Blog posts tagged with lending

Mar 3, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
It’s a hectic morning. It’s pouring rain. Dishes are piled in the sink. You’re running late so you check the traffic report online, turn to throw the dishes in the dishwasher then hop in the car and flick on your windshield wipers. But what if you couldn’t? All these modern necessities (dishwasher, windshield wipers, the computer), conveniences that have wormed their way permanently into our lives, were made possible by female inventors!
 
Women make amazing things happen, every day, often without much recognition. International Women’s...
Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ

As we continue to spotlight the diverse and vibrant groups that make up the Kiva community, we sat down with Kiva President Premal Shah to get his thoughts on the ever-expanding Kiva-verse.

... Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ

 
Kiva’s lending community has helped improve the lives of more than one million borrowers around the world in the past 8 years. Our lenders are the driving force behind Kiva’s success, so it’s with great enthusiasm that we welcome new faces into that family through an exciting partnership with the HP Company Foundation. 
 
Beginning February 25, each of HP’s thousands of employees will receive a $25 credit to lend to a small business owner on Kiva.
 
Together with HP’s employees, we hope...
Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
 
We’re excited to announce that Kiva and Vittana, a pioneer of higher-education loans in the developing world, are launching an unprecedented partnership that will amplify the reach and impact of crowdfunded loans to students. 

Vittana’s student loans will be redirected to the Kiva website for crowdfunding starting April 2, 2014. Kiva’s platform will allow Vittana’s microfinance partners to access greater amounts of crowdfunded capital and expand their capacity to provide higher-education student loans. 
...
Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ

With heavy hearts, the Kiva community is both mourning and celebrating a special soul who brought light and laughter to all our lives. Paul Lambert, a native of Northern Ireland and a beloved Kiva employee, was struck and killed in a suspected hit-and-run in San Francisco on February 12.


... Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 GO Global Update
Forget the Olympics, the real team excitement is going down on Kiva and you don’t have to wait four years to be a part of it. 
 
Kiva Lending Teams are a great way for people to share their passion for lending and supporting borrowers around the world. They're also a great way to connect with other lenders via a similar interest, hobby, or even sense of humor.
 
Here are seven incredible, tight-knit Kiva lending communities that need to be on your radar. If you like what you see, you can sign up...
Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ

Happy Valentine’s Day from Kiva! To show our un-defaulting love for you, Kiva created five fun and fabulous KIVAlentines for all our crush-worthy lenders. Share the Kiva Love today with your sweetheart, your friends or your fellow lenders! And remember, with Kiva you are never a loan on Valentine’s Day.

... Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
At Kiva we believe creating a great user experience is essential to accomplishing our mission of connecting people through lending to alleviate poverty. The Kiva website acts as a bridge between lenders and borrowers, allowing them to feel a sense of connection with one another. Not only does a person’s experience with the Kiva website impact their lending activity, but it can also affect their motivation to contribute time and money to social good in other areas of their lives.
 
To that end, I’m excited to share...
Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 US United States
How do students help change the lives of people they've never met, from 10,000 miles away? They believe in them. And give them the financial tools to help themselves.
 
As part of the Kiva U program, 200 seniors from Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep are about to embark on their senior service project to create small businesses and raise revenue from their community. Then, to pay homage to Nelson Mandela, the students will use the profits to fund loans in South Africa on Kiva. Like Kiva borrowers, these students don’t have access to traditional credit and...
Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
Kiva Fellows proudly show where they are headed!


A snapshot of Kiva Fellow life during fellows training week: 
 
Drink coffee, lots of it. Learn more than you brain can hold about the Kiva model. Bond with other fellows headed all over the world. Learn how to check on a borrower’s progress. Get really pumped about all the borrowers you'll get to meet! Quick tutorial on photography. Drink more coffee, you're only getting started…
 ...
Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014
By connecting people we can create relationships beyond financial transactions, and build a global community expressing support and encouragement of one another. -  Premal Shah, President
 
From the beginning, Kiva set out to foster community on a global scale. And you (all of you!) made that dream a reality. Lenders came together to find new ways to expand Kiva’s reach and borrowers used their loans to bring new opportunities to their communities.
 
In the coming weeks we want to take time to celebrate...
Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 SV El Salvador, GH Ghana, TG Togo

As Kiva’s 23rd Fellows class (KF23) prepares to go out into the field, there are so many questions about the adventures and challenges ahead.  Former Kiva Fellow Juan Barbed’s answer is this exhilarating mash up of his incredible journey, starting in El Salvador and then following him through Ghana and Togo.


... Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ


“I really liked the way the site was constructed and level of engagement Kiva had with its lenders. I decided that it was the kind of organization that I’d like to spend more time with.”

City: Wayzata, MN
Language: English
Team: Loan Stars
Time with Kiva: 1 year, 3 months

Outstanding contributions to Kiva: Lynn, always a conscientious editor, is also a great help on the Volunteer Forum. She is quick to answer questions from other volunteers... Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 BO Bolivia
Mentioning “water” and “Bolivia” in the same sentence can be contentious. In 2000, one of Bolivia’s largest cities, Cochabamba, was engulfed in protests against the privatization of the city’s water supply to foreign investors, most notably Bechtel Corp. In the aftermath of what was known as the “Cochabamba Water Wars,” clean water supply in the city and surrounding areas remained inadequate.  To this day, many families lack a connection to clean water supply entirely. Those who do have access to water have shaky and unreliable service for a scant number of hours each day....
Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
If you’ve been lending on Kiva for a while, you might already be familiar with our commitment to innovation — from loan products like chlorine water dispensers with Evidence Action to site features like the lending collections page.

One of the ways we promote innovation at Kiva is by testing new site experiments that might be useful — features such as kiva.org/live, loan tagging and the borrower previews that appear in lending team messages. While many of these features end up being wildly successful, there are others that don't catch on, need more polish, cause a large...
Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
Kiva welcomed San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee to headquarters last week to discuss city policies, football and, most importantly, to celebrate the growing relationship between Kiva and the City of San Francisco.
 
In October, San Francisco became the first municipal Kiva Zip trustee in the country. This partnership allows the city to identify and endorse the smallest of small businesses, who are often overlooked by traditional municipal Small Business Bureaus, for loans up to $5,000 with 0% interest. 
 
... Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ


As part of a new blog series, we’ll be taking a look at the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) and examine how Kiva loans contribute to addressing these targets.
 
This week, we’ll investigate the importance of education and the role it plays in gender empowerment. Why is education important and how does it really impact extreme poverty? How does Kiva challenge inequality in academic opportunity, and what can lenders do to help foster this development?
 

Unlike...

Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
This is a guest blog post written by Dave Smith, 7th Grade Social Studies Teacher, Garden Spot Middle School, New Holland, PA.

In January of 2009 the “One Million Dollar Team” on Kiva.org was formed to show 7th grade Social Studies students that there is a world outside of their classroom in New Holland, PA. I set a goal of loaning $1,000,000 to entrepreneurs all over the world before I retire. The hope is to show my students that even they, at 12 and 13 years old, can change the world and make a huge difference towards ending world poverty....
Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ

Holly Torpey


“Seeing this poverty made me want to do something meaningful to help—not just put a band aid on the problem—but I didn’t know how. When I heard about Kiva through my translation professor, I thought it was an ideal way for me to continue developing my Spanish and make a meaningful contribution at the same time."

City: Houston, TX
Language: Spanish
Team: Los Habaneros...

Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ

We at Kiva Zip have high hopes for changing the way financially excluded and socially impactful small business owners are able to secure the capital they need to be successful. With the holidays upon us, we want to share the impact you have helped us create in the United States and Kenya over the past year. Thank you for contributing to a great 2013! We look forward to sharing new accomplishments with you in 2014.

Impact at a Glance: United States... Continue Reading >>
Dec 12, 2013 KV Kiva HQ


With 2013 coming to a close, many of us are reflecting on the last 12 months and perhaps even creating some new year's resolutions as we look forward to 2014. For some lenders, this coming year might be a chance to make plans with old friends, learn a foreign language, or read a book they never got around to. But did you know that by lending through Kiva you're also contributing to the goals set by world leaders? As part of a new blog series, we’ll be taking a look at the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals and examine how Kiva loans contribute to...
Continue Reading >>
Dec 12, 2013 KV Kiva HQ


Today, Kiva entrepreneurs around the world are making fundamental changes in their own lives and the lives of their families -- from a Ugandan farmer looking to buy seeds and tools for increasing crop yields, to a talented seamstress hoping to start a business with a new sewing machine. But some entrepreneurs still face difficulties accessing the capital they need to create jobs and address larger, community-wide issues of poverty. 
 
In industrialized nations, these small and medium enterprises (5 - 250 employees)...
Continue Reading >>
Dec 12, 2013 KV Kiva HQ


We're excited to have the following post from Will Sutton -- a Kiva Contributor. Will is a father, entrepreneur, and writer who discusses topics related to personal finance and business.
 
Kids should learn the fundamentals of finance from a young age, and since schools generally do little to that end, the responsibility falls mostly on parents. Showing children the importance of saving money, the dangers of credit card debt, and the benefits of effectively managing their finances are all essential elements of parenting. In...
Continue Reading >>
Dec 12, 2013 KV Kiva HQ
We’re thrilled to announce that this morning, Kiva received a Google Global Impact Award as an entrepreneurial team who thinks on a global scale and has a “healthy disregard for the impossible.”
 
We’ll be using this grant to launch Kiva Labs, a new initiative that delivers the power of crowdfunding and microfinance to critical solutions in agriculture, clean energy, mobile information, and other transformative technologies.
 
Tech-driven solutions in each of these areas are driving progress around the...
Continue Reading >>
Dec 12, 2013 KV Kiva HQ

The holiday season is upon us! As you begin your holiday shopping, we want to make sure you know about a few awesome gifts that help support Kiva.

Give your friends and family a small gift that makes a big difference – the...

Continue Reading >>

Pages

Blog posts tagged with lending

Mar 3, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
It’s a hectic morning. It’s pouring rain. Dishes are piled in the sink. You’re running late so you check the traffic report online, turn to throw the dishes in the dishwasher then hop in the car and flick on your windshield wipers. But what if you couldn’t? All these modern necessities (dishwasher, windshield wipers, the computer), conveniences that have wormed their way permanently into our lives, were made possible by female inventors!
 
Women make amazing things happen, every day, often without much recognition. International Women’s...
Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ

As we continue to spotlight the diverse and vibrant groups that make up the Kiva community, we sat down with Kiva President Premal Shah to get his thoughts on the ever-expanding Kiva-verse.

... Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ

 
Kiva’s lending community has helped improve the lives of more than one million borrowers around the world in the past 8 years. Our lenders are the driving force behind Kiva’s success, so it’s with great enthusiasm that we welcome new faces into that family through an exciting partnership with the HP Company Foundation. 
 
Beginning February 25, each of HP’s thousands of employees will receive a $25 credit to lend to a small business owner on Kiva.
 
Together with HP’s employees, we hope...
Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
 
We’re excited to announce that Kiva and Vittana, a pioneer of higher-education loans in the developing world, are launching an unprecedented partnership that will amplify the reach and impact of crowdfunded loans to students. 

Vittana’s student loans will be redirected to the Kiva website for crowdfunding starting April 2, 2014. Kiva’s platform will allow Vittana’s microfinance partners to access greater amounts of crowdfunded capital and expand their capacity to provide higher-education student loans. 
...
Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ

With heavy hearts, the Kiva community is both mourning and celebrating a special soul who brought light and laughter to all our lives. Paul Lambert, a native of Northern Ireland and a beloved Kiva employee, was struck and killed in a suspected hit-and-run in San Francisco on February 12.


... Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 GO Global Update
Forget the Olympics, the real team excitement is going down on Kiva and you don’t have to wait four years to be a part of it. 
 
Kiva Lending Teams are a great way for people to share their passion for lending and supporting borrowers around the world. They're also a great way to connect with other lenders via a similar interest, hobby, or even sense of humor.
 
Here are seven incredible, tight-knit Kiva lending communities that need to be on your radar. If you like what you see, you can sign up...
Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
By Talea Miller
Share a KIVAlentine!

Happy Valentine’s Day from Kiva! To show our un-defaulting love for you, Kiva created five fun and fabulous KIVAlentines for all our crush-worthy lenders. Share the Kiva Love today with your sweetheart, your friends or your fellow lenders! And remember, with Kiva you are never a loan on Valentine’s Day.

... Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
At Kiva we believe creating a great user experience is essential to accomplishing our mission of connecting people through lending to alleviate poverty. The Kiva website acts as a bridge between lenders and borrowers, allowing them to feel a sense of connection with one another. Not only does a person’s experience with the Kiva website impact their lending activity, but it can also affect their motivation to contribute time and money to social good in other areas of their lives.
 
To that end, I’m excited to share...
Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 US United States
How do students help change the lives of people they've never met, from 10,000 miles away? They believe in them. And give them the financial tools to help themselves.
 
As part of the Kiva U program, 200 seniors from Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep are about to embark on their senior service project to create small businesses and raise revenue from their community. Then, to pay homage to Nelson Mandela, the students will use the profits to fund loans in South Africa on Kiva. Like Kiva borrowers, these students don’t have access to traditional credit and...
Continue Reading >>
Feb 2, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
By Aurora Lee
Ready for Takeoff?
Kiva Fellows proudly show where they are headed!


A snapshot of Kiva Fellow life during fellows training week: 
 
Drink coffee, lots of it. Learn more than you brain can hold about the Kiva model. Bond with other fellows headed all over the world. Learn how to check on a borrower’s progress. Get really pumped about all the borrowers you'll get to meet! Quick tutorial on photography. Drink more coffee, you're only getting started…
 ...
Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014
By connecting people we can create relationships beyond financial transactions, and build a global community expressing support and encouragement of one another. -  Premal Shah, President
 
From the beginning, Kiva set out to foster community on a global scale. And you (all of you!) made that dream a reality. Lenders came together to find new ways to expand Kiva’s reach and borrowers used their loans to bring new opportunities to their communities.
 
In the coming weeks we want to take time to celebrate...
Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 SV El Salvador, GH Ghana, TG Togo

As Kiva’s 23rd Fellows class (KF23) prepares to go out into the field, there are so many questions about the adventures and challenges ahead.  Former Kiva Fellow Juan Barbed’s answer is this exhilarating mash up of his incredible journey, starting in El Salvador and then following him through Ghana and Togo.


... Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
By Jessica Beltman
Featured Volunteer: Lynn C.


“I really liked the way the site was constructed and level of engagement Kiva had with its lenders. I decided that it was the kind of organization that I’d like to spend more time with.”

City: Wayzata, MN
Language: English
Team: Loan Stars
Time with Kiva: 1 year, 3 months

Outstanding contributions to Kiva: Lynn, always a conscientious editor, is also a great help on the Volunteer Forum. She is quick to answer questions from other volunteers... Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 BO Bolivia
Mentioning “water” and “Bolivia” in the same sentence can be contentious. In 2000, one of Bolivia’s largest cities, Cochabamba, was engulfed in protests against the privatization of the city’s water supply to foreign investors, most notably Bechtel Corp. In the aftermath of what was known as the “Cochabamba Water Wars,” clean water supply in the city and surrounding areas remained inadequate.  To this day, many families lack a connection to clean water supply entirely. Those who do have access to water have shaky and unreliable service for a scant number of hours each day....
Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
If you’ve been lending on Kiva for a while, you might already be familiar with our commitment to innovation — from loan products like chlorine water dispensers with Evidence Action to site features like the lending collections page.

One of the ways we promote innovation at Kiva is by testing new site experiments that might be useful — features such as kiva.org/live, loan tagging and the borrower previews that appear in lending team messages. While many of these features end up being wildly successful, there are others that don't catch on, need more polish, cause a large...
Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
Kiva welcomed San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee to headquarters last week to discuss city policies, football and, most importantly, to celebrate the growing relationship between Kiva and the City of San Francisco.
 
In October, San Francisco became the first municipal Kiva Zip trustee in the country. This partnership allows the city to identify and endorse the smallest of small businesses, who are often overlooked by traditional municipal Small Business Bureaus, for loans up to $5,000 with 0% interest. 
 
... Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
By Christina Cawthorne-Jad
The Hidden Value of Education


As part of a new blog series, we’ll be taking a look at the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) and examine how Kiva loans contribute to addressing these targets.
 
This week, we’ll investigate the importance of education and the role it plays in gender empowerment. Why is education important and how does it really impact extreme poverty? How does Kiva challenge inequality in academic opportunity, and what can lenders do to help foster this development?
 

Unlike...

Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ
This is a guest blog post written by Dave Smith, 7th Grade Social Studies Teacher, Garden Spot Middle School, New Holland, PA.

In January of 2009 the “One Million Dollar Team” on Kiva.org was formed to show 7th grade Social Studies students that there is a world outside of their classroom in New Holland, PA. I set a goal of loaning $1,000,000 to entrepreneurs all over the world before I retire. The hope is to show my students that even they, at 12 and 13 years old, can change the world and make a huge difference towards ending world poverty....
Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ

Holly Torpey


“Seeing this poverty made me want to do something meaningful to help—not just put a band aid on the problem—but I didn’t know how. When I heard about Kiva through my translation professor, I thought it was an ideal way for me to continue developing my Spanish and make a meaningful contribution at the same time."

City: Houston, TX
Language: Spanish
Team: Los Habaneros...

Continue Reading >>
Jan 1, 2014 KV Kiva HQ

We at Kiva Zip have high hopes for changing the way financially excluded and socially impactful small business owners are able to secure the capital they need to be successful. With the holidays upon us, we want to share the impact you have helped us create in the United States and Kenya over the past year. Thank you for contributing to a great 2013! We look forward to sharing new accomplishments with you in 2014.

Impact at a Glance: United States... Continue Reading >>
Dec 12, 2013 KV Kiva HQ


With 2013 coming to a close, many of us are reflecting on the last 12 months and perhaps even creating some new year's resolutions as we look forward to 2014. For some lenders, this coming year might be a chance to make plans with old friends, learn a foreign language, or read a book they never got around to. But did you know that by lending through Kiva you're also contributing to the goals set by world leaders? As part of a new blog series, we’ll be taking a look at the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals and examine how Kiva loans contribute to...
Continue Reading >>
Dec 12, 2013 KV Kiva HQ


Today, Kiva entrepreneurs around the world are making fundamental changes in their own lives and the lives of their families -- from a Ugandan farmer looking to buy seeds and tools for increasing crop yields, to a talented seamstress hoping to start a business with a new sewing machine. But some entrepreneurs still face difficulties accessing the capital they need to create jobs and address larger, community-wide issues of poverty. 
 
In industrialized nations, these small and medium enterprises (5 - 250 employees)...
Continue Reading >>
Dec 12, 2013 KV Kiva HQ


We're excited to have the following post from Will Sutton -- a Kiva Contributor. Will is a father, entrepreneur, and writer who discusses topics related to personal finance and business.
 
Kids should learn the fundamentals of finance from a young age, and since schools generally do little to that end, the responsibility falls mostly on parents. Showing children the importance of saving money, the dangers of credit card debt, and the benefits of effectively managing their finances are all essential elements of parenting. In...
Continue Reading >>
Dec 12, 2013 KV Kiva HQ
We’re thrilled to announce that this morning, Kiva received a Google Global Impact Award as an entrepreneurial team who thinks on a global scale and has a “healthy disregard for the impossible.”
 
We’ll be using this grant to launch Kiva Labs, a new initiative that delivers the power of crowdfunding and microfinance to critical solutions in agriculture, clean energy, mobile information, and other transformative technologies.
 
Tech-driven solutions in each of these areas are driving progress around the...
Continue Reading >>
Dec 12, 2013 KV Kiva HQ
By Brandon Smith
Kiva Holiday Gift Guide

The holiday season is upon us! As you begin your holiday shopping, we want to make sure you know about a few awesome gifts that help support Kiva.

Give your friends and family a small gift that makes a big difference – the...

Continue Reading >>

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