What you’ll learn in this article:
How a middle school teacher inspired his students and community to loan over $1 million through Kiva
The power of a three-day lesson plan to teach empathy, civic responsibility, and hope
Outcomes of students moving through the lesson plan program
How small actions, like a $25 loan, can create a ripple effect of global impact
Why educators, students, and communities play a key role in overcoming apathy and driving change
Over the past 15 years, a middle school classroom in rural Pennsylvania has become a global force for good, channeling over $1 million in Kiva loans to entrepreneurs through their Kiva lending team across 77 countries. Behind this incredible achievement is Dave Smith, a dedicated teacher whose innovative approach to education has inspired his students to believe in the power of small actions to create big change. By combining lessons in empathy, global awareness, and financial literacy, Dave has shown that even a small community can profoundly impact the world.
One loan, one lesson, one vision
Dave’s journey into teaching wasn’t straightforward. After starting his career in banking, he discovered his true passion: getting students excited about learning. Early in his teaching career, he searched for ways to connect classroom lessons to real-world challenges. That’s when a friend introduced him to Kiva. What began as a simple idea to teach empathy and global awareness quickly grew into a classroom movement.
Dave’s first step was modest: he started with $125—$25 for each of his five social studies classes—and challenged his students to choose which entrepreneurs to support. Over time, this activity became a hallmark of his teaching philosophy. A simple classroom banner declaring, “We will change the world,” inspired one curious student to ask every day, “How will we do that?” Together, they found their answer through Kiva loans, setting an ambitious $1 million lending goal, aiming at the time to achieve it before Dave retired. To his surprise, it didn’t take as much time as he initially thought. In 2023, Dave, his students, and his Kiva Millon Dollar Lending Team surpassed their $1 million goal, a testament to the power of collective action and belief in a bold vision.
Teaching civic responsibility in three days
Dave created a three-day lesson plan using microlending through Kiva as a transformative experience designed to teach middle school students empathy, civic responsibility, and hope. On the first day, students take on the identities of individuals living in poverty and struggle to meet basic needs like food and shelter in a simulation. This sparks conversations about empathy—understanding and sharing others’ struggles—followed by journal reflections connecting these insights to their own lives and communities.
The next two days shift from awareness to action. In a second simulation, students experience life with an average American income and reflect on how small resources can make a big impact. Dave introduces microlending and shows how $25 Kiva loans help people worldwide start businesses and improve their lives. Students choose real borrowers on Kiva.org to support, seeing firsthand how their actions can create change. The lesson ends with goal-setting activities, inspiring students to carry their learning into the world as agents of hope and positive action.
Validating the impacts of microlending lessons
When Dave and I spoke, he reflected on the parable of the starfish—a girl saving stranded starfish one by one, reminding a skeptic who quipped that her efforts wouldn’t matter, as there were too many to help, that “it matters to this one.” This story became a guiding principle in his classroom. For his students, many of whom live in poverty themselves, Kiva loans were an opportunity to see how even small actions could make a meaningful difference.
Over the years, Dave has seen how these lessons resonate far beyond the classroom and has proven the impacts are significant. He completed his doctorale dissertation on his three day microlending lessons, Effect of Service-Learning Microfinance Lessons, which measured the effects of the teachings on seventh-grade learners’ feelings of apathy, empathy, hope, civic responsibility, and gratitude.
Dave’s research resulted in several distinct themes, two of which were that the microlending lessons fostered desire to help others as a counter to apathy and that providing opportunities to help others through microlending participation increased students’ awareness of civic responsibility.
Former students have carried the empathy and global perspective they gained into adulthood, becoming changemakers in their own right. “We’ll never meet the families we’re helping,” Dave tells his students, “but we know our actions are making all the difference for them.”
The ripple effect of one teacher’s vision
What started in a rural Pennsylvania classroom has inspired teachers around the world. Dave’s “One Million Dollar Team” is one of the only non-university lending groups to achieve this milestone, with nearly 43,000 loans made by its 94 members. His story is a powerful reminder of how one person’s vision can create ripples of impact, fostering a global movement for good.
Dave’s unwavering belief in the power of education to shape empathetic, socially conscious adults is deeply inspiring. As he puts it, “The world needs more educators to raise empathetic adults, because then any problem becomes solvable.”
My team at Kiva has become equally inspired by Dave and his students, and we’re considering his experience as a model for engaging more classrooms and students. These stories are powerful demonstrations for how effective collective action can be in countering apathetic tendencies that a world with ever-increasingly complex global challenges can bring. We’re excited about the product experiences we’re building that foster this idea of using Kiva to teach global connectedness, all while reaching more underserved people with the financial resources they need to thrive.
A season of gratitude and action
As we head into the holiday season, Dave’s story serves as a call to action: every small step we take can contribute to something greater. Whether it’s donating to support our education-focused product work, being inspired to start your own collective action community like Dave, or simply sharing his story, each act has the potential to make a difference.
To our Kiva community— borrowers, lenders, donors, volunteers, and ambassadors—thank you. Your dedication and generosity fuel our work and bring hope to countless lives. Together, we’re proving that apathy can be overcome when we work together, one loan and one story at a time. Let’s continue to build a world of possibility, and remember it matters to each individual starfish.
With heartfelt gratitude, 🙏💚 Vishal Ghotge CEO, Kiva
