BREAKING NEWS: YELLOW LEAF HAMMOCKS PARTNERS WITH KIVA TO CREATE ZERO INTEREST LOANS, EXPAND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY!
Woo hoo! Just in time to round out an earth-shatteringly awesome year for Yellow Leaf and our partner communities, we have finalized a partnership with Kiva (the micro-lending, empowering site that has changed millions of lives since 2005).
We are a part of the new pilot program for experimental partnerships, which is investigating the positive impact that a social enterprise can create when given a similar role to a local credit union or investment bank.
For most of Kiva’s history, its borrowers have been opening micro-businesses (like buying 2-3 goats in order to sell their milk). Our experimental partnership is meant to explore a new idea: can Kiva make an even bigger difference by opening up new doors for independent artisans to work within the framework of a social brand?
Down to the details—
> Not much will change! Yellow Leaf Hammocks still make a great gift, we are still committed to super-personalized customer service, and our hammocks will remain the comfiest you can get!
> We will have more designs in stock, so you can expect to receive your order even faster.
> You can log on to Kiva anytime and support the community with a (fully-repaid) microloan of as little as $25 (or spread the word to friends & family).
> Our primary motivation is to create more stability for families, enabling them to treat weaving as a year-round job instead of seasonal employment.
> This will remove more people from slash-and-burn (which families resort to when no weaving work is available).
> It will also enable kids to go to school year round, without being pulled out for field work in order to keep their families fed and sheltered.
> As our program grows, we may also be able to begin financing corollary businesses (couriers, food services, organic coffee, health, etc.)
We are incredibly excited to embrace this opportunity, speed the pace of change and bring even more hammockers into the fold through Kiva’s network!
