Innovating to expand opportunity worldwide

This is the first of a multi-part blog series looking at how Kiva is getting creative with lending and partnerships to make an impact in exciting, new areas.

Imagine having limited or no access to higher education, nontoxic lighting, or clean water. These are realities faced by millions of people around the world every day. Kiva’s mission, now and always, has been to connect people through lending to change this picture.

We envision a world where every individual has the power to create opportunity for themselves and others. Working toward this reality, we challenge ourselves to find new ways for our lenders’ flexible, risk-tolerant capital to grow markets and reach even more people with innovative loan products. This is core to Kiva’s quest for deeper impact – one that is shared by our generous lender community.

In the coming months, this blog series will highlight important new work in this area spearheaded by Kiva’s Strategic Initiatives team. These efforts will expand Kiva’s footprint in exciting directions and continue evolving our work to alleviate poverty through microlending.

Through this series, we’ll introduce you to a new set of Kiva partners – from universities to social businesses, from mobile service providers to green technology vendors. For the first time, Kiva is working with partners other than microfinance institutions to offer different types of loan products. In doing so, we look forward to innovating how we partner with organizations and companies to give more people access to financial services and opportunities.

Designed to highlight both the challenges and potential of these new partnerships, this blog series will explore seven areas where they are active:
1. Education
Closing the Global Education Gap
As demand for education spikes, micro-loans may be the answer
Cost-sharing for higher education in South Africa
Investing in technical and vocational education
Tackling the secondary education equation

2. Innovative Agriculture
Loaning for a new "Green Revolution"
Why do farmers need finance?
Growing agricultural economies, starting with small farms
Agricultural co-ops make their mark in rural Kenya
Storage facilities for smallholder farmers in East Africa
How you can change the world -- one land title at a time
Want to become a chocolate investor? (Yes, we said chocolate.)

3. Clean Energy
The Case for "Green" technologies: What is the Need?
Financing for a cleaner, greener future
The last mile distribution challenge
Julia Roberts, cookstoves and health in the developing world
Tackling energy poverty in sub-Saharan Africa

4. Water and Sanitation
Expanding access to water and sanitation services
Sanitation, and Kiva’s elegant solution to an inelegant problem
Tapping into clean water financing
Water and Sanitation in Urban Slums

5. Mobile Transactions
The power of moving money by phone
Getting information technology into the right hands
Reducing poverty along the supply chain

6. Fair Trade
Lending to support fair trade
Keeping fair trade coffee fair

7. Health
Funding community health workers on the front lines of global health

8. Transportation
Helping motorcycle taxis hit the road (it's more important that you might think!)
9. Increasing your impact
Lending to get life-changing products into the right hands
Accelerator programs for social entrepreneurs