Challenge

Kiva makes micro-finance personal by connecting lenders and borrowers around the world. These borrowers are looking for loans to grow their businesses. For Kiva to connect these groups of people, they needed to grow the organisation and spread the word about their important work.

Story

Kiva began using Ad Grants to advertise their organisation, which quickly became the largest source of online traffic to their website. When a potential lender is researching how they can participate in microfinance, Kiva can generate highly qualified leads. Kiva is able to find people who are already interested in their mission and already looking to get involved with an organisation like them.

Kiva has also used YouTube to activate their community by encouraging their fellows, volunteers and user community to create and upload YouTube videos every day.

Google and the Google tools we use every day at Kiva have helped us serve more than 2.1 million people around the world and provide more than $890 million in loans to farmers, entrepreneurs and students who are working towards their dreams.'

Buckley White, Product Marketing Lead, Kiva

Impact

Cynthia, a farmer in rural Zimbabwe and a single mother of two, used a Kiva loan to help keep her crops alive during a record drought in the country.

Cynthia connected an irrigation pond to her fields of okra, sweet potatoes and corn, linked by a system of pipes and a water pump. A Kiva loan of $1,000, backed by 35 lenders from around the world, helped Cynthia buy the fuel she needs to power the pump, and keep her crops alive.

She uses some of the profits from her farm to pay her children’s school fees, and is paying to continue her own education as well. She had to drop out of school as a teenager, but is working to graduate from high school level exams to set a good example for her children and other young girls.

Life without education is like a plant without water. So I am committed to sending my children to school, no matter what,' Cynthia said.