Monday 18 March 2013

Kiva has made loans to more than 1 million people

"Kiva, the world's largest crowdfunding platform for social good, announced today that it has reached over 1 million people in more than 65 countries through $400 million in microloans. This is a tremendous milestone for the nonprofit organization, which was founded in 2005 to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty and expand economic opportunity.
"This has been an amazing journey over the last seven years," said Matt Flannery, Kiva Co-founder and CEO. "I want to thank the one million borrowers who have proven to the world that it was worth taking a chance on them. You have made Kiva possible."
In their first year, Kiva lenders crowdfunded almost $500,000 in loans. Today, Kiva's community of 900,000 lenders crowdfund more than $1.5 million in loans per week. These small dollar individual loans have helped more than 1 million low-income borrowers start and grow businesses, go to school, improve their homes, buy clean energy products, and more. Through Kiva, anyone with an internet connection can make a loan as little as $25 to the borrower of their choice on Kiva.org. And with Kiva's repayment rate of 98.9%, lenders are able to relend their money again and again, or withdraw it from the system."

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