MilePointers team goals

My wife was very happy to get this book. She has not let me look at it yet. Canucklehead, thanks again for holding this swag for us.

It may not be significant – but it is of interest. If it’s not possible to determine that from publicly available information that is fine.

Why I'm thinking this be of interest: This post is dedicated to team goals, both new money and re-lending contributes to our lifetime loan value numbers. New money has more effect to the total since it represents a onetime bump in lifetime loan value – plus some percentage is reloaded each month. Also I assume there is some sort of lost factor when members withdrew their money and depended on new money deposits to expand their loan counts.

With some sort of guestimate of the ratio of new money, versus re-lending one could try to model the snowball effect of new money coming in versus existing funds.

Like if during the Kiva do the $200k was new money only, that would increase our total loan amount by $200k of new potential money and those people might have significant amounts of other money coming due for relending , if it was just relending then it really just was $200k that probably would have been relended already, netting a smaller bump of $200k versus $200k + some relending factor for members existing money.

Again from the comments it sounds like it’s not possible to tell this information so it’s probably a moot point.

I don't have the answer on ratio iolaire, but I know in the past we have been able to get a good estimate of outstanding loans for the team and then a general loan term. Not accurate, but enough to let us guess and pull together somewhat accurate plans.

Of course we then go out and have another moneybomb and change things.

I can only speak for myself here, but i believe most members of MP are reinvesting instead of withdrawing. I know I had stopped loaning in january and feb and did pull out about 1/3 of my money, but i have started pushing that back again.

I have not taken any money out (yet). 12% of my current loans were added the 9th and 10th for the MB II.

I've not taken out money (yet), 28% of my loans on MB II were from re-loaning the remaining 72% was new money (this included fulfilling my $2-million commitment).

Why did you break your vow?

Also I threatened him with even more poetry if he stopped lending.
That scared the hell out of him.

Your vow to stop sonneting might be the inspiration this team needs to go way past $ 500k loaned this month.

I notice your avatar is transforming like a chrysalis. Are you going to end up being a lamb as March ends?

Anyway they did solve the basket problem. Loans now time out in a basket after, IIRC, 30 minutes.

it is as little as 15 min but the LLL team still had 2 loans expire with $25 stuck in basket.

I already have a mail into the developers regarding the process of possibly allowing an overfunding up to basket amount so in worst case 1-2 people are refunded for an overfund than all for an underfund.

I like this suggestion. Like overselling a flight..

Hi Stephen,

While you are following up with the developers, how about requiring a log in when putting any amount of any loan in a basket? In theory, they could later build in processes to monitor suspicious basket activity, and while that is in the works, they could create the fear that this is already in place. It seems to me that it is a security problem that anyone can anonymously basket any loan and hold it virtually indefinitely. If someone is motivated enough, they can just hold the loan for 15 minutes and then rebasket it once they're kicked out.

Two years ago a specific loan was demonstrably held for a period of several days to expiry by an obviously committed saboteur (or perhaps two or three). There was absolutely no doubt that this was deliberate.

Taking away the possibility of basketing without logging in reduces this security risk. Monitoring for suspicious basket activity (which would need to be defined) and suspending the account of anyone engaging in it would eliminate this silly basket problem.

Within 6 hours of expiry, the basket force expires at 15 minutes already. (as of March 8 I believe it was)

the idea of requiring login at the last day or so is legit and good however, and I will pass along.

If I'm a malicious person, I can still grab $25 of a loan 14 minutes from expiry and then just watch it go down.

Also, why not allow me to grab the last $25 (or $x) even within a minute of expiry (logged in of course) and give me 15 minutes to complete the transaction?

I've suggested several things like that, even a ticketmaster/eventbrite type counter to let people know it is leaving their basket with a countdown.

I however tend to like the allowing overfunding up to basketed amount idea the best, as it can solve all the issues with minimal extra effort, and utilize some existing logic.

How about our April goals?

passing Europe.

They're about our average month in front and this group usually finds ways to get it done when we get close.

As Team Milepoint is closing in on the $3 million mark, it's also getting close to having made 1% of all Kiva loans. (Kiva total loans are $301,035,600 to date). So here's a new possible goal with a moving target: how about 1.5% of all Kiva loans by year end? Right now that would mean a little over $4.5 million, but by December it will surely take over $5 million to be at 1.5%. The various absolute milestones will also be important, of course.

Just a thought.

That is very clever. A good idea. I suspect we'll have no chance to make that by year end because I do not think we can keep up our pace. Of course if lots of people begin to be much more active lenders we can do it anyway.

I'll do my part.

Did you guys miss me?

Of course, I will try to help as much as I can.

I updated the projection chart as the MP KLT March lending was about $140K above the estimated target of $400K so we will move ahead of Team Europe this month, one earlier than in the original model. While almost all teams lend within 10% of their 6 or 7 month rolling average, Milepoint is a notable for its large swings in lending. At this rate, we would probably pass the Christians in March 2013.

In addition, here are the 10 ten lending team month totals for Kiva - Nerdfighters shot into the charts - they are at #5 so far in this month, so it looks like they have enthusiastic members to sustain their growth. In addition as the team is very young, it looks great for a generation to come.

This brings me to my next idea for a goal -- to go beyond the members we have (743, right now). This represents about 1.2% of the Milepoint community. I suspect that it is closer to 0.75% of registered Milepointers as there are many members who lend on Kiva but do not post on MP. How do we bring them to the group? I know Kiva is not for everyone, and many have charities that are much closer to them, but if we increased that percentage to 1.5% of MP, that would be almost double our present membership.

I also feel that part of what the team can do is help other teams. We do that already with LLL and FofBH, but groups like the Nerdfighters are another great example of helping them. I noticed that Team Lotus has also picked up in its lending and their team captain, Ravi, who attended the Kiva Do felt that the event helped re-invigorate his love for them.

So perhaps, we can look at a few long-term goals in addition to increasing our % effort to Kiva
a) raise membership from Milepoint to 1.5% of group (of course, how do we do that? - perhaps find a way to use the Mutual Fund Kiva Direct Donations to offer a 'free' loan to new members to sign up, with the money being given to Kiva during repayment, similar to Hoffman's offer this past month)
b) help encourage other teams' efforts, especially teams that are younger and seek help (perhaps reach out to team captains)
c) continue to provide Kiva support (including initiatives like the Fellows program travel, staff travel,....)

Great suggestions.

As far as two goes, I belong to several teams and give each at least one loan. Until MilePoint reaches number one, it will be where almost of of my loans go.

As for one, if Randy would send a personal message to every member asking that they join, I bet the response would be good. Perhaps he could offer a prize ($100 Kiva gift card funded from mutual fund) with one chance per loan (old and new members eligible and using screen shots to verify number of loans). I believe the personal message with links to join Kiva and to join the team would get members without a prize. I suspect we have a lot of Kiva lenders who have yet to join our team.

As for three, we should have a Fellow in every class. You can count on my financial support here. For staff travel, can we contribute points or miles to a Kiva account or do we have to get the staffer a ticket using our miles? I'd be glad to donate miles to a Kiva account. Absent that however if we hold our next do in Chicago, New Orleans or on the East Coast, if at a Starwood Hotel, I'll donate at least one day or a coach ticket for a staffer.

I think an annual Do would grow membership. I mentioned Chicago because of its location. If in February, Florida might be a good choice. I'd set up a three year rotation using San Francisco two out of the three perhaps.

Having spoken with some of the Kiva folks, I think that while they are super happy with our participation and energy, they would love to know how to transfer that to other teams. I think we could probably act as a mentors or quasi-consultants to these teams to get them to encourage more lending and grow their membership. Maybe Kiva could start a Lending Team Mentorship Program and people could volunteer to assist.

Case in point, I reached out to the DC KLT's point of contact but got no response. I'm not even sure if they're active at all. I think we could all try and either start or encourage something local.

Sorry folks, been very busy lately, so no goals updates so far.

How about:
- 750 team members
- $2,500,000 in loans