In 2009, according to transaction records, I became interested in an organization called Kiva, which “uses crowdfunded microloans as a force for good, creating a space where people can have one-to-one impact, and together, expand financial access for all.”
The way it works is a bunch of strangers put in some amount, minimum $25 each, and lend it to someone somewhere in the world who needs a small loan, for example to buy inventory or equipment or whatever. The goal is the borrower gets a bit ahead and pays the loan back, and then that same money can be lent again.
It seems like excellent community to me, the idea of microloans from crowds of non-corporate lenders to borrowers without other options for survival. Money should actually circulate and help.
But at a certain point I found Kiva’s auto-generated emails upsettingly aggressive. If I remember correctly, they involved red (capital?) letters that repayments had been made in the past two days and were sitting unused in my account, subtext: shame on me.
I wrote to ask them to reconsider their tone. The red yelling was the first notification about repayments and account balance; why not start with a green FYI instead? “You are ready to lend” before “WHY HAVEN’T YOU LENT YET.”
This relatively low-cost, low-effort suggestion, made to a kindness org asking them to please be kind, was somehow not immediately successful.
I don’t know when this particular campaign of mine started, but it was long enough ago that in 2022 I wrote “I have repeatedly asked you to stop sending me emails chastising me.” Somehow – astonishingly to me – Kiva seemed more willing to help a regular lender close their account than to adopt a softer tone. (I could withdraw to Paypal in $25 increments as repayments trickled in.)
In September of this year, as my last loans concluded, I tried one more time to ask if the scolding emails could stop. “I was told the alternative was to close my account, which is obviously not my preference.”
And finally, I think, they were listening? Sara, Community Success Manager, seemed genuinely “sorry to hear that some of our emails have come across as having a scolding tone. We never want lenders to feel scolded or pushed into anything.” I’m used to customer service agents saying “I’ll pass your message along to marketing” but I think Sara actually did, and persuasively at that.
Today I got an informative email, red-less: “Did you know that your Kiva account has been inactive for 1 months and you have $26.30 sitting in your account waiting to be used?”
So instead of closing my account I joined a new loan. And I sent Kiva yet another email, this time thanking them for their tone. Campaign concluded.