What happens to every referral commission we earn
Refer for Good started as a simple idea: what if signing up for things you were going to sign up for anyway could do some good in the world?
Every time someone uses one of my referral links on this site, I earn a commission from that company. Some commissions are small — $1 or $4 from a food delivery app. Some are larger — $50 or more from a brokerage or bank sign-up. Instead of pocketing that money, I route 100% of it into Kiva.org — a nonprofit microloan platform that lets individuals fund small business owners in developing countries.
The numbers as of September 2026
$11,775
Loaned to Kiva.org
1,427
Lives touched
462
Loans funded on Kiva
21
Countries reached
These aren’t hypothetical numbers. They’re the real output of this project, accumulated since I started tracking referrals intentionally and routing the proceeds to Kiva.
Where the loans go
Loans have reached entrepreneurs in 21 countries across Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Here’s the full breakdown:
🇪🇨 Ecuador — 35.93%
🇧🇴 Bolivia — 9.96%
🇸🇻 El Salvador — 9.96%
🇵🇭 Philippines — 8.01%
🇵🇰 Pakistan — 6.49%
🇺🇬 Uganda — 5.84%
🇨🇩 Congo (DRC) — 5.63%
🇳🇮 Nicaragua — 3.68%
🇸🇳 Senegal — 3.46%
🇹🇯 Tajikistan — 2.81%
🇱🇧 Lebanon — 1.73%
🇲🇲 Myanmar (Burma) — 1.73%
🇵🇪 Peru — 1.73%
🇰🇭 Cambodia — 0.87%
🇮🇶 Iraq — 0.65%
🇹🇱 Timor-Leste — 0.43%
🇬🇪 Georgia — 0.22%
🇭🇳 Honduras — 0.22%
🇺🇸 United States — 0.22%
🇻🇳 Vietnam — 0.22%
🇿🇼 Zimbabwe — 0.22%
Why Kiva specifically
A few things make Kiva different from traditional donation-based giving:
Loans, not donations. Borrowers repay their loans. When the money comes back, I reinvest it in new loans. The same dollar funds multiple entrepreneurs over time — the impact compounds rather than stopping at one use.
The same dollar funds multiple entrepreneurs over time — the impact compounds rather than stopping at one use.
Individual borrowers, not abstractions. You can see exactly who you’re funding — their name, their business, their story. It’s concrete in a way most charitable giving isn’t.
No overhead eating the proceeds. Kiva partners with local field organizations, but the funds go directly to borrowers. The lending platform itself is free to use.
How you help
When you sign up for any service on this site using my referral link, you get the same bonus you’d get anywhere — sometimes better. We earn a small commission. That commission goes to Kiva. You don’t have to donate anything — you just used a different link to sign up for something you were going to try anyway.
That’s the entire model. It’s simple on purpose.
Verified on Kiva.org
We’re not just saying the money goes to Kiva — you can see every loan we’ve funded. 462 loans to entrepreneurs across 21 countries, and counting.