $2.5 million. That's incredible! That amount is 44% more than what we lent in 2010. Join me for the New Years 2012 Loan-A-Thon and we'll take care of the last $75,000 needed to break our goal.

This years New Years 2012 Loan-A-Thon will take place during the 48 hour period of December 31 to January 1st Pacific Time (although we are flexible since everyone is in different time zones). To participate in the Loan-A-Thon all you have to do is make a loan (preferably with new money you've added to Kiva specifically for the Loan-A-Thon) during the specified time frame and, if you like, post to the team message board to let everyone know you've participated.

As always, some team members make pledges in advance for how much new money they will be lending during the Loan-A-Thon to encourage others to follow their lead. Personally, I pledge $200 in new money towards this loan-a-thon.

Cheers,
Pete
Team Captain

Interviewed by Hank from IEET

I was recently interviewed by Hank Pellissier an Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) Affiliate Scholar. The IEET is a secular think tank focused on topics related to emerging technologies.

Our discussion was on Atheism and Kiva:
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/pellissier20111125

4th Annual Halloween Loan-A-Thon

On September 15th 2011, our team crossed the $5 million in loans milestone. Congratulations to all my teammates! We are now at $5.4 million of our year-end goal of $6 million. We'll have to raise $300,000 in November and December to reach the goal.

This year, Kiva has provided new tools for tracking goals and I set some up earlier in the year and we're doing great.

We are 98% to our goal of 70,000 new loans by Dec 31, 2011.
We are 97% to our goal of supporting 50,000 unique loans by Dec 31, 2011
We are 79% to our goal of 6,000 new members by Dec 31, 2011
We are 78% to our goal of $2,600,000 (2,023,150 of 2,600,000) in 2011 (started Jan 27th 2011)

Tomorrow we kick off our 4th Annual Halloween Loan-A-Thon which will take place during the 48 hour period from October 31st to November 1st 2011 (Pacific Time... of course you're always welcome to celebrate in your own time zone). To participate in the Loan-A-Thon all you have to do is make a loan (preferably with new money you've added to Kiva specifically for the Loan-A-Thon... but recycled money is always welcome) during the specified time frame and, if you like, post to the team message board to let everyone know you've participated.

Some team members make pledges in advance for how much new money they will be lending during the Loan-A-Thon to encourage others to follow their lead. Personally, I pledge $200 in new money towards this loan-a-thon.

Cheers,
Pete

July 1st 2011 - Loan-A-Thon

The Loan-A-Thon will take place during the 48 hour period from July 1st to July 2nd 2011 (Pacific Time... of course you're always welcome to celebrate in your own time zone). To participate in the Loan-A-Thon all you have to do is make a loan (preferably with new money you've added to Kiva specifically for the Loan-A-Thon... but recycled money is always welcome) during the specified time frame and, if you like, post to the team message board to let everyone know you've participated.

The July 1st Loan-a-Thon honors Muhammad Yunus the grandfather of micro-finance. We also celebrate the many independence movements peoples around the world have accomplished during the month of July throughout history.

Some team members make pledges in advance for how much new money they will be lending during the Loan-A-Thon to encourage others to follow their lead.

Cheers,
Pete

April Fools 2011 Loan-A-Thon

Our April Fools 2011 Loan-A-Thon is just around the corner. This year's April Fools Loan-A-Thon will be held during the 48 hour period from April 1st to April 2nd 2011 (Pacific Time... of course you're always welcome to celebrate in your own time zone). To participate in the Loan-A-Thon all you have to do is make a loan (preferably with new money you've added to Kiva specifically for the Loan-A-Thon... but recycled money is always welcome) during the specified time frame and, if you like, post to the team message board to let everyone know you've participated.

Our current lending total is $3,712,350 and it will soon be time to guess when we'll hit the $4 million milestone.

Our April Fools Loan-A-Thon is best described by Joe from our team:

April 1st - We're no April Fools! We will not waste our money tithing to a religious organization when we can do some actual good by lending capital directly to our fellow Humans who need it!

Some members of our team like to make pledges in advance on the team message board for how much new money they plan to loan during the Loan-A-Thon. I'll make mine on the board...

Cheers,
Pete

PRESS RELEASE: Atheists Raise $3 Million in Microfinance Loans To Alleviate Poverty

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Peter Kroll
Web: http://atheist-monkey.blogspot.com
Kiva: http://www.kiva.org/lender/AtheistMonkey

Atheists Raise $3 Million in Microfinance Loans To Alleviate Poverty

In just over two years the community of Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious (AASFSHNR) at Kiva.org have raised $3 million (USD) in interest-free loans to help end poverty. Kiva.org is a US non-profit organization that connects lenders with borrowers, from around the globe, who need a micro-finance loan. Peter Kroll, the AASFSHNR community team leader and foundered, commented "This is still the beginning for us. We have organized 14,000 Enlightened individuals from a diaspora of 100's of millions. Our community is thought based and we believe fair peer-to-peer lending can provide the economic opportunity to poor entrepreneurs who have been closed off from the mainstream banking system."

Most of the world's poor live without access to banking. Without collateral they cannot arrange for a loan or open a savings account. Kiva.org has made it possible for the an ordinary person to proactively contribute to making a positive change to this situation.

Kiva's co-founder Matt Flannery has put out his call that "now is a time for the world's privileged to demonstrate to the world's poor just how compassionate and resilient we are." The AASFSHNR community has responded, as well as many other communities and individuals. More than five years after Kiva's founding almost $175 million has been lent worldwide.

Micro-finance is the brain-child of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mohammad Yunus. Yunus realized decades ago, on a visit to a poor village in his country of Bangladesh, that the local people were caught in an endless cycle of debt caused by loan-sharks. He realized what a difference it would make by "removing the barriers faced by the poor so that they can unleash their creativity and intelligence in the service of humanity."

2011 Year-End Goal

After some thought I'm setting our year-end goal to raise our total amount loaned to $6 million. We are currently at almost $3.4 million. To raise $2.6 million in 2011 is a big goal for us. We raised almost $1.8 million in 2010. Considering we are a global community we have a vast pool of people to draw from, 1.1 billion by some estimates. So, if we all tell a friend, online or offline, or maybe send an email to a secular blogger we like then we can increase our already tremendous efforts and meet our goal.

We are doing good and having fun at the same time :)

Cheers,
Pete
Team Captain

New Years 2011 Loan-A-Thon

Last year at this time I set a goal for us to lend a total of $3 million loans by the end of 2010. At that time we had $1.4 million in loans. We are at the end of December and we have almost $3.2 million in loans meaning we've raised nearly $1.8 million in loans in 2010 alone!! Great job teammates. It's really a huge accomplishment for the global Atheist/Skeptic/Reason Movement to be able to publicly quantify this great collective effort.

This years New Years 2011 Loan-A-Thon will take place during the 48 hour period of December 31 to January 1st Pacific Time (although we are flexible since everyone is in different time zones). To participate in the Loan-A-Thon all you have to do is make a loan (preferably with new money you've added to Kiva specifically for the Loan-A-Thon) during the specified time frame and, if you like, post to the team message board to let everyone know you've participated.

This time we are also going to try something new... Swarm Lending. I'll pick a loan, post it on the team message board and anyone interested joins in on lending to that specific borrower. With the goal of trying to raise a huge percentage (if not 100% of the loan amount).

As always, some team members make pledges in advance for how much new money they will be lending during the Loan-A-Thon to encourage others to follow their lead. Personally, I pledge $200 in new money towards this loan-a-thon.

Cheers,
Pete
Team Captain

100,000 Loans

Yesterday our team of Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious passed 100,000 loans!!!

Congratulations to everyone!

Cheers,
Pete
Team Captain

Kiva Atheists first to reach $3 million

On December 2nd 2010 at 7:13am Pacific Time our team of Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious reached three million dollars (USD) in Kiva loans!



It's been about 6 and a half months since we hit our interim milestone of $2 million in loans. We are pacing to loan about $1 million every 7 months, which is spectacular. We are still hovering at about 2% of the total Kiva volume in loans; since Kiva has raised $150 million so far.

Our team has grown 12,500 members and our team message board is as interesting and entertaining as ever. We are 900 loans away from 100,000 loans!!!

Neda, from Kiva.org, stopped by our team message board to post congratulations from Kiva.

CONGRATULATIONS to the members and team captain of Kiva Lending Team Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious. We are thrilled to announce that for the first time in Kiva-history, a lending team has reached $3 million in loans! Earlier this year Pete the team captain had set the goal of $3 million in loans by the end of 2010, great execution on reaching this milestone before the end of this year!

The Lending Team consists of 12,498 lenders, who have made over 98,715 loans! THANK YOU to all of the team members for their dedication and support of Kiva entrepreneurs!


Neda Amidi
Community Engagement
Kiva.org

We are doing a fantastic job as a community and are leading by almost a 2-to-1 margin in terms of dollars lent and members on the team. I want to say a big thank you to all our members new and old. And to those special members that keep up the good quality of the conversation on the board and to those who go out of their way to build things the community needs and uses!!

I hope to see everyone on the message board for our upcoming New Years Loan-A-Thon. After that next get together we can come up with our 2011 year end goal and maybe even an official interim goal.

Never forget the message we send to the world: Our common humanity is what inspires us to make the world a better place. Human intervention and teamwork is what can bring about human flourishing in the world.

Cheers,
Pete
Team Captain

3rd Annual Halloween Loan-A-Thon

It's that magical time of year again when the forces of good gather to make a difference in the world... and maybe spook a few people into becoming skeptics LOL :)

The Loan-A-Thon will take place during the 48 hour period from October 31st to November 1st 2010 (Pacific Time... of course you're always welcome to celebrate in your own time zone). To participate in the Loan-A-Thon all you have to do is make a loan (preferably with new money you've added to Kiva specifically for the Loan-A-Thon... but recycled money is always welcome) during the specified time frame and, if you like, post to the team message board to let everyone know you've participated.

Some team members make pledges in advance for how much new money they will be lending during the Loan-A-Thon to encourage others to follow their lead. Personally, I pledge $200 in new money towards this loan-a-thon.

Cheers,
Pete

July 1st 2010 - Loan-A-Thon - Praise Muhammad

Praise Muhammad... Muhammad Yunus, of course, Nobel Peace Prize winner and the grandfather of micro-finance. This years July 1st 2010 Loan-A-Thon is in celebration of Yunus' birthday (June 28th). Yunus created the micro-finance industry decades ago by founding the Grameen Bank and the social business philosophies developed there are sweeping the global.
The Loan-A-Thon will take place during the 48 hour period from July 1st to July 2nd 2010 (Pacific Time... of course you're always welcome to celebrate in your own time zone). To participate in the Loan-A-Thon all you have to do is make a loan (preferably with new money you've added to Kiva specifically for the Loan-A-Thon... but recycled money is always welcome) during the specified time frame and, if you like, post to the team message board to let everyone know you've participated.

Some team members make pledges in advance for how much new money they will be lending during the Loan-A-Thon to encourage others to follow their lead. Personally, I pledge $100 in new money towards this loan-a-thon.

We have raised $1.5 million dollars since last year at this time. Our current total is $2,158,675.00. We are rapidly approaching 10,000 team members.

Joe from our team gives a good explanation of the other reason we celebrate on July 1st:

In honor of those throughout history who have thrown off the yoke of oppressive governments in July, we will lend capital to our fellow Humans who need it so that they can throw off the oppressive yoke of poverty!

Cheers,
Pete

520

Kiva Atheists first to reach $2 million

On May 17th 2010 at 11:20am PST our team of Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious reached two million dollars (USD) in Kiva loans!



In seven short months we have managed to raise $1 million in loans. We are setting a phenomenal pace and we are having fun all the way along. During the time our team has been in existence Kiva has raised $100 million and we have contributed $2 million to that total. Our team collectively has contributed 2% of Kiva's loan volume in that time span. Hopefully one day we will be able to say we contribute 10% of Kiva's loan volume!


(generated at KivaFriends.org)

Kiva's mission to spread economic opportunity to the whole world is important in shaping the future of humanity and I'm proud to say our thought community is leading the charge.

Congratulations to everyone on the team and thank you to Kiva for posting about our milestone.
At our last milestone ($1 million) we had 6,000 members and now we are almost at 10,000 members!! Our community represents an important part of the wider secular community. We are a solid example that positive change in the world can be lead by those who's sincere understanding of the universe is that the reduction of human suffering will only occur through human intervention.

We are well on our way to our 2010 year-end goal of raising a total of $3 million in Kiva Loans!

It's an honor being your teammate!

Cheers,
Pete
Team Captain

April Fools 2010 Loan-A-Thon

Our April Fools 2010 Loan-A-Thon is just over a week away. This year's April Fools loan-a-thon will be held during the 48 hour period from April 1st to April 2nd 2010 (Pacific Time... of course you're always welcome to celebrate in your own time zone). To participate in the Loan-A-Thon all you have to do is make a loan (preferably with new money you've added to Kiva specifically for the Loan-A-Thon... but recycled money is always welcome) during the specified time frame and, if you like, post to the team message board to let everyone know you've participated.

Some team members make pledges in advance for how much new money they will be lending during the Loan-A-Thon to encourage others to follow their lead. Personally, I pledge $100 in new money towards this loan-a-thon.

Our April Fools Loan-A-Thon is best described by Joe from our team:

April 1st - We're no April Fools! We will not waste our money tithing to a religious organization when we can do some actual good by lending capital directly to our fellow Humans who need it!

We have currently just over $1,725,000 dollars lent. I did some quick analysis using Daniel R's stats tool and we are lending at a rate of about $125,000 per month. At this pace we'll be about $150,000 short of our $3,000,000 year end goal. Hopefully we can kick it up a notch as well as attract new members. We've added about 1000 new members so far this year.

It's been exciting to hear about the lending war (the only good type of war) over in the Religious Congregations category in the Kiva Community area between the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Kiva Mormons. I know some of you have been touched by His Noodly Appendage and have taken the call to arms. Good luck in your struggles. Hopefully we can have a 48 hour cease firing of meatball munitions to pay thanks to his Noodliness for spontaneously appearing against all odds when the call was put out for an Intelligent Designer to instantiate and lead us to intellectual victory. RAmen!

By Peter

New Years 2010 Loan-A-Thon Results

The Loan-a-Thon started out slowly. There were almost no loans available on Kiva for all of New Years Eve (dec 31). According to Daniel R's stats we lent about $775 dollars on Dec 31. Based on feedback from the team message board I decided to extended the loanathon another 24 hours to include Jan 2.

We kicked off the New Year with our loan total at $1,360,950 at 12:10am pacific time (the Kiva time zone). I took a screenshot of our team page using my iPhone.


By the time I woke up the morning of Jan 1 the Loan-a-Thon had kicked into high gear thanks to the flood of loans posted by Kiva on the first (Kiva usually has a flood of new loans on the first of every month because they put a specific cap on each MFI which limits how much they can raise in capital through Kiva in any given month).

By the end of new years day (Jan 1) our loan total was 1,379,400 a one day increase of $18,450.
View the screenshot:


Then we hit the Loan-a-Thon overtime of Jan 2 where we raised another $10,475 to bring our loan total to 1,389,875.
View the screenshot:



This was a wildly successful Loan-a-thon, perhaps our most successful ever. We raised $29,700 in loans, 958 loans, added 69 new members and on Jan 1 we had 52 posts on the team message board; which I believe is a one day record. Getting the word out early and cross posting to our facebook group as well as the natural return of team members to Kiva through the holidays helped make this a great Loan-a-thon. We had many pledges from our teammates which helped to encourage each other to find a little more "entertainment" money from our budgets to fatten our Kiva portfolios. After seeing what my teammates had pledged, I increased my pledge from
$100 to $200 in new money.

I've bounced around the idea of setting our 2010 year end goal as loaning $3,000,000 on the team message board. Based on the feedback I am going to officially set our 2010 year end goal to raise a total of $3 million dollars in loans including what we have loaned to date.

Happy New Year,
Pete

New Years 2010 Loan-A-Thon

Our News Years 2010 Loan-A-Thon is coming up soon. Last year we had a very exciting Loan-A-Thon because Team Obama challenged us to a time-shifted Loan-A-Thon. We lent at New Years and they lent during Obama's inauguration.

This years Loan-A-Thon will take place during the 48 hours of December 31 to January 1st Pacific Time (although we are flexible since everyone is in different time zones). To participate in the Loan-A-Thon all you have to do is make a loan (preferably with new money you've added to Kiva specifically for the Loan-A-Thon) during the specified time frame and, if you like, post to the team message board to let everyone know you've participated.

Some team members make pledges in advance for how much new money they will be lending during the Loan-A-Thon to encourage others to follow their lead.

On another note, I think we should set our 2010 year-end lending goal as $3 million dollars in total loans lent.

Cheers,
Pete