Women Empowering Women: Kiva & sockprints
Fun fact: every sockprints purchase of custom printed socks contributes to our ongoing efforts with Kiva. Part of the lineup of amazing organizations in the sockprints Giving Program, Kiva is a 501(c)3 U.S. nonprofit that is dedicated to changing lives one loan at a time. To find out more information about the company's global initiatives and impact, we caught up with sockprints Co-Founder Hayley.
Q: Why Kiva?
Kiva is a great international nonprofit organization. We like that 100% of the money we loan goes directly to support borrowers in 81 countries making a difference in underserved communities around the world. They have a great repayment rate and have facilitated over $1.3 billion in loans. Getting involved is easy on their website, too. As a woman-owned business, we know the financial challenges that women can face when building a company and want to support other women pursuing their entrepreneurial goals. Unfortunately, I was not surprised to learn that women have less access to fair and affordable credit for their businesses. According to Kiva.org, 46% of men have access to formal financial services opposed to only 27% for women around the world.
Q: When did sockprints start supporting Kiva?
We learned about Kiva loans in 2016 and thought it was a great way to support other women in business around the world. We signed up on the Kiva.org website, did some research, found a great team: Women Empowering Women, and began loaning money.
Q: How will my purchase make a difference?
Every sockprints purchase contributes to our lending ability on Kiva. While we do not have a set percentage of sales we lend, we do take active measures to ensure that we keep loans for women funded.
Q: Do you have any message(s) you'd like to convey to these women?
I believe the Kiva team we belong to embraces our message, Women Empowering Women. Having a business partner at sockprints has definitely reinforced my belief that we are stronger together. We couldn't have accomplished what we have done thus far without each other and other team members at sockprints. I hope the borrowers know we are rooting for their success and wish them the best!
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