I ran across this a while ago but haven’t had time to look into it further until now. I was searching for a microlending organization that not only was either a write-off or “investment” of sorts, but focused on China. Everything so far that you usually hear about was Kiva this, or Kiva that but they don’t really allow tax deductions.
Enter Wokai.
Wokai actually helps rural entrepreneurs in China start their own businesses. It goes through field partners and gathers information on whether or not this person is successful with repaying their loans. A person that gives to Wokai gets to see the money all the way through three rounds of loans before it goes into Wokai’s long-term fund which I found absolutely gratifying since you are donating money and writing it off, but you also get to pick and choose where it went went, which is a bit more unusual.
While there are many microlending foundations, there really aren’t many that focus on Asia in general (most of them are more Africa based). So finding something that ties back to my heritage was pretty neat to say the least.
