Kiva.org is an international nonprofit organization (independent from the Green brothers and from the Nerdfighters) that allows users to connect with a network of microfinance institutions established throughout the world, making it possible for them to make microloans to entrepreneurs in developing countries.
A particular feature of Kiva.org is that it supports the creation of Lending Teams, which are “self-organized groups where members connect with each other and rally around shared lending goals” (Kiva.org). This feature allows users to become actively engaged with making microloans, and share their experiences with others while encouraging more people to join. There are currently over 28,000 registered Lending Teams on Kiva.org, and the Nerdfighter Team ranks at number 9, with close to 45,493 members who have lent over $4,000,000 by making 136,942 different loans.
The reason why the Nerdfighter Lending Team has succeeded over the years is that members have made the platform offered by Kiva.org a place in which they can meet with the purpose of doing something for others, together.
How to Be a Microfinancier
The idea to lend money through Kiva.org as a group came from a trip the Green brothers took to the Dominican Republic, when they were able to see the kind of work that was achieved by the organization. On June 28 and June 29, both John and Hank respectively explained to the Nerdfighters how Kiva worked, and invited them to make microloans along with them.
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How to be a Microfinancier |
How to be a Microfinancier Pt.2 |
By July 2, 2007, John reported that the Nerdfighters as a group had loaned “many thousands of dollars” through Kiva.org, and he encouraged Nerdfighters to continue loaning. At the same time, he thought it was time to invite more people to become Nerdfighters, as the “Law of Compound Nerdfighting” meant that if more Nerdfighters worked together, better things could be accomplished (and, in this case, more money could be lent).
Ever since then, Nerdfighters have continued to lend money through Kiva.org, and they keep actively self-organizing on the Kiva platform to achieve specific goals. Narratives about how microloans are such an effective way to help people in the developing world have encouraged Nerdfighters to keep the Lending Team efforts rolling through the years.
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I chose this Nerdfighter activity as one of the indicators for participation in the community for the purposes of dividing participants (interviewees) in active and non-active groups. This allowed me to perform comparative analysis between the groups. I also chose to use participation in the Project for Awesome, as that is an activity with a wider reach. To see more on this, check out my method.
The narratives explored in this series of posts are the results of the pre-study I did with the aim of finding the most prominent themes and narratives that emerged throughout the first year of the Nerdfighter Community.
Each of these posts explores the stories and themes that are the basis to understand the culture of this community, its activities and overall atmosphere. Each section explains a theme or narrative that Nerdfighters have adopted as shareable stories through which they make sense of their culture.
More narratives:
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