It Takes an Online and Offline Village...

By connecting people we can create relationships beyond financial transactions, and build a global community expressing support and encouragement of one another. - Premal Shah, President

From the beginning, Kiva set out to foster community on a global scale. And you (all of you!) made that dream a reality. Lenders came together to find new ways to expand Kiva’s reach and borrowers used their loans to bring new opportunities to their communities.

In the coming weeks we want to take time to celebrate these diverse and vibrant Kiva communities that are at the heart of everything Kiva is able to accomplish.

We’ll take a tour through the online world of lending teams and their 375,000 members. Lending teams represent an enormous breadth of interests and together these teammates support each other to help more and more borrowers.

We’ll also take a deeper look at the importance of personal connections, and how our borrowers impact the people around them. Kiva loans don’t exist in a vacuum, they help our borrowers touch so many lives beyond their own. This past year we surpassed one million borrowers. One million. Together they impact tens of millions of lives and we’ll dive into some of their stories.

Kiva connections may start online, but there are also ways to be involved with Kiva offline, especially as a student or teacher. Kiva U was launched in 2013 and the student response has been truly awe-inspiring. We’ll continue heading into classrooms this year both to teach and to learn about how students are taking initiative to get involved in the microfinance movement.

In the coming months you’ll also see more of what’s going on behind the scenes at Kiva: innovations we’re trying, challenges we face and a good dose of the fun Kivans have working at a place we love. Got questions for us? We’ll host some Q&A columns because we want to know what you’re curious about.

We’ve accomplished a lot together, but we’re nowhere near finished - and we don’t think you are either. Stay tuned as we deep dive into ties that bind us all and honor the amazing people that make Kiva a truly global community.

Which Kiva communities are you a part of? And who do you want to hear more about? Share below!