1. NSLC 2010
Premal Shah
President
Kiva
www.kiva.org
Parth Shah
National Director
Kiva High School
"Revolutionising how donors and lenders in the US are
www.kivahighschool.org
connecting with small entrepreneurs in developing countries”

2. What is Microfinance?
• Microfinance = small capital
• The poor are typically excluded by financial service providers:
• No collateral
• No credit history
• Illiteracy
• The poor need financial services, and already use them informally:
• Borrowing money from loan sharks with interest rates so high
that it may be impossible to ever pay back
• Savings accounts kept in the home, vulnerable to theft
• Investing in livestock which is vulnerable to disease
• Microfinance works to provide the poor with these financial services, in a
• Safe and controlled environment, through a microfinance institution
Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.
What if he knows how to fish,
but just can‟t afford a fishing net?
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3. Microfinance Institutions
There are thousands of microfinance institutions around
the world, and they all vary a little depending on the
region they are in and people they are targeting to help
• Some focus on women in places where women don‟t have
the same rights as men and so have no economic
empowerment
• Some focus on the rural population in areas where
people are isolated and cannot travel to cities to access
services
• Some focus on a comprehensive program which
includes business training with financial products
What ties them all together, however, is a desire to help the
poor by providing them with financial services

4. Traditional Microfinance Lending Process
Banks and
NGOs
• Microfinance institutions typically get the money that they
lend, from banks or non-governmental organizations, or both
• This can be expensive, as it is often borrowed with interest
• There may also be difficult application procedures to access
debt capital from non-governmental organizations
• Some organizations can even find themselves shut out due
to the region they operate in, particularly post-conflict regions
Microfinance
Institutions
• Restrictions that microfinance institutions face ultimately affect the
entrepreneurs, who rely on microfinance institutions to serve them
Entrepreneurs

5. Why loans rather than charity?
• Dignified Business Transaction
• Spreading opportunity, rather than charity
• Sustainable
– A Hand-up not a hand-out!
– Spreading opportunity rather than spreading
wealth
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6. Guiding personal principle
"Don't ask what the world
needs, do what makes you
come alive; because what the
world needs most are people
who have come alive."
-- Howard Thurman

7. Key milestones and how „alive‟ I felt
SEWA PayPal
Research acquired by OMG it‟s
Project eBay working!
“Alive-ness”
Personal Joined small Leave for
discovery of start up: Kiva.org
Microfinance PayPal
“I got this
idea”
Big company –
Sophomore Management
“do I matter?”
slump Consultant in New
angst
York
20 33
Age

8. Kiva 101
Online marketplace
Internet Local Partner Entrepreneur
Lender (MFI)
Money
Information

9. 550K people lent $120M to 200K entrepreneurs in 4 years
5 yr goal =
Other Key Stats $1 Billion
• Growth: $1M loans every week
• Repayment Rate: 97%
• Recycle Rate: 65%
• MFI Portfolio: 115 MFIs in 50 countries.
Growing 3 a month.
• Traffic: 40,000 visitors / daily
• Organization: 35 employees / 500 volunteers
• Leverage: $10 in loans for every $1 donated.

10. Kiva utilizes 4 “Web 2.0” principles
1. Create an “Addictive” User Experience
2. Be “Radically Transparent”
3. “Crowdsource” against constraints
4. Build in “increasing returns on data”
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11. Create an “Addictive” User Experience
“Addictive” = Easy + Fun
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12. How Kiva tries to make it “Easy”
Designed for everyday people, not affluent experts
“I can see
the person
I‟m lending
to…”
Low cost to
entry
Quick and
easy
checkout
Business relationship
based on mutual
dignity, not pity
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13. How Kiva tries to make it “Fun”
Badging, Teams, fast changing UGC, stats...
Real time un-
edited
updates…
Loans are fully
funded in hours
Transactions
happen Randomized
every 18 “1 minute of
seconds… fame “ +
Lending
Teams…
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14. For some, Kiva is becoming very addictive!
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15. Be „Radically Transparent‟
Transparency  Authenticity  Trust

16. Kiva and Radical Transparency
Paying for Kiva‟s overhead is an explicit choice

17. Kiva and Radical Transparency
Data inaccuracy and defaults are made explicit

18. “Crowdsource” against constraints
Big constraint? + No resources? =
Crowdsource

19. Kiva and “Crowdsourcing”
Kiva Fellows Program
How do we train MFIs, gather progress updates and verify data accuracy hyper-fast?

20. Kiva and “Crowdsourcing”
Kiva Translator Program
How do we immediately translate entrepreneur profiles from native language to English?

21. Build in “Increasing Returns on Data”
Leading public platform + Data integrity 
“Increasing Returns on Data”

22. Public reputation system for MFI Risk and Social Performance
Kiva Social Rating
Kiva Risk Rating
Social Rating
Risk Rating

23. Kiva and “Increasing Returns on Data”
World‟s largest DB of microfinance investments
Short Term: MFIs could use Kiva to build Long Term: Entrepreneurs could use
credit worthiness to other funders… Kiva as a public credit bureau…
Result: 30,245,763 loans found

24. Kiva High School
Mission - to bring together and organize high school
students interested in fighting poverty on both a local
and national scale.
How does Kiva High School Work?
1.Starter-Kit
• What is Kiva/Microfinance/Kiva High School?
• How to setup a chapter
• Chapter fundraising ideas
• Chapter finances
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25. Kiva High School
What does Kiva High School bring to your school?
•Awareness of global issues such as poverty
•Give high school students a platform to make a
powerful impact
•Show the capacity of microfinance and the ripple
effects of your loan
•A network of like-minded students that are unified
through a central organization
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26. Kiva Fellow Video
http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2010/03/11/12745/
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27. Thank you and questions
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