CommunityLend blog

We caught a brief talk from Jackie Flannery, CMO and Founder of Kiva.org last night at UofT.  She was in town to speak at the Ontario Association of Food Banks annual fund raising gala, and Rotman School were able to get an hour of her time earlier in the evening.

With small deeds comes big change | The Toronto Star

The global credit crisis may be rocking the mainstream economy, but thousands of individuals are still logging on to Kiva.org to lend as little as $25 to entrepreneurs in impoverished countries.

Founded in 2005 by American Jessica Jackie Flannery and her husband, Matt, the world’s first online micro-loan organization has built a network of more than 350,000 lenders from 78 countries who are helping to lift thousands out of poverty in the developing world. To date, Kiva has lent almost $50 million.

Kiva has lent $50 million through 70,000 loans to borrowers all around the world.  Their current pace runs at $1 million per week, and interestingly 78% of their borrowers are female.  The model works like this:

FUNDS FLOW:  Lenders ==> Kiva.org ==> MFI ==> borrowers

<MFI = Micro Finance Institution – eg Grameen Bank>

There are 360,000 lenders in the system, and they have made 70,000 loans. 

With a mission statement of “To connect people through lending for poverty alleviation” Kiva is very focussed and is clearly finding success.  She also mentioned their funding rounds, and their next one if I heard it right it is big, I will await confirmation before I mention that.