Kiva HQ
In Denmark, there is a tradition where if you remain unmarried...
Kiva HQ
As we all work towards a better and brighter future, these are findings that offer a glimpse into life in the past. From an energy efficient Egyptian pigment to a 1700-year-old ancient sock, these 5 anthropological findings remind us that though we have a long road ahead of us, we have also come a long way as innovators.
Egyptian blue: The energy efficient ancient pigment
Neanderthals and fire: Our distant cousins...
Kiva HQ
By Premal Shah, President & Co-Founder, Kiva
Every now and then, a truly game-changing partnership comes to life and shows us what’s possible when a company and its employees are committed to doing good in the world. Kiva’s partnership with Hewlett-Packard is just that.
In 2013, Kiva and Hewlett-Packard launched Matter to a Million, a groundbreaking 5-year global employee engagement partnership. The partnership concept was simple: set up a $7 million fund to provide each of Hewlett-Packard’s 275,000+ global...
Kiva HQ
An exciting new partnership between Kiva, Sierra Leone and U.N. agencies is set to bring a nationwide digital identification system to the people of Sierra Leone that is designed to provide citizens with formal identity and control over their own credit information.
Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio announced the initiative, which could be a promising new model for global financial inclusion, during his address to the Sept. 27, 2018, U.N General Assembly.
The centerpiece of the partnership is the new Kiva Protocol, which...
Kiva HQ
From inside a small juvenile detention center in Ontario, Canada, a group of young men have lent more than $2,000 to Kiva borrowers around the world. Their own circumstances are challenging, but they’ve embraced the opportunity to help others, with the assistance of one dedicated volunteer.
Hilda Van Netten, a long-time Kiva lender, volunteers with the art program at Brookside Youth Centre. Brookside is a secure juvenile detention facility for...
Kiva HQ
Hello everyone! My name is Barani, and I am the current Content & Partnerships Intern at Kiva. I was born and raised in Yangon, Myanmar and I thought I’d share a bit about my hometown!
Myanmar is a country of nearly 53 million, that is nestled between India and China. Yangon, its former capital, is a vibrant city known for its crumbling colonial buildings, amazing food and the famous Shwe Dagon Pagoda. Being one of the fastest growing cities in South East Asia, there is definitely no shortage of things to do, sights to see or foods...
Kiva HQ
As technology brings us ever closer together, we are bearing witness to the collective power of the crowd- not only to fund dreams, ideas and initiatives, but to accomplish tasks and create new products.
At Kiva, we simply could not have the impact we have in the world without the global corps of volunteers who help make it happen. We have to be smart about how we organize and leverage Kiva’s talented volunteers.
Kiva’s very own Apryl Gibson explains the technical solutions Kiva has created, in hopes that other organizations can learn from them...
Kiva HQ
It is common knowledge that the key to a good day is to have a great breakfast! And great breakfasts come in many shapes, colors and flavors. This week’s Links We Like presents you with the different types of breakfast from 5 countries around the world.
Ghanian Breakfast: From Milo to fufu, there’s something for everyone
Fish and rice: Japan’s love of omega-3s
Feta, anyone?: Greek Mediterranean breakfasts...
Continue Reading >> Kiva HQ
An activity some parents do with their kids called “Save, Spend, Share” or, when done Kiva-style, “Save, Spend, Lend” teaches children about the importance of being thoughtful with money. For this activity, kids spend a third of their allowance, save a third, and use the last third to donate or lend to a good cause. In this podcast "Inspired Money: Give a Little, Help a Lot," Kiva’s Global Engagement Manager, Jessica Hansen talks about the value of capturing the altruistic spirit that lies in all of us to use our money, not only wisely, but to positively impact...
Kiva HQ
All over the world, Review and Translation Program (RTP) volunteers dedicate their time and skills to ensure that the tens of thousands of loans that come in from Kiva’s Field Partners are edited or translated into English from Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian.
In the past nine months, RTP volunteers have reviewed 168,816 loans, averaging over 18,750 loans per month. They enjoy being involved in the process from reviewing the original loans to seeing them fundraise on Kiva!
This month we celebrate nine of our incredible volunteers. Sara, Miranda...
Kiva HQ
These days, we are often bombarded about how technology harms more than help. Here are 5 links that we love, to remind us that technological innovation can be a good thing.
The 2018 iPhone Photography Awards: Amazing photos without the fancy camera
AI technology: How it could help protect water supplies
3D technology: How it's saving World Heritage Sites
Kiva HQ
Drive an hour north-west from Nairobi, Kenya, and you’ll come to the famous Hell’s Gate National Park and the beautiful town of Naivasha. This lakeside retreat was the setting for the first-ever Kiva Labs Innovation Conference, which brought together nearly 100 leaders from Kiva’s African Field Partners.
Part of the larger Kiva Labs program, a 5-year initiative in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, the KLIC conference’s goal was to facilitate intra-organizational learning and innovation.
...
Kiva HQ
At the age of 6, Rebecca was already intent on making the world a better place. She founded the lending team Westfield Youth for Kiva while still in elementary school, and then went on to found an affiliated Kiva Microfinance Club at her middle school. Her team has now funded $39,000 in loans, making it #6 on the list of Kiva’s highest lending youth teams.
Today, Rebecca is 15 and vividly...
Kiva HQ
Janice, has a passion for service and getting others jazzed about doing good. As the captain and founder of the Kiva lending team Women United, she successfully invited more than 50 friends and family to lend with her on Kiva and has helped grow the team to more than 700 members.
Their focus? Empowering women through education, business and home improvement loans.
“By focusing on girls and women, the Women United team can aid in spurring economic progress, expanding markets, and improving health and...
Kiva HQ
When we work together we can make monumental change, and Kiva lending teams are proof of this every day. Members of Kiva teams join forces to create impact, share loans they are passionate about and get competitive in the name of doing good.
In 2017 alone, 50% of loans made on Kiva were attributed to a team, with the top 10 teams lending $20.9 million to Kiva borrowers! So if you’d like to get more involved with Kiva and connect with other lenders, join one of our more than 35,000 lending teams today.
Check out some of Kiva’s...
Continue Reading >> Kiva HQ
Every year, 5th grade students in Rene deBerardinis’ social entrepreneurship class at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia, PA, learn about microfinance through an experiential class project. The project gives students the opportunity to become both borrowers and lenders. First, students form product teams to create business plans for small venture ideas. Students receive microloans to purchase the supplies they need to implement their ideas, and pay back their loans with the sales they make at an annual Kiva-branded market. The profits from their sales...
Continue Reading >> Kiva HQ
As the most-consumed beverage in the world, and the second most traded global commodity after oil, coffee is economically important on an international scale. Its production and sale generated nearly $50 billion worldwide in 2015, and that number has only gone up.
For coffee-producing countries, which are primarily in the developing world, profits from coffee export can account for a significant percent of GDP. Colombia is the second most-productive coffee producing country in the world after Brazil, but despite the role coffee plays in the economy, many of...
Kiva HQ
The Kiva community is rallying to raise $1 million in loans for refugees and internally displaced people by World Refugee Day, June 20.
When Samira and her family fled the violence of the civil war in Syria for Lebanon, they thought they would be back in their own home within months, with enough time to get the kids enrolled in the next school session....
Kiva HQ
For the past half-century, Colombia has been in the middle of armed conflict. Waged mostly in rural areas and the remote towns and villages that dot the country’s borders, the war between government forces and armed opposition groups—led by Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC—has left thousands of fighters and civilians dead, and more than 7 million Colombian people displaced from their homes.
This latter population constitutes the second largest group of internally displaced people (IDPs) in a single country in the world, measuring only...
Kiva HQ
The Kiva community is rallying to raise $1 million in loans for refugees and internally displaced people by World Refugee Day, June 20.
It was a minute that changed everything: Walida and her family were taking cover in their home in Syria to shield themselves from the ongoing bombing and fighting in the streets. In the chaos, they did not realize...
Kiva HQ
The Kiva community is rallying to raise $1 million in loans for refugees and internally displaced people by World Refugee Day, June 20.
Perched on a hill in Lebanon overlooking rolling green farmland, sits a small apartment building shaded by grapevines growing over the front patio. It's quiet, with very few passing cars and only the sounds of birds...
Continue Reading >> Kiva HQ
The Kiva community is rallying to raise $1 million in loans for refugees and internally displaced people by World Refugee Day, June 20.
Just off the Gihembe refugee camp’s main street is the community’s first carpenter. His name is Lubingo, and he owns Gisanga Family Carpentry with his wife and sons.
The family is well known inside and outside Gihembe for their excellent woodworking, and their affordable furniture is found in many of the camp’s homes and businesses. But this wasn’t always the case,...
Kiva HQ
The Kiva community is rallying to raise $1 million in loans for refugees and internally displaced people by World Refugee Day, June 20.
Samah and Ahlam are the kind of friends that scoop up each other’s children and sooth them without batting an eye, as if they are their own.
Samah and Ahlam are also successful business partners who have more than tripled their monthly income since starting a clothes resale venture together and taking out a Kiva loan to build their inventory.
... Continue Reading >> Kiva HQ
Since opening her street corner bakery in Oakland, Calif., in late 2017, Reem Assil has been busy. Assil took out a $25,000 Kiva loan to invest in equipment and inventory for her first restaurant, Reem's California, which serves up Arab bread. It also acts as an anchor in the Fruitvale neighborhood, providing good jobs for those with barriers to employment, delicious nourishing food and a healthy dose of social justice. The restaurant has received glowing media attention and garnered awards across the country, including a Best Chef nod from the James Beard Foundation for Assil herself....
Continue Reading >> Kiva HQ
Most of the population on the Colombian Caribbean coast lives in poverty, and 17% lives in extreme poverty. There's little formal employment in the region, and many families make less than $3 per day. Coconut farming is one of the few economic opportunities available to Colombians living along this coast, but with yields contingent on weather patterns, it’s a tenuous occupation.
Coconut production also leaves communities with piles of unusable coconut shells, which if not disposed of properly can pose...
Kiva HQ
In Denmark, there is a tradition where if you remain unmarried...
Kiva HQ
As we all work towards a better and brighter future, these are findings that offer a glimpse into life in the past. From an energy efficient Egyptian pigment to a 1700-year-old ancient sock, these 5 anthropological findings remind us that though we have a long road ahead of us, we have also come a long way as innovators.
Egyptian blue: The energy efficient ancient pigment
Neanderthals and fire: Our distant cousins...
Kiva HQ
By Premal Shah, President & Co-Founder, Kiva
Every now and then, a truly game-changing partnership comes to life and shows us what’s possible when a company and its employees are committed to doing good in the world. Kiva’s partnership with Hewlett-Packard is just that.
In 2013, Kiva and Hewlett-Packard launched Matter to a Million, a groundbreaking 5-year global employee engagement partnership. The partnership concept was simple: set up a $7 million fund to provide each of Hewlett-Packard’s 275,000+ global...
Kiva HQ
An exciting new partnership between Kiva, Sierra Leone and U.N. agencies is set to bring a nationwide digital identification system to the people of Sierra Leone that is designed to provide citizens with formal identity and control over their own credit information.
Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio announced the initiative, which could be a promising new model for global financial inclusion, during his address to the Sept. 27, 2018, U.N General Assembly.
The centerpiece of the partnership is the new Kiva Protocol, which...
Kiva HQ
From inside a small juvenile detention center in Ontario, Canada, a group of young men have lent more than $2,000 to Kiva borrowers around the world. Their own circumstances are challenging, but they’ve embraced the opportunity to help others, with the assistance of one dedicated volunteer.
Hilda Van Netten, a long-time Kiva lender, volunteers with the art program at Brookside Youth Centre. Brookside is a secure juvenile detention facility for...
Kiva HQ
Hello everyone! My name is Barani, and I am the current Content & Partnerships Intern at Kiva. I was born and raised in Yangon, Myanmar and I thought I’d share a bit about my hometown!
Myanmar is a country of nearly 53 million, that is nestled between India and China. Yangon, its former capital, is a vibrant city known for its crumbling colonial buildings, amazing food and the famous Shwe Dagon Pagoda. Being one of the fastest growing cities in South East Asia, there is definitely no shortage of things to do, sights to see or foods...
Kiva HQ
As technology brings us ever closer together, we are bearing witness to the collective power of the crowd- not only to fund dreams, ideas and initiatives, but to accomplish tasks and create new products.
At Kiva, we simply could not have the impact we have in the world without the global corps of volunteers who help make it happen. We have to be smart about how we organize and leverage Kiva’s talented volunteers.
Kiva’s very own Apryl Gibson explains the technical solutions Kiva has created, in hopes that other organizations can learn from them...
Kiva HQ
It is common knowledge that the key to a good day is to have a great breakfast! And great breakfasts come in many shapes, colors and flavors. This week’s Links We Like presents you with the different types of breakfast from 5 countries around the world.
Ghanian Breakfast: From Milo to fufu, there’s something for everyone
Fish and rice: Japan’s love of omega-3s
Feta, anyone?: Greek Mediterranean breakfasts...
Continue Reading >> Kiva HQ
An activity some parents do with their kids called “Save, Spend, Share” or, when done Kiva-style, “Save, Spend, Lend” teaches children about the importance of being thoughtful with money. For this activity, kids spend a third of their allowance, save a third, and use the last third to donate or lend to a good cause. In this podcast "Inspired Money: Give a Little, Help a Lot," Kiva’s Global Engagement Manager, Jessica Hansen talks about the value of capturing the altruistic spirit that lies in all of us to use our money, not only wisely, but to positively impact...
Kiva HQ
All over the world, Review and Translation Program (RTP) volunteers dedicate their time and skills to ensure that the tens of thousands of loans that come in from Kiva’s Field Partners are edited or translated into English from Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian.
In the past nine months, RTP volunteers have reviewed 168,816 loans, averaging over 18,750 loans per month. They enjoy being involved in the process from reviewing the original loans to seeing them fundraise on Kiva!
This month we celebrate nine of our incredible volunteers. Sara, Miranda...
Kiva HQ
These days, we are often bombarded about how technology harms more than help. Here are 5 links that we love, to remind us that technological innovation can be a good thing.
The 2018 iPhone Photography Awards: Amazing photos without the fancy camera
AI technology: How it could help protect water supplies
3D technology: How it's saving World Heritage Sites
Kiva HQ
Drive an hour north-west from Nairobi, Kenya, and you’ll come to the famous Hell’s Gate National Park and the beautiful town of Naivasha. This lakeside retreat was the setting for the first-ever Kiva Labs Innovation Conference, which brought together nearly 100 leaders from Kiva’s African Field Partners.
Part of the larger Kiva Labs program, a 5-year initiative in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, the KLIC conference’s goal was to facilitate intra-organizational learning and innovation.
...
Kiva HQ
At the age of 6, Rebecca was already intent on making the world a better place. She founded the lending team Westfield Youth for Kiva while still in elementary school, and then went on to found an affiliated Kiva Microfinance Club at her middle school. Her team has now funded $39,000 in loans, making it #6 on the list of Kiva’s highest lending youth teams.
Today, Rebecca is 15 and vividly...
Kiva HQ
Janice, has a passion for service and getting others jazzed about doing good. As the captain and founder of the Kiva lending team Women United, she successfully invited more than 50 friends and family to lend with her on Kiva and has helped grow the team to more than 700 members.
Their focus? Empowering women through education, business and home improvement loans.
“By focusing on girls and women, the Women United team can aid in spurring economic progress, expanding markets, and improving health and...
Kiva HQ
When we work together we can make monumental change, and Kiva lending teams are proof of this every day. Members of Kiva teams join forces to create impact, share loans they are passionate about and get competitive in the name of doing good.
In 2017 alone, 50% of loans made on Kiva were attributed to a team, with the top 10 teams lending $20.9 million to Kiva borrowers! So if you’d like to get more involved with Kiva and connect with other lenders, join one of our more than 35,000 lending teams today.
Check out some of Kiva’s...
Continue Reading >> Kiva HQ
Every year, 5th grade students in Rene deBerardinis’ social entrepreneurship class at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia, PA, learn about microfinance through an experiential class project. The project gives students the opportunity to become both borrowers and lenders. First, students form product teams to create business plans for small venture ideas. Students receive microloans to purchase the supplies they need to implement their ideas, and pay back their loans with the sales they make at an annual Kiva-branded market. The profits from their sales...
Continue Reading >> Kiva HQ
As the most-consumed beverage in the world, and the second most traded global commodity after oil, coffee is economically important on an international scale. Its production and sale generated nearly $50 billion worldwide in 2015, and that number has only gone up.
For coffee-producing countries, which are primarily in the developing world, profits from coffee export can account for a significant percent of GDP. Colombia is the second most-productive coffee producing country in the world after Brazil, but despite the role coffee plays in the economy, many of...
Kiva HQ
The Kiva community is rallying to raise $1 million in loans for refugees and internally displaced people by World Refugee Day, June 20.
When Samira and her family fled the violence of the civil war in Syria for Lebanon, they thought they would be back in their own home within months, with enough time to get the kids enrolled in the next school session....
Kiva HQ
For the past half-century, Colombia has been in the middle of armed conflict. Waged mostly in rural areas and the remote towns and villages that dot the country’s borders, the war between government forces and armed opposition groups—led by Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC—has left thousands of fighters and civilians dead, and more than 7 million Colombian people displaced from their homes.
This latter population constitutes the second largest group of internally displaced people (IDPs) in a single country in the world, measuring only...
Kiva HQ
The Kiva community is rallying to raise $1 million in loans for refugees and internally displaced people by World Refugee Day, June 20.
It was a minute that changed everything: Walida and her family were taking cover in their home in Syria to shield themselves from the ongoing bombing and fighting in the streets. In the chaos, they did not realize...
Kiva HQ
The Kiva community is rallying to raise $1 million in loans for refugees and internally displaced people by World Refugee Day, June 20.
Perched on a hill in Lebanon overlooking rolling green farmland, sits a small apartment building shaded by grapevines growing over the front patio. It's quiet, with very few passing cars and only the sounds of birds...
Continue Reading >> Kiva HQ
The Kiva community is rallying to raise $1 million in loans for refugees and internally displaced people by World Refugee Day, June 20.
Just off the Gihembe refugee camp’s main street is the community’s first carpenter. His name is Lubingo, and he owns Gisanga Family Carpentry with his wife and sons.
The family is well known inside and outside Gihembe for their excellent woodworking, and their affordable furniture is found in many of the camp’s homes and businesses. But this wasn’t always the case,...
Kiva HQ
The Kiva community is rallying to raise $1 million in loans for refugees and internally displaced people by World Refugee Day, June 20.
Samah and Ahlam are the kind of friends that scoop up each other’s children and sooth them without batting an eye, as if they are their own.
Samah and Ahlam are also successful business partners who have more than tripled their monthly income since starting a clothes resale venture together and taking out a Kiva loan to build their inventory.
... Continue Reading >> Kiva HQ
Since opening her street corner bakery in Oakland, Calif., in late 2017, Reem Assil has been busy. Assil took out a $25,000 Kiva loan to invest in equipment and inventory for her first restaurant, Reem's California, which serves up Arab bread. It also acts as an anchor in the Fruitvale neighborhood, providing good jobs for those with barriers to employment, delicious nourishing food and a healthy dose of social justice. The restaurant has received glowing media attention and garnered awards across the country, including a Best Chef nod from the James Beard Foundation for Assil herself....
Continue Reading >> Kiva HQ
Most of the population on the Colombian Caribbean coast lives in poverty, and 17% lives in extreme poverty. There's little formal employment in the region, and many families make less than $3 per day. Coconut farming is one of the few economic opportunities available to Colombians living along this coast, but with yields contingent on weather patterns, it’s a tenuous occupation.
Coconut production also leaves communities with piles of unusable coconut shells, which if not disposed of properly can pose...
