US Operations Associate

The Kiva U.S. team provides 0%, no-fee loans of up to $15,000 to entrepreneurs and small businesses in the United States that are typically excluded from formal financing products. With no minimum credit score and an inclusive approach to underwriting, Kiva U.S. extends access to capital to small businesses across the country.

In communities and cities where there is an expressed gap in affordable financing options, Kiva offers a plug-in microlending partnership model for small business support centers, city governments, and community development financial institutions called the Kiva Hubs program. In more than 40 cities like Oakland, New York, Detroit, and Pittsburgh, partners are developing small business ecosystems and deepening their impact by making Kiva loans accessible to the entrepreneurs they serve.

This is a unique role that gets to play a part in the complete lifecycle of a Kiva US borrower, from application to repayment. As a Kiva US Operations Associate, you will participate in the execution of Kiva’s innovative, social underwriting process, and support our borrowers with their repayments. In other words, you will be performing the tasks that turn a loan application into capital in an entrepreneur’s hands and then work on ensuring they repay their loan in full so Kiva lenders can support even more borrowers!

You will learn the current processes we use to vet borrowers and to manage their delinquency, as well as engage with the larger team in suggesting and executing improvements to our processes and tech infrastructure. Once you’re fully onboarded, a typical day might include approving loan applications reviewed by our underwriting team, answering borrower questions, monitoring loan review and repayment through key metrics, creating repayment reports to be shared with partners, attending team problem-solving sessions on ways to improve the underwriting process and/or strategies to increase repayment, and experimenting with new solutions.

If you’re highly analytical, detail oriented, mission driven, and if you’re interested in seeing a fast-growing startup expand and scale, this job is for you!

At this time, we can only consider applicants with authorization to work in the United States on a permanent, full-time basis; unfortunately we cannot provide visa sponsorship.

Key responsibilities include:

• Support the US Credit Operations Manager on the underwriting process for entrepreneurs interested in receiving a loan through Kiva
• Lead the communications with borrowers in repayment, helping them avoid delinquency or default
• Carry out collections, delinquency, and defaulting processes for repaying borrowers
• Track and analyze impact and loan fundraising/repayment metrics for both reporting and strategy-informing purposes
• Create and support projects aimed at improving our operations and at increasing the value we provide to our borrowers
• Implement innovative solutions to boost one of the most important metrics of our program: repayment rate

Preferred qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree
• 1-3 years of relevant academic or professional experience
• Strong critical thinking and process orientation
• Attention for detail and ownership of your work
• Enjoys completing processes efficiently while maintaining high quality
• Thorough and organized, responsible and reliable
• Highly proactive and able to work independently
• Ability to manage time well and prioritize across competing tasks
• Tech-savvy
• Spanish is a plus
• Familiarity with Salesforce, Looker, Excel, Google Suite is a plus
• Passion for social impact and financial inclusion

What we offer:

• An opportunity to improve real lives, solve hard problems, and change the world
• Friendly, supportive, and adventurous environment with a team of engaged colleagues
• A comprehensive, industry-leading benefits package
• Opportunities to connect with and learn from colleagues and partners around the world
• Salary range for Colorado : $48K - $50K

A diverse and inclusive workplace where we learn from each other is an integral part of Kiva's culture. We actively welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives. We are an equal opportunity employer and a great place to work. Join us and help us achieve our mission!

We will only accept applications directly from candidates. Kiva will not be responsible for any recruiting agency fees, absent a formal agreement.

About us:

Kiva (kiva.org) is an international nonprofit with a mission to expand financial access to help underserved communities thrive. We run a global marketplace platform to crowdfund microloans for financially excluded entrepreneurs, farmers and students around the world. Through Kiva Capital, we serve as a bridge between large scale impact first investors and underserved populations. Our digital identity platform enables borrowers who don’t have a track record with traditional financial institutions to record and verify their financial history and gain access to less costly mainstream financial markets.

Our organization combines the culture and technological passion of an internet start-up with the compassion and empathy of a non-profit to create impact and opportunity at global scale. Since 2005, we have raised more than $1.57 billion in loan capital for 3.9 million borrowers in 98 countries. Our lenders fund over $10 million in loans every month. With offices in San Francisco, Portland, New York, Nairobi, and Bangkok, Kiva's team includes 100+ employees and 400+ volunteers worldwide. Our team is growing as we pursue exciting new opportunities to create a financially inclusive world.