Kiva

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Model & Strategy

As the world’s first person-to-person lending marketplace for the poor, Kiva’s vision is to create a world where all people – even in the most remote areas of the globe – hold the power to create an opportunity for themselves and others. Kiva’s goal is to reduce global poverty by creating a platform where internet users can lend to and connect with a specific developing world entrepreneur online. Affordable capital helps low income entrepreneurs start or expand small businesses, creating a path towards economic self-sufficiency. Kiva enables a new channel for the delivery of such funds and creates equitable partnership relationships in the process.

At a Glance
Founded: 2005
Co-Founder: Premal Shah
Co-Founder: Matt Flannery
Economic Empowerment
Location of work: Domestic, International, Africa, Asia, Latin America
http://www.kiva.org
Kiva
875 Howard Street
Suite 340
San Francisco, CA 94103
Connect people through lending to alleviate poverty
Meet Premal Shah

Premal first began dreaming of “internet microfinance” while working at PayPal, the online payments company. In late 2004, Premal took a 3 month leave from PayPal to develop and test the internet microfinance concept in India. When he returned to Silicon Valley, he met other like-minded dreamers and quit his job at PayPal to help bring the Kiva concept to life and eventually to scale. Kiva today raises over $1 million each week for the working poor in 50+ countries and was named a Top 50 Website by TIME Magazine in 2009. For his work as a social entrepreneur, Premal was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and was selected to FORTUNE magazine’s “Top 40 under 40” list in 2009. Premal began his career as a management consultant and graduated from Stanford University.

Matt began developing Kiva in late 2004 as a side-project while working as a computer programmer at TiVo, Inc.  Matt helped to lead Kiva’s growth from a pilot project to an established online service with partnerships across the globe and hundreds of millions in dollars loaned to low-income entrepreneurs. Matt is Skoll Awardee and Ashoka Fellow and was selected to FORTUNE magazine’s “Top 40 under 40” list in 2009.  In 2011, Matt was chosen for the The Economist “No Boundaries” Innovation Award.

Neville Crawley has been the CEO of Kiva since 2019.  Neville brings nearly 2 decades of experience in global business and technology ventures, most recently as CEO of Quid, a platform that analyzes the world’s collective intelligence to help answer strategic questions.

IMPACT

To date, Kiva has facilitated over $1 billion in loans to 2.6 million micro-entrepreneurs across 83 countries. The repayment rate is 96%, and the average loan size is $700.

Increase capital access to underfunded, market based, evidenced backed anti-poverty approaches: Kiva’s crowdfunding model creates a unique form of low-cost, risk-tolerant capital to help frontline innovators expand (e.g. One Acre Fund, myAgro, Komaza, etc).

Increase public awareness & engagement: Kiva seeks to create deeper public engagement in the pressing — and addressable — issues of our time. >1 million citizen lenders have participated, including programs at over 3,000 schools & universities.

Kiva News

All News

Learn More

  • For all the parents at home with their kids and trying to find something to do - look no further than Kiva U! 📗 Kiv… https://t.co/YswT4UKXaz
  • This makes our Friday even sweeter. 💚 Social Entrepreneurship students @schacademy have created their own superh… https://t.co/fI6lZ7QsHl
  • Seizing opportunity: Crystal’s $5,000 loan with Kiva is enabling her business to survive the impact of COVID-19!… https://t.co/Fwl5puFgOx
  • RT @KivaUbc: UBC team funds 1,843 loans to date with 1,458 to female entrepreneurs #kiva #UBC @Kiva
  • RT @RdeBerardinis: Social Entrepreneurship students @schacademy create their own Superheroes with a diverse set of super powers to fight fo…
  • Are you new to Kiva? Let's define a little bit of Kiva vocab... our word of the day is "donation"! 📝 Loans go stra… https://t.co/5fpOWYXjpW
  • RT @NextBillion: Are you searching for a job helping underserved communities gain #financial access? Go to @Kiva for available opportunitie…
  • Meet Alpha, a father and business owner from Ghana! 🇬🇭 Alpha owns a drugstore to help improve access to health reso… https://t.co/eGNPPGHbVB
  • RT @SofiaVergara: @eBayNewsroom 👏🏽👏🏽 helping @Kiva Covid-19 Response fund get to $50 million 🙏🏽🙏🏽 https://t.co/Z9LvDB5DtX
  • In case you missed it: Kiva CEO Neville Crawley was interviewed on CNN's First Move yesterday about our COVID-19 Re… https://t.co/G8YXmatCC0
  • RT @TheBigGayAl: Today is my 4 year @Kiva anniversary. In that 4 years I have deposited just under $200 and made $700 in loans to small bus…
  • We've got an amazing deal for our new U.S. lenders! Right now, you can download the Kiva app and get $25 to lend to… https://t.co/Y3pHmulV0n
  • What does living out your passion look like? Just ask Wayan, a master carver who specializes in wood sculptures in… https://t.co/zW8Ius7uix
  • Your funding also supports our Field Partners, who often go the extra mile to train borrowers in financial manageme… https://t.co/ujvvptuhJN
  • Relief, recovery and rebuilding: that's what you're enabling thousands of borrowers to do with your COVID-19 Respon… https://t.co/uvGSxACozl
  • RT @Kiva: Today, we're introducing a new initiative that will play a massive role in supporting people and communities across the world dur…
  • “As businesses are discovering the value of crowdfunding, this trend is likely to sustain well beyond COVID-19,” sa… https://t.co/HxJdpWa6xh
  • RT @eBayNewsroom: The eBay Foundation is announcing an additional $10 million in grants to support nonprofits and #smallbiz adversely impac…
  • Have you ever wanted to work at Kiva? Now's your opportunity! We have job, fellow, and internship openings! Head to… https://t.co/7SMrCjWBh0