Kiva

With Kiva, your contribution ripples out like a wave, helping support more and more underserved people worldwide. You select which entrepreneur around the world you want to help support. And after a borrower repays the loan, Kiva can re-lend your initial contribution to new people. It all adds up. See your impact multiply. Click here to learn about partnering with Kiva: https://lnkd.in/e3jFVBCX

Big news for Austin entrepreneurs and a glimpse of what's possible everywhere. Too many small business owners across the U.S. have heard the same word from traditional financial systems: no. No credit history. No collateral. No path forward. Austin is changing that. In partnership with the City of Austin's Austin Economic Development Small Business Division, we're proud to announce the launch of the Austin Kiva Hub, the city's first-ever crowdfunded loan program for local small business owners. Through the Hub, entrepreneurs can access loans from $1,000 to $15,000 at 0% interest, with no fees and no minimum credit score. And they're backed by a dedicated Capital Access Manager who walks alongside them, not just through the application, but beyond it. Here's what makes this model different: the community funds it. Austin residents, alongside people around the world, can invest as little as $25 to directly support a neighbor's dream. A food cart. A childcare business. A retail storefront. This is what financial access looks like when it's built around people, not paperwork. Austin joins a growing network of Kiva Hubs across the U.S., and we're just getting started. The opportunity is real. The community is ready. Are you in Austin? Apply for a loan or invest in a local business today: bit.ly/austinkivahub

What does Kiva's revolving loan model look like in practice? Here’s an example: When IT Cosmetics launched its “Go For IT” campaign, the goal wasn’t just awareness. It was to connect confidence to something more tangible: economic opportunity for women. Instead of a one-time donation, IT Cosmetics partnered with Kiva to put capital directly into the hands of women entrepreneurs through a revolving loan fund. The results: ✅ 6,000 women-owned businesses funded in just one month ✅ 62,591 women entrepreneurs supported globally to date By 2030, IT Cosmetics is committed to lending $3.5 million to women-owned businesses through Kiva. As loans are repaid, the same capital is re-lent to new entrepreneurs, ultimately helping IT Cosmetics reach its 2030 impact goal. The impact continues to grow, long after the campaign ends. For brands, it’s not just about doing good. It’s about designing impact that scales, engages your audience, and delivers measurable outcomes over time. Click here to learn how you can scale impact by partnering with Kiva: https://lnkd.in/e3jFVBCX

Your social impact dollars should be targeted to the causes that matter most to your organization. Causes that your employees deeply care about and are eager to engage with. Kiva allows individual lenders and corporate partners to support underserved entrepreneurs worldwide by re-lending your initial contribution to new people as borrowers repay. This way, you can help more and more people. And you get to choose which entrepreneurs to support, based on the causes and values you align with most. If supporting women entrepreneurs worldwide matters most, you can do that. If supporting refugee entrepreneurs matters most, you can do that. If supporting smallholder farmers impacted by climate change matters most, you can do that. And if supporting entrepreneurs from systemically marginalized backgrounds in the U.S. matters most, you can do that, too. Think of it as a donation that never stops giving. A renewable investment in real people building real change. Click here to learn more about partnering with Kiva: https://lnkd.in/e3jFVBCX

It’s a beautiful thing, the ability to help support entrepreneurs around the world who are providing for their families, bringing jobs to their communities, and tackling some of the world’s biggest challenges. And being able to maximize your impact, to amplify your dollar’s ability to reach not just one entrepreneur, but many over time, is something to celebrate. If you want to maximize the positive impact your dollars can have in helping change the world for the better, Kiva is uniquely positioned to help make this a reality. With Kiva, your contribution gets recycled to new people as borrowers repay in a revolving loan model. You can reach more people, including underserved women entrepreneurs worldwide. Click the link in our comments to learn more.

We’re proud to share that Kiva Capital has been named to the ImpactAssets 50 Emerging Fund Manager list for the sixth time. This recognition underscores Kiva Capital's deep commitment to impact at every step of the investment process that is so core to our mission. Being included among this year’s emerging managers is both an honor and a validation of our team, partners, and investors efforts to expand access to opportunity and build a more inclusive financial system. We’re grateful to ImpactAssets for highlighting the growing community of fund managers directing capital to drive meaningful change. 

What if your social impact dollars took on a life of their own? You could help support entrepreneurs worldwide through a system that recycles your contribution. Reach more people, make more impact. In a traditional charity model, you’d make a one-time donation. It helps support people or programs and makes a meaningful difference in their lives. But once that dollar amount is used, your contribution's lifecycle ends. This is where Kiva does things differently. Unlike traditional charity, with Kiva, your contribution gets recycled to new people as borrowers repay in a revolving loan model. It works like this: You make an initial contribution to start your impact. Kiva receives the money and sends it to entrepreneurs aligned with your focus areas immediately. They use that money for their business, and then repay the loan. After that, the money from the repaid loan is lent to another group of entrepreneurs. Your initial contribution has a longer life, cycling through to help support more and more people. This model yields significant benefits for people, such as women entrepreneurs. According to a 60 Decibels study, 90% of women who received a Kiva loan were better able to achieve their financial goals. Kiva’s revolving loan model doesn’t just positively impact underserved entrepreneurs; it also benefits corporations that partner with Kiva. Here’s real results from real corporate campaigns: A $1M revolving loan fund through Umpqua Bank generated $1.32M in loans, supporting 300 underserved U.S. entrepreneurs and mobilizing $600K from the Kiva community. An initial $300K investment by Bobbi Brown expanded to $909K in loans, supporting 2,500 people across 29 countries through Kiva’s lending model. By distributing $228K in lending credits, PayPal customers helped fund $573K+ in loans to small businesses, more than doubling the original capital deployed. Email partnerships@kiva.org to partner with Kiva.

Women entrepreneurs in the U.S. and worldwide are bringing their dreams to life. Let’s introduce you to one of them. Meet Kahindo Mateene, the founder and designer of her New York-based fashion brand, KAHINDO. Her clothing brand is ethically made on the African continent and creates sustainable jobs for the women who make it. Creating this brand wasn’t easy, she says. She didn’t start with all the resources she needed. “One of the biggest challenges was access to funding and access to market.” She encountered the same challenge many women entrepreneurs in the U.S. face: difficulty accessing capital. And when global markets become volatile, women entrepreneurs are the first to feel the effects. It doesn’t have to be this way. Watch to learn more about Kahindo’s story and how corporate partners can work with Kiva to support women entrepreneurs everywhere:

Yaosca remembers feeling, from a young age, a pull to create, build, and do something for herself. Today, she’s doing exactly that with her handmade jewelry business. But the path to get there was neither linear nor easy. Originally from Nicaragua, Yaosca and her husband moved to Colombia shortly after getting married. When they later moved to the U.S., she struggled to find the funding she needed to launch her own brand. Read how a Kiva loan helped Yaosca bring her dreams to life:

Picture this. You’re standing at the brink of an inflection point, not just an ordinary crossroads. You have a choice to make: take one path that continues to support entrepreneurs all over the world who are implementing solutions to poverty, inequality, climate change, and more. Or, you could take the other path: Follow business-as-usual. As in, when global economic markets get rocky, that’s the time for you to pull back, or entirely cut, your corporate social responsibility efforts. The causes and organizations you helped support miss out on the funding they need, because you must protect the bottom line. You’re doing your job. But this presents a problem. Here’s why: Many mission-driven enterprises, the very organizations that are tackling the world’s most pressing issues like poverty, gender inequality, and climate change, for example, operate in underbuilt markets where volatility is expected, not exceptional. Their ability to scale and reach communities with vital services depends on flexible financing, alongside time and trust to weather setbacks when these services are needed most. So here you are again, at the inflection point. You can take the path of business-as-usual, or you could take the other path, one where you invest in long-term social progress. One where you support the mission-driven enterprises, many of which are women-led, that are driving real change in their communities and around the world. A path where your financial support helps build a better world. Where you help change the culture of giving, for the better. Join us in meeting this moment, together: https://lnkd.in/e3jFVBCX