Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Warren Levitan, CFO and Vice President of Business Operations at Radialpoint. The guest post is published here in order to bridge the tech community in Montreal with local companies that are not only succeeding in the world of business and technology, but who are also mindful of their role in the community at large. To learn more about Radialpoint and all the job openings they have, check them out here.
On the heels of having raised almost $25,000 as part of the Movember campaign to help raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer, our team at Radialpoint was in search of a charitable campaign to launch over this holiday season. Which is when we came across Kiva.org.
Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Through Kiva’s online lending platform, individuals can lend as little as $25 to a specific developing world entrepreneur to help them create new opportunities for themselves, their families and their communities. Since 2005, Kiva has enabled $262 million in loans to 684,000 entrepreneurs in 218 countries. And get this… the repayment rate on these loans is 98.9% today!! As an entrepreneurial organization, we thought to ourselves: how amazing is it that we can connect with individual entrepreneurs across the globe, who are as smart and hardworking as any of us, but simply need a little capital to get a project off the ground that has the power to change lives.
So last week Radialpoint created a new lending community on Kiva, with every employee being given a $25 Kiva gift card to help get them started. Radialpoint employees are now actively lending to entrepreneurs like Esther Ndunge Wambua from Kenya, who is seeking $225 to buy herbal medicine for resale and ultimately become a formal distributor of such medicines in her region. In a country with an average annual income of less $1,500.00, a $225 loan can create significant new opportunities.
We got so excited about this campaign that we decided to invite Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva, to come and meet with our employees and tell her story of how she came to found Kiva and her lessons in social entrepreneurship. Having spoken to Jessica on the phone, it was clear that we were in for a very special treat, and we quickly decided that we couldn’t let Jessica fly from LA to Montreal and only meet us. So on November 30th Radialpoint hosted an invitation-only networking event for 200 of Montreal’s top technology talent, with Jessica as a keynote speaker. Jessica inspired the crowd with her personal perspective on a different manner of viewing poverty. Poverty should not simply conjure up an image of helpless individuals who need our charity, rather there is also a world full of local entrepreneurs living in poverty who don’t want or need our charity. Like almost all entrepreneurs, these individuals need access to capital to execute on their business ideas, and through access to capital they can lift themselves out of poverty.
The team at Radialpoint couldn’t have been more thrilled to share Jessica with our extended friends, family and tech colleagues in Montreal. Setting a goal to be a top 10 lending community on Kiva this holiday season, we also decided to invite all of our guests to lend as part of the Radialpoint community. Day by day we excitedly watch new loans being made to incredible entrepreneurs around the world from Kenya to the Philippines to El Salvador.
Check out some of the stories for yourself here and if you become as inspired as us, please join us and lend as part of the Radialpoint Kiva community.
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Heri December 06, 2011