Published by Jerry Ostradicky on 20 Oct 2009
Matt Flannery Talks About Kiva’s Fourth Birthday
On October 12th, Kiva.org had its fourth birthday. Has it really been that long since Kiva first popped up? I remember hearing about Kiva about three years ago and I feel like it was just yesterday. Matt Flannery, the CEO and co-founder of Kiva, posted some of his thoughts about what Kiva has accomplished so far and what it plans in the future:
As I write this, Kiva is on the verge of surpassing the $100M mark in terms of total loans sent to entrepreneurs through our website. $100 million is an impressive number by anyone’s standards, but Kiva has never been about the numbers. Ultimately Kiva is about stories and the connections between people that are forged when those stories are shared.
Kiva started out as an experiment in an Eastern Ugandan village five years ago. It was a quite personal attempt to convey the hope that we witnessed during a trip to Africa. That trip changed our view of poverty and how we can relate to it. We felt that, surely, if everyone could have experienced what we experienced, they would want to get involved too. With the spread of technology, why couldn’t everyone get involved?
Since that time, we’ve been working tirelessly to make that dream a reality. We’ve traveled all over the world and made friends most everywhere. We’ve witnessed an alarming amount of poverty. We’ve also seen a universal work ethic, creativity and entrepreneurialism that reside in the world’s working poor. It is that spirit that has made Kiva possible…
Read the rest of Matt’s thoughts on the Kiva blog.
