Coca-Cola Foundation & Kiva Join Forces to Empower Entrepreneurs Globally with "Change Make Her" Initiative

The Coca-Cola Foundation and famous microloan organisation Kiva have announced an ambitious five-year partnership called Change Make Her. The partnership intends to fundamentally alter how underrepresented businesses may access capital globally.

The information was made public during the Coca-Cola "Level the Playing Field" Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Summit, which was hosted in Sydney and at which the corporation reiterated its steadfast support for the FIFA Women's World CupTM. In keeping with its long tradition of promoting women's empowerment, Coca-Cola is collaborating with powerful partners throughout the globe to advance the interests of women and other marginalised groups in a variety of fields.

Kiva is the ideal partner for this project because of its well-known lending platform that links lenders and borrowers through crowdsourced microfinance. This ground-breaking method efficiently directs loans to those who ordinarily wouldn't have access to traditional banking services.

As a dynamic revolving loan fund, Change Make Her will provide assistance to businesspeople in Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Critical impact areas covered by the effort include sustainable agriculture, climate resilience, water management, and retail.

The Coca-Cola Foundation's president, Saadia Madsbjerg, emphasised how the design of the fund enables an ongoing cycle of assistance. As borrowers pay back their loans, the money goes back into the pool and is then available for lending to more borrowers throughout the world. A $1.1 million donation in 2023 might result in a mind-blowing $4.5 million effect on loan volume by 2028 thanks to this unusual configuration.

Madsbjerg emphasised Kiva's departure from conventional philanthropic practises as she voiced her pleasure for the collaboration. She emphasised, "The Change Make Her fund empowers us to lend and relend alongside a multitude of others by collaborating with like-minded lenders and global partners."

Madsbjerg emphasises the importance of microbusinesses for job creation and the expansion of the global economy. She believes that Change Make Her will have a domino effect, supporting long-term prosperity as local business owners create employment possibilities.

This relationship is being driven by Kiva, which has a history of providing over $2 billion to 4.7 million borrowers worldwide. It is noteworthy that over 80% of Kiva's loans go to women, demonstrating their dedication to gender parity. The effective 96% payback percentage demonstrates the effectiveness of Kiva's strategy. Kiva has given more than 587,000 borrowers loans totaling more than $185,000 (about P10.5 million) in the Philippines alone.

The CEO of Kiva, Vishal Ghotge, expressed his enthusiasm for the partnership's potential to have a profound effect. The combined strength of value-aligned organisational relationships will be demonstrated by the fact that together, we will assist thousands more people than we could do separately, according to Ghotge.

The partnership expands on The Coca-Cola Foundation's four-decade history of assisting global programmes for economic development. Included in this is the well-known 5by20 project, which, in collaboration with The Coca-Cola Company and its bottling associates, has given nearly 6 million women greater economic autonomy.

Coca-Cola workers will actively support The Coca-Cola Foundation's goal by directing Kiva loans towards business owners through the Change Make Her programme.