By Ethan Lyon, Senior Writer
Kiva is a rising star in the digital space — ranking #3 on Sparxoo’s Digital Influence in Social Cause Report. We had a chance to talk with Kiva’s Community Marketing Director, Chelsa Bocci about crowdsourcing, lessons learned in social media and the next steps for Kiva online to give us further insight into Kiva’s tremendous success.
Chelsa has been with Kiva from the beginning and was responsible for establishing Kiva’s Microfinance Partnerships program where she managed a great deal of relationships with Kiva’s Field Partners, primarily in Africa, and oversaw Kiva’s Microfinance Operations programs; Inventory Management and Kiva’s expansive Fellows Program. Chelsa is currently responsible for growing and further engaging Kiva’s community through three channels: Kiva Lending Teams, Social Networks, and Events.
1) What has been the most successful aspect of your crowdsourcing model?
Kiva’s crowdsourcing model has enabled it to scale and grow to the size it is today. Much of Kiva’s initiatives are crowdsourced. In fact, the organization employs a team of only 35 people and is supported by a network of over 400 volunteers. By drawing from its 400 volunteers, Kiva can exert global impact through a range of programs and partnerships.
Field Crowdsourcing
In many ways Kiva borrows from the Peace Corps model. Volunteers apply, are evaluated based on their individual skills, then paired with field partners in locations throughout the world where Kiva has a presence. Before these volunteers (called fellows) are sent into the field for 10 weeks they are trained by Kiva’s staff. This outsourced volunteer program enables Kiva to extend its global reach while educating people on microfinancing.
Online Crowdsourcing
Kiva’s digital efforts are primarily supported by volunteers. The microfinancing organization leverages the technical abilities of their more digitally savvy and multi-lingual supporters by providing them access to the back-end of the site where they edit, review and translate user profiles. Currently, Kiva has a team of 350 online supporters that work towards making information and entrepreneur’s profiles accessible for lenders. Accordingly, Kiva has found the rate of funding for those profiles that have been reviewed is significantly greater than those that have not been reviewed.
Additionally, Kiva crowdsources its customer service as well. “Everyday there are more inquires than the day before and we need to get creative about sourcing our customer service,” says Chelsa. Kiva’s customer service is supported by a team of 15 volunteers that field customer inquires remotely.
Future Crowdsourcing Initiatives
Though Kiva is a leader in crowdsourcing both online and in the field, “we have a lot of learning to do,” says Chelsa.
“There is no shortage of ideas” for finding new ways of leveraging the crowdsourcing model to extend Kiva’s impact. One of these ideas incorporates the next generation of volunteers: high school and elementary students. In addition to its Kiva Campus efforts — where over 50 Kiva chapters help educate and engage college students in microfinancing and crowdsourcing — Kiva is partnering with One Hen to educate elementary schools about the importance of microfinancing to impact change. “We really value volunteer management and want to build-out our long-term commitments.”
2) In the past year, what has been your biggest lesson learned regarding social media?
“We are so thankful we’re in a time when social media exists.” Social media is a tool for Kiva to increase visibility for the cause, grow the brand and refer users to the Kiva website where there is a call to action.
Kiva enlists the volunteer efforts of a social media intern to charge its digital networking efforts. “Kiva is a social investment and new social networking tools let us harness that.” However, Kiva is not convinced social media has a high conversion rate.
While Kiva might have nearly 150,000 Twitter followers, it doesn’t translate into more lenders necessarily. Facebook and Twitter users are constantly friending and / or following new social causes. Because users might like Kiva, it doesn’t necessarily mean they want to become an active member of the lending community. While Kiva is not going to scrap its social media efforts, instead it will focus on the highest conversion rate, friend referrals.
3) What are their future plans to further expand their digital presence?
This past June, Kiva faced much controversy when it opened the Kiva entrepreneurial community to the U.S. Since its founding in 2005, Kiva has empowered entrepreneurs in developing nations around the world. When Kiva opened the entrepreneurial community to a developed nation (i.e. the U.S.), the microfinancing organization was criticized — particularly by early adopters (though a U.S. entrepreneurial community was one of the top five customer service questions). It was this controversy that forced Kiva to become more aware of its field partners. The Kiva team used its social media connections to raise the visibility of the blog where it answered user questions.
In 2010, Kiva is going to dial-up its video efforts on the organization’s blog. For the blog, Kiva is going to leverage the power of video to help connect lender and entrepreneur in a more meaningful and profound way. Video profiles will be developed by Kiva’s field partners — using Flipvideo’s small handheld recording devices.
Beyond entrepreneurs profiles, Kiva plans to create web video tutorials to help lenders understand the many facets of the website. Moreover, Kiva has partnered with Tangle to crowdsource a commercial. Tangle has a sizable community of videographers who will compete to create a 30-60 commercial for Kiva.
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