Kiva partners with Mari Malek, Shahrzad Rafati and others to redefine what a “powerful woman” is and drive loans to over 12,000 women during International Women's Day

Kiva partners with influential women and aims to fund every loan to women on Kiva.org.

Sunday, March 8, 2020

San Francisco, California: Today, in honor of International Women’s Day, micro-lending platform Kiva is partnering with inspirational women including Actress and Stand Up for Education Founder, Mari Malek, and BroadbandTV Founder & CEO, Shahrzad Rafati, to redefine what it means to be a woman in 2020.

Kiva and its celebrity advocates have created and released unique posters to illustrate their individual perspectives on what being a “powerful woman” means to them.

“This IWD, we want to celebrate all the incredibly diverse versions of what it means to be a powerful woman in 2020. We live in a world where too often success is defined by a single or traditional path, and we know at Kiva that being strong, brave and successful can mean so many different things. We work with inspiring women every day who are heads of households, mothers, entrepreneurs, farmers and students. At Kiva, every day is International Women’s Day, however we’re taking this opportunity to celebrate and amplify that sentiment through our campaign and partner matching program. This week, our goal is to fund every loan to women on kiva.org,” says Tiffany Fong from Kiva.

Supporting women is not new to the Kiva community of lenders. Over the past 14 years, the Kiva community has become a spark of hope and support for over 2.7 million ambitious, multi-tasking, powerful women in 98 countries. 80% of Kiva’s loans last year went to women, and they recently crossed the $1 billion mark to funding women entrepreneurs, farmers, students, heads of family, and artisans. This International Women’s Day, Kiva wants to invite the world to make celebrating and empowering women its business as usual.

During March 8th and 9th, corporate partners including Cartier, eBay and Bank of America will be running loan matching programs on the website and app – doubling each lender’s impact. Additionally, leading up to International Women’s Day, lenders will receive a free $50 lending credit when they sign up to support women on a monthly basis through Kiva’s Monthly Good program.

Lenders can visit www.kiva.org or download the Kiva app on the iOS or Android app stores.

ENDS

About Kiva:

Established in 2005 as the world’s first personal micro-lending website, Kiva’s mission is to expand financial access to help underserved communities thrive. This is done by crowdfunding loans and unlocking capital for the underserved, improving the quality and cost of financial services, and addressing the underlying barriers to financial access around the world. Since its beginning, Kiva has raised a combined $1.4B for loans to women, for more than 2.8M entrepreneurs in 98 countries.

Contact:\ Henrique Saboia\ media@kiva.org

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