Intercontinental Ballistic Microfinance from Kiva on Vimeo.

The map represents every one of the 620,000-plus Kiva loans, made between 2005 and 2011, with a colored dot that flies from the lender’s location to the borrower’s, then back to the lender as the loan is repaid. The activity starts small, with seven loans moving from the United States to East Africa in April 2005. At the end of 2006, when Kiva received its first major media attention, the map explodes into full color as the number of loans balloons into the tens of thousands. The result is beautiful, both for aesthetic value and for what all those colors represent: $240 million in loans, repaid 99 percent of the time.

As of February 2, 2013, 885,034 Kiva lenders have made $399,347,450 in loans. Those funds have provided 522,561 loans to 969,179 borrowers, with an incredible, and enviable, 99.02% repayment rate. The organization boasts collaborations with 184 Field Partners, led by 450 volunteers around the world, in 67 different countries. Their work is fundamentally altering the nature of locally-focused global development funding. 

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