Okay, so far I have shared some personal goals, some fitness goals and some business goals.  This one is both personal but also business related because I think if I am fortunate enough to have a profitable business that I have a responsibilty to help other business people succeed.  So goal #7 is to give back!  Specifically Team Revolution Conditioning will donate $500 to Kiva.org.  Actually it is not even a donation, it is a micro-loan.  Let me tell you a little bit about why I have selected www.Kiva.org. 

When I was growing up my Dad had this crazy college classmate who would visit occassionally for homecoming festivities and we would visit him when we were skiing in Colorado.  He was a good enough friend of my Dad’s that we called him Uncle Paul for as long as I can remember.  The only way I can describe his is to say he is “funny” (yes, funny ha ha AND funny peculiar).  I think he had both hips replaced at a fairly young age (one hip for sure), yet he still downhill skied.  If you made plans to meet him at a restaurant for dinner he would show up like 90-minutes late.  But he was an extremely interesting and interested man.  He went on to found International Development enterprises and authored the book Out of Poverty.  What he said that stuck with me is something to the effect that ‘you cannot donate people out of poverty.’  Simply throwing money at the problem does not work. 

People need to learn skills and manage themselves out of poverty with assistance and opportunity.  www.kiva.org provides small loans to individuals living in poverty.  The expectation is that these loans will be repaid as the venture succeeds.  I am going to give you an opportunity to help me achieve this goal – more on that later.  

If you look toward the bottom of the sidebar at the right of this page, you will see the entrepreneur I have made a loan to.  Emmanuel is a charcoal salesman living in Uganda.  He is using the capital to buy more charcoal to help him  renovate some rental housing he owns and educate his four children.  Why did I choose Emmanuel, well it struck me that he was a charcoal salesman.  My Yia Yia’s father was a charcoal salesman in Greece and he raised a very nice family doing that so I feel a little bit sentimental about it.  I also like that he values education for his children.

Only three more goals to go!
Cheers,
Maria