Rural-focused lending hub has deployed more than $600,000 in zero-interest, zero-fee loans to Oregon small business owners.
Kiva Oregon, operated by Foundry Collective, has launched a $15,000 fundraising campaign as demand for its zero-interest small business loans outpaces available funding.
Since launching, Kiva Oregon has deployed more than $600,000 in zero-interest, zero-fee loans to rural Oregon small business owners, maintaining a 91% repayment rate across a borrower pool that conventional lenders largely declined. Seventy-six percent of borrowers had been turned away by every other lender before applying. Sixty-five percent run women-owned businesses.
The people behind those numbers include Liz Turner, who runs The Compost Chick, a curbside composting service covering ten eastern Oregon communities. She needed a cargo van to scale. Every bank said no. Kiva Oregon funded her $14,000 loan through hundreds of community lenders in eight days. In 2025, she took second place at the largest composting conference in North America. There is also Brooke McSweeney, who spent 25 years cleaning professionally before inventing an eco-friendly toilet brush that actually works, and Barry in Toledo, who bought a building during the pandemic to give his town a gathering place and used a Kiva loan to finally install a furnace so customers could stop sitting in their coats through Oregon winters.
These are the businesses rural Oregon runs on. Kiva Oregon exists because the conventional lending system was not built to say yes to them.
The $15,000 campaign funds the operational infrastructure that makes loans possible: application review, borrower coaching, and trustee advocacy. Donations of any amount are accepted at the link below.
Campaign: https://givebutter.com/helping-rural-oregon-small-businesses-access-funding-to-start-and-grow-0b8yba
About Kiva Oregon: Oregon’s only rural-focused Kiva lending hub, operated by Foundry Collective. Zero-interest, zero-fee crowdfunded loans up to $15,000 for rural small business owners. kivaoregon.org
