Blog Bites Man

Last night, six of us from the Atlassian SF office volunteered for the KQED pledge drive. While Jeffrey and Eugene were competing for chump change, I got a healthy $1000 pledge… very nice. Mario wins, however, for having the best sales technique (he had a whole technique that he had worked out in the first 10 minutes on the phone), and he’s one of the tech support guys!

(Another quote from Mario, who was a C# programmer before coming to Atlassian… “Java’s easy.” Uh-huh.)

National Public Radio feels like one of the last bastions of independent, non-partisan news sources, so it was nice to help fund a little free speech.

Kiva is one of those sites that I had heard about but didn’t do anything about. Today, I took up Mike’s challenge to support a couple Kiva entrepreneurs. One of the things I appreciate is that Kiva keeps the donation separate from their operating costs. Though it’s something I haven’t looked into, my guess is that their operating costs will be slightly lower than the traditional non-profit because they’re running a virtual business. Most non-profits have about 20% operating costs, whereas Kiva asks, but does not demand, for an additional 10% of your donation to cover their costs. Thanks for the challenge, it got me off my butt.

Update on Feb. 20, 2007

An email from Kiva:

Dear Jon Silvers ,

The business you have loaned to, AKOABA , has made a repayment of $100.00.  The total amount repaid up to now is $100.00.  The payment was collected and deposited by Joseph Kossi Akogo.   This repayment will be divided amongst all the lenders who helped to fund this business, depending upon the percentage each lender contributed.  Note that you cannot actually withdraw or reloan these funds until after the loan term is complete.Comment:

Akouété thanks sincerely KIVA and all those who have contributed to his project funding which allows him today to increase his activities and automatically his incomes to his proper living conditions improvement and those of his family. May Almighty and Merciful God bless you, and rendered it to you everlastingly!!!