NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Kiva partnered with the United States Department of State and the Inter-American Development Bank to launch the Women’s Entrepreneurship Fund on Friday, signaling the next step in the crowdfunding platform’s ongoing expansion into impact investing.

Seventy percent of small and medium enterprises owned by women in emerging markets are underserved or unserved, leading to a $260 billion to $320 billion credit gap for women, according to the International Finance Cooperation. Despite the odds, women reinvest 90 percent of their incomes in their families and communities.

“We see time and again with Kiva that the most impactful, high leverage, accelerated way to change the world more positively is by getting money directly into the hands of women, and particularly women entrepreneurs,” said Julie Hanna, Kiva’s board chair.

The fund — which aims to enable 1 million women entrepreneurs to access loans ranging from $450 to $100,000 over the next five years — will match dollar-for-dollar what citizen lenders give to women entrepreneurs through the Kiva.org website.