Kiva Columbus Receives First Kiva Fellow

In November of 2014, Louisville became the 9th Kiva City ahead of both NYC and San Francisco. In just one year, the Louisville region has seen over $170,000 in 0% interest loans to small businesses through the Kiva platform. Kiva challenges the status quo by reviewing character and not credit scores and cash flows by emphasizing the importance of relationships because we believe this allows more people access to the opportunity to flourish.

We’re excited to announce that we have partnered with Kiva again to help bring the Kiva platform to Columbus, Ohio. Over the next 12 months, Reese Neader, a native of Columbus, will be working as a Kiva Fellow to help engage the people of Columbus by building a community of trustees, borrowers, and lenders on an online platform called Kiva. Kiva Fellowships are typically 4 months long, however, we are providing funding to make a 12-month fellowship term possible.

Kiva Fellows are a diverse group of individuals who apply to work with Kiva, and are chosen from a large pool of applicants around the world. They are the “boots on the ground” working to strengthen partnerships and scale new initiatives for Kiva. Because Reese is one of many Kiva Fellows currently working across the country, Columbus is a uniquely positioned to benefit from the Kiva platform. And even better, Columbus has the potential to become the next Kiva City.

Kiva is a non-profit tech company founded in 2005 that facilitates crowdfunded microloans in over 85 countries around the world. Their original platform enables individuals to lend interest free to a borrower who uses the loan for their small business. To date, over $700,000,000 has flowed through Kiva with an impressive 99% repayment rate. After seeing success internationally, the Kiva platform was created to provide greater access to capital for small businesses in America. Access to capital is a major concern for 1 in 3 small businesses, especially minority and underserved entrepreneurs.

The Kiva platform successfully enables the community to support local entrepreneurs by transforming character into collateral for small business loans up to $10,000 (no minimum credit score or financial collateral requirements). All loans have 0% interest and no fees. Kiva is the first online platform designed to leverage an entire community for job creation. Individuals, corporations, banks, non-profits, foundations, small businesses, and others are all able to participate on Kiva.

“The Kiva platform successfully enables the community to support local entrepreneurs.”

Having access to Kiva means greater access to capital for small businesses of all shapes and sizes in every neighborhood of Columbus. In a city the size of Columbus, Kiva could easily have $200,000 worth of impact in a year by unlocking new funds sourced from both local, out-of-state, and foreign lenders!

To find out more about Kiva in Columbus, Reese will be holding an informational meet up on the evening of June 24th. If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of Kiva or how to get involved then please register to attend our first meet up.