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Kiva Harnesses the Power of Data to Change Lives
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Big Data Analytics
- Analytics & Modeling - Data-as-a-Service
Applicable Industries
- Education
- Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Supply Chain Visibility
Services
- Data Science Services
The Challenge
Kiva.org, a nonprofit that connects lenders with low-income entrepreneurs and students worldwide, was facing a data bottleneck. Despite having a data-driven culture, accessing data was difficult for their non-technical business users. They either had to learn SQL and request access to the data or write a specific question for a data engineer, which was a slow and discouraging process. As Kiva continued to grow and acquire lenders and borrowers from across the globe, the data analytics team knew that they needed a business intelligence tool that could scale with them. They needed a tool that could meet their various reporting and analytics needs.
About The Customer
Kiva.org is an innovative nonprofit that connects lenders with low-income entrepreneurs and students all over the world. Since it was founded in 2005 with the goal of alleviating poverty, Kiva’s global community of 2 million lenders have crowdfunded over one billion dollars in loans to 2.5 million people in 80 different countries. The process of matching lenders with borrowers begins when a borrower applies for a loan, either online or through a Kiva field partner. Once approved, the loan request is posted to Kiva’s website, where lenders can help crowdfund the loan for as little as $25. Lenders then receive repayments through their online Kiva accounts and can use this money to relend to another borrower of their choice, expanding the impact of Kiva’s mission.
The Solution
Kiva decided to implement Looker as a solution to their impending data bottleneck. Looker allowed them to quickly and securely transition all of their departments’ data into a new analytics system. With Looker, people in all departments within Kiva could access their company’s data in unique ways to fit their differing needs. In addition to streamlining the reporting process for its data users, Kiva’s data team relies on Looker to provide a single source of truth for the whole organization. When everyone at Kiva relied on the data analytics team for individual, department-specific reports, they often found themselves looking at different information, and this made their decision-making process more difficult. With Looker, metrics can be set by the data team ensuring all users in all departments are using the same metrics and aiding communication and collaboration.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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