Inkovations: Kiva Entepreneurs

It’s International Women’s Day today, and Kiva, the platform we use to make ‘loans that change lives’ have been celebrating by rallying to fund 10,000 women entrepreneurs in one week.

That’s not all though - generous match...

We’ve got a confession to make.

We’ve been hopelessly rubbish at taking the time to write about the wonderful people who we make ‘loans that change lives’ to via Kiva.

Never fear, we certainly haven’t neglected to make the loans themselves!

But we’ve slapped ourselves...

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed it’s been a little while since we’ve mentioned our Kiva borrower of the month.

It’s not that we’ve been slacking or that we don’t care any more- far from it- but rather that we’ve been doing a bit of thinking about how our loans could have a greater impact for their recipients. As a result, we’ve...

Settling back into our copy cave this week after what was officially the hottest late August bank holiday for half a century, our minds are naturally still on sunshine.

It was a logical decision, then, to...

‘Aunty’ Aminata, as she is affectionately known in her village of Makeh, Sierra Leone, is an outstanding entrepreneur and businesswoman who supports a family of six.

She believes business is an important way for women to become empowered in the community, and is a successful farmer, landowner, village elder who also runs a trading...

Kiva, the organisation we use to make our monthly ‘loans that change lives’ is on the verge of an incredible milestone. At the time of writing they have helped entrepreneurs without access to conventional banking systems access a jaw-dropping $995,812,375 of loans - tantalisingly close to $1 billion.

With this in mind,...

As we explored in this recent post, investing in women means investing in families. Which ultimately means investing in the future of communities, too.

With that in mind, our Kiva borrower for May is...

Browsing our portfolio of borrowers on Kiva.org, the site we use to make our monthly ‘loans that change lives’, we were delighted to see that last month’s recipient Jeremie from Burundi was not only fully funded but has already...

Our Kiva borrower this month is Jeremie from Burundi, who is seeking a loan of $4,975 (around £3963) in order to buy a substantial quantity of manure.

…Yes, you read that correctly.

Chicken manure to be precise.

It’s...

There are a lot of reasons to love Kiva.org, the organisation we use to make our monthly ‘loans that change lives.’

Aside from the obvious - that it’s a spectacular platform for enabling entrepreneurs without access to traditional banking systems to fulfil their potential- it is also an...