Growth Loan Fund
Character-based capital — loans built on trust in a person, not just a credit score.
The Growth Loan was a non-collateralized loan of up to $35,000 for small-business owners who can't access capital through traditional underwriting. We designed and built it to fill a gap our other work kept surfacing: talented entrepreneurs being turned away not because they wouldn't repay, but because they didn't fit a credit-score box. More than a product, the Growth Loan was a conversation where borrowers speak directly to the loan committee, and confidence in the person carries real weight.
Why we built it
For most of history, credit was personal, a storekeeper vouched for by neighbors of good character. Modern finance replaced that with the codified credit score, which brought enormous efficiency but also created gatekeepers who quietly exclude hard-working, well-intentioned borrowers. As banking consolidated into a handful of giants and community lenders thinned out, access to small-dollar business capital broke down: roughly four of five small-business owners are denied a growth loan.
We had already brought Kiva to our market for the smallest, earliest needs, but its $10,000 cap couldn't meet the roughly $30,000 the average small business needs to scale and traditional lenders wouldn't bridge the gap. So we created the Growth Loan to restore something old: character-based lending, extended on trust rather than fear, with flexible use (working capital, equipment, a new website, and more).
What it's done
In the Shelby Park area, the Growth Loan made 13 loans totaling $275,057; 53% went to minority- and women-owned businesses, and 38% to owners earning under $40,000 a year.
Across the region, more than $1M+ has been lent through this character-based approach, and we brokered an additional $40,000 in bank funding through a regional bank partner.
We turned the model into a shareable resource, the Growth Loan Playbook, a step-by-step guide to launching a character-based lending program in any community.
Through our lending software Lenderfit, partners have replicated it elsewhere and AltCap in Kansas City became the first CDFI to run the Growth Loan on the platform, reaching entrepreneurs it would otherwise have to turn away.
Part of a bigger stack
The Growth Loan never stood alone. It was a deliberate layer in a coordinated capital stack: Kiva for the smallest, first-dollar needs; the Growth Loan for the crucial next step; and Lenderfit to help other communities run the same play. Together these tools formed the foundation of a thriving-entrepreneurial-ecosystem strategy, and a direct precursor to our Regional Capital Plan, which scaled this layered, blended approach across the region.
Our role: Originator and operator. We designed, built, and ran it
Type: Non-collateralized, character-based small-business loan
Where: Louisville and beyond (replicated by partners in other cities)
Why it matters to us
The Growth Loan is one-pocket investing at street level. It widens who gets to participate in the economy by trusting people the system overlooks and it proves that character-based lending isn't a relic, but a repeatable, dignified way to move capital to where it's needed most.
