Kiva.org co-founder speaks at Stanford
Jessica Jackley co-founder of Kiva.org speaks at http://bit.ly/postw10 today. Former temp at the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford GSB went Africa to help document effects of micro grants. She started Kiva.org with her husband to do what they could in micro-finance. She then started her MBA at Stanford in 2005 and during that time Kiva got picked up by 300+ bloggers. They made $500K in loans during her first year at the GSB. Today Kiva’s loaned more than $120M in micro-finance.
My personal takeaways:
- Don’t over-think risks
- During it’s inception Kiva hit a flurry of potential issues—from the dangers of East Africa to the threat of the Patriot Act and inadvertent funding of “terrorist groups”
- Don’t fall prey to “noise”. If something goes wrong, you can basically explain what you’re doing, people will get it, and things will be okay
- People need to believe in their power to change the world
- Earlier in her life, Jessica saw poverty as an overwhelming issue requiring a never-ending stream of handouts—making donors feel powerless.
- An alternate view, presented today, is that micro-finance unlocks the tremendous potential of entrepreneurship living in poverty reach self-sufficiency through capital. And that capital gets recycled to help more people. Big difference.
[by Ian Tien, cross posted on WorkPlayLove.com and PowerOfSocialTech.com]
