Meet Louisville’s Kiva Fellow

Central to all of the Kiva activity in a new Kiva City are the individuals who play the role of Kiva Fellow. We are excited to announce that Louisville has received yet another Kiva Fellow. Josie Raymond, a Louisville native, has started her 12 month fellowship this week. With the addition of a second Kiva Fellow we expect to see well over 30 new loans throughout the region.

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.

Josie is an 8th-generation Kentuckian on both sides of her family, and proud to return to her hometown of Louisville. Vexed by stories of educational inequity, she joined Teach For America and taught creative writing and reading at middle schools in Indianapolis. From there, she moved to Oakland, CA to lead the academic department of a nonprofit called College Track that prepares low-income high school students of color to be the first in their families to go to and graduate from college.

Below are some questions we had Josie answer to help get to know her more:

What’s your favorite social impact project that you’ve been a part of in the past 5 years? I hold very dear a series I ran as editor of Change.org’s defunct Poverty in America blog. A great Chicago reporter found 99ers—people who’d exhausted their 99 weeks of emergency unemployment benefits—all across the country and told their stories in their own words. They described being rejected by McDonald’s, cleaning out their kid’s college fund, and facing eviction. The series ran at a time—early 2010—when the unemployment rate was near 10% and Glenn Beck was dominating coverage of the unemployed. I’m proud that we were able to profile average Americans in extreme circumstances and to humanize policy issues. Read the series here.

Why were you interested in moving back to Louisville? I think I’ve always known I was coming home. And after stints in New York, Indianapolis, and Oakland, I realized that nowhere feels quite as right. Plus, I went from facing obstacles in Kentucky to graduating from Columbia thanks to some great people and opportunities in Louisville. I feel like it’s my turn to create opportunities for others in my hometown. Lastly, I hear that grandparents make great babysitters.

What’s your favorite book, and why? Something that probably deserves further analysis keeps me coming back to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s a fantasy that gets at something really creepy dealing with inherent good and evil and the duality of man.

Do you have any favorite hobbies? Here are the hobbies I imagine I’ll have one day: Putt-Putt course design, cake decoration, baseball stamp collecting. Any help getting started would be much appreciated.

Who has inspired you in your life and why? There have been so many people who convinced me I could do what I wanted to: Mrs. Evans at Highland Middle School, Mr. Taylor at Manual High School, my neighbor Marcia Seiler of the Legislative Research Commission, my grandmothers, and my dear high school sweetheart-turned-husband, Adam. I’d also put at my imaginary dinner party Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone, Jackie Robinson, Bob Costas, Vladimir Nabokov, and Elizabeth Warren.

What has been your favorite adventure so far in life? Motherhood has been so great I think I’ll try it again.

Is their a restaurant that you’ve missed while away from Louisville? More of a fantasy potluck featuring the chocolate-covered cherry pie from Homemade Ice Cream & Pie Kitchen, the bison burger at Proof, banana cake from Cake Flour, the chocolate milkshake at Graeter’s, everything at Dairy Kastle, and, unapologetically, Skyline chili. So, mostly dessert.

If you designed a community mural, what would the theme be? Youth empowerment and opportunity. Muhammad Ali was once a teenager so was Hunter S. Thompson, and Thomas Edison, and Jennifer Lawrence. Success in adulthood starts with community support in youth, regardless of zip code or school. I think that’s a message we can’t reiterate enough.

Access Ventures has been raising funds for this role since the launch of Kiva City Louisville. Funding a local Kiva Fellow for a 12 month term had never been done before in Louisville so it’s an exciting time for the Kiva movement. Josie will now be the 4th locally funded fellow in the nation. If you are interested in becoming a borrower on Kiva please contact Josie for more information.