News and Commentary

Microfinance and Maria Shriver’s Cupcakes

Last week I had a chance to visit the headquarters of Kiva.org. For an organization that has channeled tens of millions of dollars from hundreds of thousands of lenders, Kiva has remained remarkably humble. The office is nothing like the glass walled, sanitized offices of finance firms. Rather, it feels like a cross between your basement in high school and the computer lab at the student union building. And the location is not in the toniest of San Francisco neighborhoods. Instead Matt Flannery, the founder, picked a location in the Mission, forcing the buttoned down financial reporters and bankers to head south out of downtown into one of the grittier areas of the city. A neighborhood not too distinct from some of the neighborhoods in Mexico City, Tegucigalpa, or Lima where so many of Kiva’s loans end up.

Back inside the office, earnest and talented young people sit on couches, in Ikea decorated conference rooms, or just on the floor with their Macbooks working hard to save the world. Occasionally a dog ambles through. I asked if anyone ever wore suits. “Every once in a while you’ll see Premal [Kiva's president] in a suit, but only when he has a televised interview,” the office manager told me. The people behind Kiva fall into two primary categories: microfinance experts or technology experts.

On the microfinance side, you have a cast of incredibly well-credentialed international development experts, aid workers and others who have lived overseas, in DC, or both, probably. They are the compliance folks. They navigate complex relationships with microfinance institutions in dozens of different countries and government regulators here in the US. They sit on committees with representatives from other microfinance organizations to improve industry standards, to manage currency fluctuations or to establish social performance metrics.

On the technology side, you might as well be at a Silicon Valley startup. There is no nine-to-five schedule, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t working hard. In fact, though many arrive with the day half done, many stay well into the night. White boards in the conference room are a palimpsest of ideas over ideas. While much of their time may be spent on maintenance and fixing bugs, there is ample time left over to explore the next new facet of the Kiva site and community.

Aside from the forty or so employees are the volunteers who are nearly indistinguishable from the paid staff. Interns from ranging from a 17 year old from Minnesota to a recently minted MBA are working, without compensation, for Kiva. And when you ask them why Kiva, and not some other non profit, the answer invariably relates to the magic of the idea. You, me, anybody, can help a person halfway around the globe in a dignified way. Not a handout, but a hand up.

On Friday, I was invited to join some of the staff members for a barbecue. There was a birthday, but almost as important, Kiva was celebrating a tremendous amount of publicity over the launch of its partnerships with Accion USA and Opportunity Fund to facilitate loans in the United States. There were appearances on Good Morning America, BBC, NPR, and other national media outlets. And maybe the highlight was the endorsement from Maria Shriver and her husband Arnold Schwarzenegger. After Maria announced a new collaboration with Kiva, Arnold tweeted about Kiva. To seal the deal, she sent cupcakes for the barbecue. And they were delicious.

After spending a few days at Kiva, my admiration for the organization has only increased. As with any successful organization, they are undergoing growth pains. And in the wake of the announcement of their move into the US credit market, their has been a mini-insurrection among a segment of loyal Kiva lenders who contend that facilitating loans in the US undermines their overall mission. Overall, however, the people behind Kiva seem to have what it takes to keep Kiva on track: they are driven by a desire to do good, they are talented and hardworking, and they are extremely thoughtful about how they should act.

© 2009 SeaMo: Connecting the Microfinance Community.