Moral Dilemma: Kiva.org is full

One of the reasons that Kiva seems to be wildly popular is that, in some way, it restores social capital (or the illusion of social capital) to the development industry. Disillusioned by the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of monolithic organizations, ranging from the World Bank to UNICEF, middle class American philanthropists seem thrilled by Kiva's application of social networking to micro-lending. They love knowing who is getting their money, how it is being spent, and perhaps best of all, that it is being responsibly repaid and can be used again and again, for new loans.

One of Kiva's challenges, on the other hand, is handling growth. Behind the simple website is a global network of local financiers who coordinate, vet, and process every single loan. Growing this network at the same pace as the site has been a consistent challenge. They saw a huge traffic spike about a year ago - I believe due to Oprah - which exhausted their supply of loan recipients and forced them to place a $25 limit on loans, so that more donors could participate.

As of today, they've reached a new low - there are no more loans. One of my previous loans was just paid off, so I've got a little money in my account, and nobody to lend it to.

This has presented me with an unexpected moral dilemma: Knowing that I'm a really good giver, donating a percentage of every paycheck to charities, should I really be clogging up a crowded system like Kiva.org? Perhaps Kiva is best left to tentative givers, who might not donate or lend under other circumstances, and the highly committed givers like myself should put our money into places that aren't getting as much attention.

This reminds me, a bit, of why I tend not to donate to cancer walks, or cystic fibrosis 10ks -- these sorts of efforts bring in a ton of money from all sorts of people, and they don't really need me... at least not in the way that a small organization like Machik needs me.

I guess my takeaway from this line of reasoning is somewhat obvious: it's not good enough to simply give - you have to also be very attentive to the outcomes of your gift. This is nothing new, but what is somewhat new is that this attentiveness should include an awareness of how your own giving encourages or limits additional giving, from others.