Catalyst 09 :: Jessica Jackley

Jessica Jackley is a co-founder of Kiva.org, the world’s first peer-to-peer online microlending website. Kiva lets interent users lend as little as $25 to specific developing world entrepreneurs, providing affordable capital to help them start or expand a small business. Kiva has been one of the fastest-growing social benefit websites in history, connecting hundreds of thousands of people through lending across 150 countries.

Jessica first saw the power, beauty, and dignity of microfinance while working in rural East Africa with microenterprise development nonprofit Village Enterprise Fund on impact evaluation and program development. Sector-agnostic about social change, Jessica has worked for public, nonprofit and private organizations including Stanford Center for Social Innovation, Amazon.com, Potential Media, the International Foundation, World Vision, and others.

Jessica’s work with Kiva has been featured in a wide array of media and press including Oprah, the Today Show, CNN, BBC, NBC, ABC, PBS, NPR, the WSJ, NYTimes, the Economist, and more. Jessica speaks widely on microfinance and social entrepreneurship, and serves as a director on several boards related to microfinance development, including Opportunity International.

Jessica holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business with Certificates in Global Management and Public Management, and a BA in Philosophy and Political Science from Bucknell University.

Jessica is a trained yoga instructor, avid surfer, and poet.

• A lot of her conceptions of poverty came from messages and images from not-for-profits and churches that had a goal of helping those in poverty.
• Messages and stories perpetuated are those of sadness and suffering, which gets people to contribute.
• The message about the poor should not always be based on sadness.
• Compassion should move us to do something.
• A lot of the emotion she encountered when she looked at poverty were guilt and shame.
• Microfinance is financial services for the poor.
• Microfinance is a way to engage with someone in poverty that doesn’t involve guilt or shame.
• The basic idea was to be able to tell people’s stories.
• Kiva lent $500,000 first year; $15 million second year; anticipating $100 million by 2010.
• Money creates a false dichotomy between classes.
• We need to have connections based out of dignity and hope.
• Kiva launched in the USA recently.
• We’re all equal – everyday we all have need.
• We all have something to offer.
• We need to truly believe in each other.

For more on Kiva & Jessica, check out my notes from Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit!

If You Liked This, Check Out...

• A Leadership Case Study: Jessica Jackley and the KIVA Story
• Catalyst One Day in Chicago!
• Catalyst 09 :: Andy Stanley, Round 2
• Catalyst 09 :: Louie Giglio
• Catalyst 09 :: Chuck Swindoll