Good People, A Good Cause: Wokai.org
Posted: Jun. 03, 2009
Regular Chinabites visitors might have noticed a new addition to many pages, a dynamic ad for a group called wokai.org in the upper right hand portion of your screen.
Each ad features a picture of a rural Chinese entrepreneur, the dollar amount of a loan that entrepreneur is seeking, how much of the loan has been funded, and a link to contribute. Clicking on the link will take you to a page on wokai.org with more detailed information about the entrepreneur and an easy way to contribute as little as $10 towards that entrepreneurs loan.
These loans, at a couple hundred US dollars apiece, are generally too small to be of interest to traditional lending institutions. They cost more for local banks to keep track of than the amount of interest they would produce over the period of the loan. This leads to a situation where people who needed loans would either have to go without them, or borrow from loan sharks at exorbitant interest rates.
This is where Wokai and its partner organizations come in. Wokai’s field partners identify worthy entrepreneurs, Wokai then posts information about these entrepreneurs on their website and individuals from around the world can contribute. The entrepreneurs pay the loans back to your wokai.org account on a schedule, and then you can re-invest the money with a new wokai.org entrepreneur for several loan cycles. It’s a fun way to watch how much benefit a small amount of money can provide to someone half a world away.
I’ve also been tracking how often the loans advertisements have been showing on the site and when they are being clicked on. After a few months of continuous showing, here are the top three wokai.org entrepreneurs by clicks / impression:
If you would like to place a dynamic wokai.org ad on your site, all you need to do is add the following html to your blog or homepage:
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://widgets.prairiedogg.com/wokai/contribute_ad/js/?ref=your.domainname.com”></script>
Full disclosure: I have known both of the founders of wokai.org for several years and am a Wokai contributor.
