Kiva borrowers located in the United States go through a "private" fundraising period before their loan is published on the website for lenders to contribute. In this period, they'll reach out to their community of customers, friends and family to contribute to their loan as a form of "social underwriting."
This can seem intimidating at first, but most borrowers are surprised at how willing people are to support them! CEO of Fresh to Def Collective and Kiva borrower Hope Lehman talks about her experience with the private fundraising period. She’s a borrower who felt the same way many borrowers do at first, but soon realized how eager her community was to help her business.
Channing first witnessed the ability of entrepreneurship to empower people while studying Spanish in Guatemala. Throughout college, she became interested in microfinance while working in business development in the Netherlands and studying the effects of tourism on Caribbean economies. After graduating from Principia College in 2018 with degrees in Political Science and Business, she began work for a Santa Barbara-based nonprofit and later found Kiva. She's passionate about communicating and sharing the work done at Kiva and elsewhere in the international development space.
