For 80 years, U.S. securities laws prevented the vast majority of Americans from investing in startups. Retail investors could invest in public companies like Starbucks on Wall Street, but not in their neighborhood coffee shops on Main Street. They could “invest” $10,000 on the spin of a roulette wheel in Vegas or a horse in the Kentucky Derby, but not in their friend’s tech startup. They could “back” a startup on Kickstarter, but they couldn’t own that startup’s equity.  

Every community is a team.  And every team  needs a leader: someone who can cast a vision and create opportunities for that vision to be realized. ‘Building  a Kiva Community’  is a playbook for leaders who desire to drive social change and create economic impact.

This playbook is an open-sourced culmination of the steps we took and lessons we learned in building a community-first, character lending process. We designed the Growth Loan as part of a larger strategy to make our local economy more accessible to all.