Earlier this month, Kiva co-launched an exciting new campaign to help empower women, together with Dermalogica and other strategic partners called JoinFITE. FITE stands for “Financial Indepence Through Entrepreneurship” and is focused on helping women worldwide start and grow a business.

The campaign has since been covered in BusinessWeek, FastCompany, and the Huffington Post.

Jane Wurwand, the 52-year-old founder of skin-care product maker Dermalogica started 25 years ago with $14,000 and built a business with customers in 87 countries and more than $200 million in annual revenue. She’s an incredible woman I’ve heard speak through my involvement with Step Up Women’s Network. She is dedicated to helping women in business and support entrepreneurship and this is an amazing partnership and campaign to highlight that commitment.

Dermalogica is donating $500,000 to help fund microloans to women through Kiva. Wurwand just stepped down as chief executive officer of Dermalogica to focus her attention on the microlending campaign. According to Jane:

It’s so authentic to our industry. Every spa and salon owner has said it feels like their story. Each of them started with a small amount of money and built their success through that. They know as a woman what it means to be financially independent.

The project will involve promotions on five of Dermalogica’s top-selling products, including skin cleansers, microfolients, and eye creams, that consumers can redeem online to contribute $1 to a Kiva loan. Wurwand hopes consumers will add to the credits with donations of their own, and aims to facilitate microloans to at least 25,000 entrepreneurs in two years. Unlike on Kiva’s main site, loans made through FITE will only go to women. When people fund a loan on the site, starting at $25, they choose what country and what industry their money goes to. Kiva will then choose the borrower and send donors e-mail updates on the entrepreneurs who receive their funds. You can check out the campaign site too, at http://joinFITE.org.

JoinFITE is inspiring a movement and I can’t wait to see where it goes! Celebrities like Geena Davis and Julia Ormond, companies like Dermalogica and Seventh Generation, and thought leaders like Isobel Coleman and Nicholas Kristof (NY Times Columnist and best-selling co-author of Half-the-Sky) have all joined forces and are competing in the joinFITE Challenge. Learn more about it at JoinFITE.org.

I wanted to take a moment to share some cool projects I do know about, there are many many others. But here are five of my favorite people I met through Kiva and a quick glance of “where are they now.” Support their organizations and follow these rockstars, they are on the cutting edge of their fields and amazing people to know. I also created a list on Twitter called “Kiva Fellow” which you can follow.

1. iMentor’s mission is to improve the lives of young people from underserved communities through innovative, technology-based approaches to mentoring. Over the past ten years, iMentor has transformed over 20,000 lives including matching over 10,000 mentor-mentee pairs, and partnering with 30 NYC schools and after school programs in four of New York City’s five boroughs and programs all over the country. Hanh Tran, a Kiva Fellow in Vietnam, who recently graduated from NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service, is now working at iMentor as a Program Manager.

2. It’s hard to pick one venture of Halle Tecco’s, so I’m going to include two. First, before becoming an intern at Kiva, Halle founded YogaBear, a national 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to promoting more opportunities for wellness and healing to the cancer community through the practice of yoga. Yoga teachers and studios around the country provide free services to those in the cancer community. This past year she authored with friends, including another Kiva intern Analisa Shah (a powerhouse herself), The Flexitarian Cookbook, a cookbook for carnivores and vegetarians, with recipes from chefs around the country. Proceeds from The Flexitarian Cookbook benefit Slow Food USA and Yoga Bear and can be purchased here.

3. You all know Habitat for Humanity, right? Founded in 1976 by Millard and Linda Fuller, the organization has built over 350,000 houses around the world, providing more than 1.75 million people in 3,000 communities with safe, decent, affordable shelter. Dave McMurtry, a Kiva Fellow in Libya, now serves as the Senior Vice President of Strategy for Habitat International. In his role, he travels the world to visit projects and is hard at work at new and innovative strategies to take Habitat forward. I always love hearing about his exciting travels.

4. Worldreader’s mission is to make digital books available to all in the developing world, enabling millions of people to improve their lives. Where many schools and villages lack a library because they cannot keep current books in circulation, worldreader provides an endless amount of learning with one device. Zev Lowe, a Kiva Fellow in Indonesia, leads worldreader.org’s finance and research, and supports trial development while based in Barcelona. Zev, also known as an international man of mystery, is an enigma. Worldreader is so lucky to have him.

5. Pando Projects is a nonprofit that empowers people to step up as leaders and develop new, local solutions to the problems in their communities and called “the next big thing” by Kiva CEO, Premal Shah. Milena Arciszewski (who wrote a guest blog post on The Causemopolitan this summer) is the Founder and Executive Director and has been working on Pando since she returned to the States earlier this year from a yearlong Kiva Fellowship in Bosnia, Kenya and the Philippines. Launching in 2011, they are currently looking for 10 people (age 18+) with ideas that can be executed within 3 months in the New York City area. You can find out more about submitting a project here. Milena is a true social entrepreneur. I have loved hearing about Pando from an idea she described over dinner at the Bohol Bee Farm in the Philippines to seeing it executed on the verge of launching, it’s the makings of an incredible success story.

Any Kiva Fellows Alumni reading this, please send me your updates or leave a comment below and I’ll include you in an upcoming post!

The “us” is all of us. It’s not just residents, it’s expats living elsewhere, it’s one-time residents now somewhere else, it’s college students and JazzFest visitoes. It’s all of us. We all have the power, passion and influence to keep New Orleans top of mind and continue to help her from whereever we may come from. I hope you’ll join me. Now onto Michael’s letter:

Reflecting at the fifth anniversary of Katrina — K5 — it is tempting to claim success.

Our population is back; we powered through the recession; global companies are moving to our region; reforms are making New Orleans a better place; and, of course, the Saints are world champions.

But the truth is, it’s too early to claim success. We have been buoyed by a short-term recovery economy, and significant long-term challenges remain. Decades are not reversed in days.

To really know if we have succeeded, to really know if we have created a New Orleans region better than before, we have to go out ten years. Here we will find the “new normal” that will come to pass after the Katrina money has run dry, and the economy is left to stand on its own.

At this point — at K10 — we will be able to sit back, and reflect. And, if indeed we have been successful, here is what it may look like:

• New Orleans will be the great boutique city of America. In a world of creeping sameness, NOLA will shine with its unique culture and diverse flair, attracting professionals and tourists, alike.
• Greater New Orleans will be a great region of America: cohesive and connected, it will offer a lifestyle or corporate option for everyone — and offer places like Houston and Atlanta a run for their money.
• Globalstar, which recently relocated here from Silicon Valley, will prove to be the vanguard of a dynamic digital sector, as dozens of firms choose Greater New Orleans and create “Silicon Valley South.”
• Showing that you can make lemonade from oily water, Southeastern Louisiana will have become a global hub for sustainable industry. Heralded by the recent move of Blade Dynamics to Michoud, this new sector will create thousands of jobs, diversifying our economy while sustaining our environment.
• At the same time, next-wave oil production will remain an important — and safe — part of our economic mix — while Louisiana finally gets the royalty share it has so long deserved, to help fund the restoration of our coast.
• Greater New Orleans will be on its way to reclaiming the mantle of “Gateway to the Americas,” with reinvestment in its ports, rekindling of relationships with partners like Brazil, and a refocus on value-added port-side production.
• The medical district will spawn close to 10,000 new jobs, as New Orleans becomes a center of excellence, mimicking and then surpassing the success of Birmingham. Our citizens will be served, our doctors will be trained, and our intellectual property will be commercialized.
• Other projects, like Federal City and the revitalization of Avondale Shipyard, will have demonstrated the potential of public-private partnerships to transform old facilities into new centers of opportunity and jobs.
• Innovation will flourish, proving Entrepreneur magazine right when it claimed, “In the midst of one of the worst national economies in decades, New Orleans is recreating itself as a hive of entrepreneurial initiative.”
• Unprecedented and ongoing reforms will have finally put to rest the four historic “dissatisfiers”: corruption, crime, education and flood protection, and Greater New Orleans will be as famous for its quality of life as for its food and music.

If this is Greater New Orleans at K10 — if this is even close — it will be the place we’ve always aspired to: with a diverse and resilient economy, a renowned lifestyle, and an unquestioned reputation as one of the great places in the country to grow a company — or a family.

But this success is not guaranteed. It will require the same qualities that brought the Saints their first championship — energy, focus and selflessness — sustained over many years. Yet I think we can get there. I believe we are part of one of the great revitalizations of our lifetimes. Why? Because our fundamental advantages — our culture, our costs, our assets — are still in place, while our challenges (the “dissastisfiers”) are being addressed. To quote G.E. CEO, and friend of New Orleans, Jeff Immelt, we simply must “practice optimistic action.”

It is appropriate that we take a moment to pause and reflect at K5.

But tomorrow, it’s back to work. K10 is coming.

*****
As the CEO of Greater New Orleans, Inc., Michael Hecht leads an organization whose mission falls broadly into two categories: business development—marketing the region to businesses—and product development—creating better conditions for business. The ultimate vision is to make the region one of the best places in the country for both a business, and a family.

More information can be found at www.gnoinc.org.

See my original blog post entitled: Please Vote for Kiva In Sam’s Club Giving Competition!

From Kiva:

We are thrilled to announce that Kiva has won a $1 million grant through the Sam’s Club Giving Made Simple campaign. The campaign ran from April 8th to May 2nd with over 125,000 Sam’s Club members and associates placing votes for their favorite charities.

Thank you to everyone who supported Kiva throughout the campaign. We could not have won without your daily votes, outreach to friends, and participation during the Double Points Days on Twitter.

KIVA will use the $1 million grant to enhance and expand the reach of its microloan platform to generate approximately $10 million more in loans from the internet community, helping approximately 25,000 entrepreneurs in the United States and around the world.

“We are truly grateful to Sam’s Club and its members for helping Kiva win this generous grant,” said Premal Shah, president of Kiva. “Kiva’s mission is to help to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty in the developing world – and right here at home. This grant will enable Kiva to continue to provide the opportunity that microfinance presents to hard-working entrepreneurs in our global community.”

On behalf of our community of staff, board members, volunteers, and friends, thank you for showing your support for Kiva. We won this together!

I’m so proud to be a part of the Kiva community because I have seen with my own eyes as a Fellow how that money directly impacts poverty alleviation worldwide. Kiva, congrats!

A bit of extra information for you:

About Kiva.org

Kiva.org is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to an entrepreneur across the globe. Founded in 2005, Kiva.org’s mission is to connect people, through lending, to alleviate poverty. Over 585,000 people have loaned more than $100 million to 249,000 entrepreneurs in 49 countries. Currently, loans made through Kiva.org have a 98% repayment rate. Kiva.org is headquartered in San Francisco.

About Sam’s Club

Sam’s Club is a division of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., (NYSE:WMT). The first Sam’s Club opened its doors in Midwest City, Okla., in 1983. Today, Sam’s Club serves more than 47 million U.S. members with locations nationwide, as well as in Brazil, China, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Sam’s Club saves its members on average 30.4 percent over grocery and specialty retailers by offering superior values on quality merchandise and services for home or work. Saving is made simple at Sam’s Club. Visit samsclub.com for more information.

Sam’s Club Charitable Giving Programs

Giving Made Simple is a new addition to a long history of charitable contributions made by Sam’s Club at both the national and local level. Last year, Sam’s Club associates logged more than 113,879 hours to the company’s Volunteerism Always Pays grant program, which resulted in $948,000 worth of charitable grants to education, workforce development, environmental and health and wellness focused organizations. Sam’s Club also donated more than 38 million pounds of food last year to U.S. food banks through Walmart’s partnership with Feeding America; and participates in disaster assistance, events such as the Salvation Army Red Kettle Holiday Drive as well as Children’s Miracle Network fundraising.

I might be a former Kiva Fellow, but Kiva never fails to remind us “alumni” that we’re part of their extended family. My true passion for Kiva and dedication to the work they are doing in microfinance and microlending grows stronger with each loan I make, each update from a borrower, each correspondence with a new Kiva Fellow.

I hope you’ll take my true sincerity for this nonprofit and consider the request below.

Kiva has been chosen as one of four finalists in the Sam’s Club “Giving Made Simple” competition, for a chance to win a $1 Million dollar grant! Yes, this is super exciting news!

Winning this $1 Million grant would be a huge deal for Kiva! With this grant, Kiva will multiply the impact by 10 by generating approximately $10 Million more in loans from the Internet community, to help 25,000 entrepreneurs in the US and around the world.

If you’re a Sam’s Club member, you can vote daily between April 8th – May 2nd.

If you’re NOT a Sam’s Club member but would like to support the campaign in other ways, Kiva is accepting volunteers – fill out their form for more information.

Other ways to help?
* Share the voting link with friends and family who are Sam’s Club members.
* Post to your online social networks.
* Tweet a message! Here’s mine:

Kiva could win a $1M dollar grant with your vote! Sam’s Club Members – Vote for Kiva once a day. http://bit.ly/arTEUH – Please RT!

You can do something TODAY to change lives from where ever you are by taking just a few minutes to take action on this very simple request. Thank you (in advance) for your support!

Sidenote: In the grand scheme of things, there has been much debate about the merit of these contests and the impact and effectiveness. Regardless of those conversations, debates and arguments, $! million is on the line so let’s vote for Kiva NOW and continue that very worthwhile conversation in another outlet.

The earthquake that shook Haiti last week demolished and devastated the entire nation. Looking at pictures online, reading testimonials of survivors and following the developments in the rescue and emergency response teams, I felt, like many of you, overwhelming sadness. Mere weeks after completing my Kiva Fellowship last summer, the Philippines were hit with Typhoon Ondoy, another natural disaster resulting in true devastation. I was looking back on pictures from the Philippines and wanted to share the slideshow above from when I went to visit Bernardita Dayo, a Kiva borrower that I had actually funded before I became a Fellow. Looking at those pictures, their homes located so close to the water, I’m reminded that for every picture we see of Haiti NOW, just last week there were other pictures showing THEN. The pictures above, that village, doesn’t exist in the same way after the Typhoon, now it is just a memory as the Filipino people work to rebuild their villages and homes so too now does Haiti have a long and turbulent road ahead of them. The “then” in their pictures were vibrant lives and villages with personality, history and culture whose path has now forever been changed.

When you give to help Haiti, and you should, $5-$10 is little to most of us but means the world to them, I’d like to ask you to remember that you’re giving not just to help the Haitian people out of their dire current situation, but investing in their future and the rebuilding of the parts of their society and community that helped define them.

Here are a few quick and easy ways from WhatGives!:

* Text HAITI to 90999. $10 will be charged to your cell phone bill and given to the American Red Cross.

* Text YELE to 501501. $5 will be charged to your cell phone bill and given to Yele Haiti. (see note at end of post about Yele Haiti)

* Text CERF to 90999. $5 will be charged to your cell phone bill and given to the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund.

* Text HAITI to 45678. $5 will be charged to your cell phone bill and given to The Salvation Army.

* Text QUAKE to 20222. $10 will be charged to your cell phone bill and given to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

* Text SAVE to 20222 (US Only). $10 will be charged to your cell phone bill and given to Save the Children.

In addition to the above, I’ve also made a donation to Architecture for Humanity and I’d like to ask you to join me. Cameron Sinclair wrote a powerful article in yesterday’s HuffPost about the rebuilding of Haiti:

When we are rebuilding, do not let the media set the time line and expectations for reconstruction. I remember vividly well known news personalities standing on the rubble of homes in the lower ninth proclaiming that ‘this time next year we will see families back home.’ Some well meaning NGOs, who usually have little building experience, are even worse — ‘we’ll have 25,000 Haitians back home if you donate today.’ In reality, here is what it really looks like;

* Pre-Planning Assessments and Damage Analysis (underway, will run for a year)
* Establish Community Resource Center and Reconstruction Studio (Week 6 to Month 3)
* Sorting Out Land Tenure and Building Ownership (Month 6 to Year 5)
* Transitional Shelters, Health Clinics and Community Structures (Month 6 to Year 2)
* Schools, Hospitals and Civic Structures (Month 9 to Year 3)
* Permanent Housing (Year 1 to Year 5)

Thank you to WhatGives! for creating the widget below that makes it easy for you to make a donation in just a few clicks.

The social web has incredible power to impact change on the world and when disaster strikes, we must dig into our pockets, past where we already give and help those in need. Because we’d want the world to act the same if something horrific were to happen in our backyard. A lesson I’ve learned all too well from the amazing people here in New Orleans.

Please text or make a donation to help the rebuilding of Haiti today.

If you liked this post, you might like:
Simple Ways To Make A Difference Today
$5 or 5 minutes, 1 Way to Make A Difference Today
Be A Part of Tweetsgiving

Today, I’m interviewing Les Gebhardt who had a 45th birthday fundraiser to benefit Kiva. Les is someone who I first came across when I got a google alert for my name from his blog. I clicked on the link and wouldn’t you know, it was about a birthday campaign. It was such a nice post and reflection on how Cause It’s My Birthday had inspired him and moved me to get in touch with him, connect and say hi. Because that’s what this crazy internet is for. Connecting and saying hello. I’m glad I did.

Les graciously answered my questions below. Check it out and then stay tuned for MORE birthday fundraiser interviews next week. That’s right, more good info and personal stories coming your way!

1) Tell me about your birthday and fundraising campaign. When was your birthday? Was it a milestone? What was your inspiration? What nonprofit did you partner with? Did you tell them in advance? What was your fundraising goal (if you had one) and did you reach it?

My birthday was December 1.

I turned 45.

My inspiration was 3-fold: your “causeitsmybday” campaign, the Movember campaign to raise money for childrens cancer research and the Lance Armstrong foundation which a friend and part of the Nashville “geek” community joined as a team to grow mustaches for the month of November with “support” via donations, and my HS aged daughter and her own activist work to get the presidential candidates to pledge to get our troops out of Iraq as well as her new commitment to environmental awareness thru a campaign to get families to pledge to live a greener lifestyle.

I chose Kiva.org and created a Kiva Team: Team Forty Five.

My goal, initially, is $450.00 by the end of the month. I plan on carrying this forward to raise, hopefully, much more than $450.00 for the whole year. I just figured $450.00 was doable by the end of the month since I’ve never done this before. I have yet to reach the goal.

2) Did you use online tools? Did you have a birthday party in person? What was your way to connect with people and tell them about this?

I used the following: my blog, where I set up a special page with links to Kiva, my Kiva team and a paypal donation button for folks that didn’t want to donate the minimum $25.00 to Kiva directly.

I also used the Causes app within Facebook to get the ball rolling.

I have used, and continue to use Twitter to relink to my blog posts and my page to try and spread the word. Unfortunately, I didn’t plan any parties although I would do this if I was better organized.

3) What have you done for past birthdays?

I’ve never done anything like this. Mostly, I have celebrated the traditional way either with friends and/or family.

4) Would you do a fundraiser for your birthday again? Was it easier or harder than you thought it would be?

Absolutely!!!! I plan on doing more “activist” celebrations going forward. I have enough “stuff”, I want to give back and make the world a better place.

It has been both easy and hard. It was easy to set up the web stuff and paypal buttons. It was easy to get involved with Kiva and create the team. Where it was hard is in getting the word out and creating any kind of “buzz” or awareness outside of a few friends and family members.

5) What was the best part? Did you connect with someone you had lost contact with? Any one story you’d like to share?

For me, the best part was knowing that I’m doing something, no matter how small, to directly affect the lives of people elsewhere in the world. I am blessed to live in the United States where our lives are pretty easy in contrast to folks that live elsewhere, particularly in under-developed or so-called “third world” countries and I believe that if I can give even a few dollars or a few hundred dollars, it will have an immediate and positive impact for some folks and their families and communities.

For me, it wasn’t about connecting with anyone as much as just standing up to do something and do the right thing. If there was anyone that I did connect with, it would be you. I’m deeply honored that you would ask me to be part of this.

6) What advice would you give to someone else who wanted to throw a fundraiser but didn’t know where to start?

Several things:
a) Start planning WELL in advance of when you want to start. I believe one of the biggest challenges has been just getting things organized and rolling.

b) If at all possible, find people that are good at creating networks to assist in spreading the word and making people aware of your campaign. The logistics of the website and donation handling was easy enough for me, as a techie. However, creating “buzz” and spreading the word is definitely my weakness.

c) Don’t go it alone unless you are a whiz at logistics, networking and technology. Enlist the help of others, particularly in the areas where you are weak. For me, getting a “PR” person involved, even if for some initial planning and advice, would have been a plus.

Thanks Les!

More birthday interviews next week! And if you’ve done a fundraiser for your birthday and would like to featured in this series or an upcoming one on The Causemopolitan, shoot me an email at sloane@thecausemopolitan.com, contact me through the contact page on this site or on twitter at @sloane.

I hope you’ve been inspired this week to see ways you too can give instead of get around your birthdays. Give it a try! What do you have to lose?

If you liked this post, you might like:
Day in the Life of a Kiva Fellow…
New Kiva Borrower Profiles
The Story of a Kiva Borrower in Bosnia

Denise Wakeman is a truly remarkable woman. We first met online through a mutual passion for Kiva this past spring when I was fundraising to go to the Philippines as a Kiva Fellow. She was an immediate advocate of my fellowship and I supported her birthday campaign when she launched it. We kept in touch online and through social networks through the year and we both found ourselves at Blog World Expo in October and literally tracked each other down so we could meet in person. I’m so glad we did (proof is in the picture). So here we go, an interview with Denise:

1) Tell me about your birthday and fundraising campaign. When was your birthday? Was it a milestone? What was your inspiration? What nonprofit did you partner with? Did you tell them in advance? What was your fundraising goal (if you had one) and did you reach it?

I’m a big fan and supporter of Kiva.org. As my 50th birthday approached I was thinking about ways I could leverage my online community and do some good. I have a video and details HERE.

My Kiva Lending Team is located at Kiva Challenge.

My goal was to raise $5,000 in micro loans during June 2009 – my birthday month. Though I did not meet my goal in June ($3,500 on June 30), the amazing people who joined my lending team have continued to reinvest and make new loans and in October 2009, we surpassed the goal. Today, members of the team continue to loan and the Team has reached $5,650 in loans to date

2) Did you use online tools? Did you have a birthday party in person? What was your way to connect with people and tell them about this?

My primary communication was through the internet: email to my list, blog posts, Twitter, Facebook – about 20,000+. I tweeted like crazy. Every time someone made a loan, I announced it on twitter and included a link by to my lending team page. If I knew their twitter ID, I sent them a tweet thanking them. I did blog updates and I used the messaging system on Kiva.org to thank lenders as well as post progress reports.

Many of my colleagues blogged and tweeted about the event as well. I got a lot of retweets.

3) What have you done for past birthdays?

Parties, dinner, movies, spa…never a fundraiser! J

4) Would you do a fundraiser for your birthday again? Was it easier or harder than you thought it would be?

Yes, I would do this again. It was a little harder than I anticipated. I have a fairly large network and I thought it would be a snap to attract 200 people to make a $25 loan. Maybe because the fundraiser was a month vs. a day people may have stopped paying attention to my tweets. It was like promoting anything else – a product or a service – as long as I kept the Challenge in front of people, they responded. When I backed off, nothing happened.

5) What was the best part? Did you connect with someone you had lost contact with? Any one story you’d like to share?

Connecting with the people who did participate. I met new people via their loans when they found out about the event from others. The words of encouragement and support were amazing. I am so grateful to everyone who loaned and kept me motivated. And I’m thrilled that I was able to introduce new people to Kiva and impact so many entrepreneurs. It’s the ripple effect that makes this form of contribution so powerful: an entrepreneur can increase their inventory, they can serve more people, they can send their kids to school, they can employ people in their community and everyone wins.

6) What advice would you give to someone else who wanted to throw a fundraiser but didn’t know where to start?

Start with your passion because that will drive your results. Tap your communities in every way possible. Ask for help! Make sure people understand why you’re doing the fundraiser, what the outcomes will be and how their participation makes a difference. Make sure the organization is legitimate so you can ally and discomfort people have about making a contribution.

Go for it!

Stayed tomorrow for the next featured birthday campaign coming from Meg Brogan and 9th Ward Field of Dreams!

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Kiva Fellowship Donors
Thank You To New Donors, I’ve Reached My Goal!
Vegas, New York, Pittsburgh, New Orleans – An Update on My Schedule

This series is called In Transit because you really have no idea how much time people in the Philippines spend in transit unless you are there and traveling in the provinces. Developing countries share that infrastructure problem where it just take a long time to get everywhere, all the time. I spent time on commuter boats, fishing boats, buses, jeepneys, tricycles, pedicabs, fastvans, the ro-ro, walking, taxis and motorbikes. It’s hard to capture all of it, but here are five of my photos that stand out as memories of the experience.

I have spent the better part of the weekend going through photos from my Kiva Fellowship in the Philippines and sorting them into stories and experiences, editing them and putting them on flickr where they are then tagged and descriptions given. I’ve yet to annotate every picture, but I’ve made great progress. 468 new photos are now posted on my Flickr account. I never would have done this were it not for the advice and encouragement of Brian Oberkirch, who when asking why more photos from the Philippines weren’t online had no idea that posting pictures is maybe my single biggest online flaw. I’ve never been good at it posting pictures. Not my thing. But you know what? Costume weren’t my thing either and the last few years I’ve embraced Halloween (and in Park City Summerween) in a whole new way, so here’s to old dogs changing their spots. Plus, I’ve gotten ok at taking pictures this year and hope to only get better so I should be in a better habit of sharing them too. Very web savvy of me, I know.

I also understand it’s important to share my experience from the Philippines, to retell the stories I heard, and to continue my mission to empower the women who benefit from microfinance organizations and microlending platforms like Kiva.

The issue of photos and content also sparked a much bigger conversation about where our data goes online and what online communities really care about their users and the user experience and discovery (in a Flickr vs. Facebook debate) and suffice to say I am going to be much more conscientious about my data and content in the future. I don’t like that much of what we put online disappears days after and is sorted across multiple platforms around the web. In an online streaming version of my life, I am abandoning twitpic (and others like this) and limited Facebook pictures to “best of” or conference/events. The majority will now live on Flickr. As they should. I’ve been a member for years with scarce use. That changes effect immediately.

I hope you enjoy this series. In my newly infused Flickr’ing self, there will be a lot more sharing of my experiences to come.

You can see all of the new section in the upper navigation of the site under Kiva Fellowship. So browse through these new sections, tell me what you think in the comments and share with anyone you know who’s interested in microfinance and wants to learn more from someone who experienced it first-hand in the field.

Without further ado:
Kiva Fellowship
What Is Kiva?
Kiva Fellowship Donors
Fundraising for a Kiva Fellowship
What Is a Kiva Journal?