The Story of LutherKiva

LutherKiva was created by an inspiring mix of Luther students, faculty, staff, and even an unidentified mystery person. In 2007, at a panel discussion on “fair trade” sponsored by SEEDS (Students Engaging in Economic Development through Solidarity), Professor Brett Johnson mentioned microlending as a tool for poverty alleviation. The next day Brett received an email from SEEDS co-leader, Carl Westphal ‘08, asking for the name of the microlending website that an audience member mentioned the night before. Brett didn’t even remember the comment. The next day Brett read the New York Times and found an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof promoting microlending through Kiva.org. He quickly emailed the SEEDS list asking if anyone knew about Kiva.org. Katy Fielder ‘08, said she had written a paper on Kiva.org for Professor Steve Holland’s course on Global Hunger. Katy shared her knowledge of and excitement about Kiva at the next SEEDS meeting. Katy’s talk inspired SEEDS to organize a silent auction of artwork created by SEEDS’ members to raise funds for microlending. With over $300 in proceeds, SEEDS started microlending!

Katy and Brett then led a presentation on “Putting Your Money Where Your Heart Is: Microlending and Kiva.org” at the 2008 Peace Prize Forum–where we were inspired by Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus, for his microlending work with the Grameen Bank (Bangladesh). A group of students came back energized to bring microlending to Luther. After unsuccessfully trying a few different routes to have Luther College directly fund the project, LutherKiva unveiled the “$10K for Kiva” campaign to raise $10,000 to allow Luther students to make loans for “free.” Over 150 loans have been made thus far!

The most exciting part of the first year of LutherKiva was the visit by Kiva-co-founder, Jessica Jackley to Luther in February 2009 (generously funded by the Estrem Endowed Program for Entrepreneurial Studies). Fundraising successes included the Geography Challenge ($600)–where students, faculty, and staff (and local 7 year-old Ben Johnson) illustrated their abilities at Traveler IQ Challenge. Other successful fundraisers included a letter to faculty and staff, Brett playing guitar around town, and Koins for Kiva. Most importantly, the student congregation has twice decided to donate some of the proceeds from the graduation baccalaureate service to LutherKiva. This brought us to the $5,700 mark for the “$10K for Kiva” campaign. Let’s have a great 2nd year at Luther!

Learn more at: https://sites.google.com/a/luther.edu/kiva/