100% of your loan goes to supporting borrowers.
Back local NWA founders (women, immigrants, veterans, and first-time entrepreneurs) building businesses in Benton and Washington County.
Start with as little as $25. Your loan combines with others to unlock the full amount a borrower needs to launch or grow.
As repayments come in, you can relend to another borrower and multiply your impact over time.
Support a local entrepreneur, get repaid, relend, keep impact flowing.
Choose a local entrepreneur whose mission resonates with you and whose success you want to help bring to life. Each borrower shares their unique story, vision, and goals for growing their business.
Decide how much you’d like to lend, whether it’s $25 or more, every contribution makes a difference. Your loan joins others to help fully fund the entrepreneur’s campaign, fueling their next step toward growth.
Once you lend, your funds go directly to the borrower’s project. You’ll receive updates on their progress as they use your loan to grow their business and strengthen their community.
As borrowers repay their loans, your funds return to your Kiva account. You can re-lend to another local entrepreneur to expand your impact, helping new small businesses thrive again and again.
Kiva’s model is built on trust and community support. While repayment rates have historically been strong, lending is not risk-free.
Your loan helps entrepreneurs without adding financial burden.
Early support from the borrower’s own network helps validate campaigns.
Our local team reviews profiles and prepares borrowers for success.
Every profile states how the loan will be used.
Repayment is not guaranteed; only lend what you’re comfortable lending.
I’m a big fan of Kiva! As someone who works in the lending space, I see firsthand how many entrepreneurs, especially those without assets to pledge as collateral, are left out of traditional financing options. Kiva creates opportunities for people who are rich in ideas and rooted in our local communities. Unlike other financing models, such as Point of Sale systems that often charge high fees, Kiva loans are offered at 0% interest with no closing costs! Making capital more accessible and equitable.
A business I co-founded received a Kiva loan, and that early support made a meaningful difference. Since then, I’ve become a dedicated lender myself. What I love most about Kiva is the power of community and the revolving nature of the funds. The same $25 I lend today often comes back to me in just a few months, allowing me to re-lend a portion of those funds to another small business. It’s a beautiful, ongoing cycle. – Sandra Carrasco Quezada.
Answers about 0% interest microloans, how lending works, timelines, eligibility, and bilingual support in NWA.
Kiva lets you lend as little as $25 to real entrepreneurs. Your loan combines with others to fully fund the campaign. Borrowers repay over time; you can re-lend your repayments, withdraw them to PayPal, or donate them.
Go to Kiva.org, click Sign Up, and create a lender profile. It takes a couple of minutes—then you can start lending immediately.
$25 per loan.
No. Kiva loans are 0% to the borrower and do not earn interest for lenders. Your impact is social return, not financial return.
Use the location filter to search the U.S. and then “Arkansas” or the NWA cities (Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville). You can also browse our Featured Borrowers on this site.
Every profile lists the business purpose and a short plan for how the loan will be used (equipment, inventory, marketing, etc.).
When a campaign is matched, each $25 you lend is doubled on the page by a sponsor or partner until the match pool runs out.
For eligible NWA borrowers in those counties, the Walton Family Foundation matches each lender’s contribution $1-for-$1—so your $25 shows up as $50 toward the goal.
No lender fees. At checkout, you’ll see an optional donation to support Kiva’s operations—you can edit or skip it.
Yes. You can set a display name or choose to hide your name on individual loans.
Yes. Add loans to your basket and check out once.
Major debit/credit cards and PayPal are accepted at checkout.
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