Chevron grant for Kiva

[Guest]

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[Peter S]

I heard about this nearly 3 weeks ago (thanks to Google Alerts...) and was waiting to see if Kiva would be making its own announcement, maybe on the blog, or perhaps on the  corporate supporters page, to reveal that Kiva is now amongst the non-profits supported by Chevron (the world's 4th largest oil company by revenue), and specifically by their Chevron in California community involvement initiative.

Since nearly 3 weeks have gone by I assume Kiva doesn't intend to generate any publicity of its own around this, so in the interests of transparency about Kiva's funding sources, here's the story:

Chevron's press release

Chevron Announces California Partnership to Invest in Education and Jobs
Kiva.org, Project Lead the Way and Other Nonprofits Offer Innovative Approaches to Economic and Social Challenges

SAN RAMON, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 21, 2009-- Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) today announced the California Partnership, an initiative to invest in education and economic development in its home state. Under the new initiative, Chevron will expand and deepen its partnerships with nonprofits focused on supporting underserved communities, including relationships with 18 new nonprofit partners providing programs for education, entrepreneurs and job training. Additional partners will be introduced throughout the remainder of 2009.
. . .
 Chevron’s California Partnership will also be supporting Kiva.org, the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website that allows individuals to make small loans to entrepreneurs online. Chevron is making a contribution to Kiva.org to assist in funding the organization’s operations as they continue to build their innovative microfinancing platform, which is already available to California small businesses and entrepreneurs.

“California small businesses and entrepreneurs are facing unprecedented difficulty in obtaining necessary business funding in this economic slowdown, which can be the key to job creation and overall economic growth for the state,” said Premal Shah, president of Kiva.org. “Chevron’s support through the California Partnership will help Kiva.org continue to spur growth in small businesses, which represent more than 87 percent of all businesses in the U.S.”
. . .
Chevron announced the California Partnership at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday morning. As part of the event, Chevron hosted a panel discussing innovative approaches to public-private partnerships featuring Chevron nonprofit partners Kiva.org, DonorsChoose.org, Project Lead the Way and Teach for America. A video of the discussion will be available online at: www.chevron.com/CA.  (the video is not there yet)

the press attending the San Francisco event referred to above included prolific Oakland videoblogger (etc) Zennie Abraham (a.k.a. zennie62), here's his video report from that event (I'm just about going to forgive him for getting Kiva's web address wrong in the introduction).  Watch for a short explanation of Kiva from Premal at around 1:40, and that's followed later right at the end by a quick interview with the founder of DonorsChoose.org.



zennie62's blog report here: http://www2.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?blogid=95&entry_id=51194 includes a fuller list of the other Chevron beneficiaries.


I haven't yet been able to discover exactly how much Chevron's support is worth to Kiva.  Reading around the stated figures, and the number of non-profit partners Chevron has announced already (but it might announce more later this year), I would hazard a guess that this might be worth somewhere between a quarter to half a million dollars to Kiva, which will make it a very big deal indeed in terms of supporting Kiva's operating costs and enabling them to reach more MFIs.  Kiva's Field Partner Opportunity Fund (based in San Jose) is by the way another of the newly-announced Chevron beneficiaries.

If it is at the sort of level I think it is, I wonder why Kiva has not made an announcement of its own?  Could it be that there's a feeling within Kiva that accepting money from "big oil" is something that a quite significant proportion of Kiva lenders would feel somewhat uneasy about?  It's probably fair to say that Chevron as a brand, and oil extraction as an activity, are not generally known for generating warm fuzzy feelings(*)...  However, if Kiva is taking the dollars, I do think that the familiar Chevron logo should be up there on the corporate supporters page, along with Google, PayPal, Ernst & Young, Yahoo and all the others.  And i think that in common with previous significant grant support from corporations, transparency requires that Kiva should make an early announcement of how much Chevron is contributing to Kiva's operating expenses.

Peter


(*) I checked this forum for previous mentions of Chevron. They were universally negative:

Judy's post  about "Crude," a standout Sundance documentary about a legal battle between oil giant Chevron and rainforest dwellers in Ecuador

more discussion on Chevron and environmental disaster for Ecuador beginning here in the MIFEX thread

In the Burma thread, mention by me of Chevron's involvement with Total in helping to shore up the illegitimate regime of the military junta, here.



edit: added videoblogger Zennie Abraham's name.

[Harvey:)]

I find Kiva’s partnership with Chevron to be rather interesting and revealing, but not surprising considering other decisions Kiva has made. On the one hand, partnering with Chevron will help Kiva’s bottom line, Kiva’s operational expenses. And it may be a cheap way for Chevron to boost Chevron’s public image. On the other hand it seems to be rather contradictory. Chevron is causing some of the poverty that Kiva is trying to alleviate. Chevron is destroying the environment, the health & the livelihoods of indigenous people on the one hand so Kiva can ask us, the lenders, to provide micro-loans to keep them from starving on the other hand. This is not only troubling & a hypocrisy, but it is working at cross purposes. It seems to me that it would be much better & make more sense for Chevron to take the money they are willing to give Kiva and use it to clean up the environmental disasters they have created in areas around the world where the poor live. (Of course, that would entail millions, if not billions, of dollars to accomplish.)

The ends do not justify the means.


Links to articles of interest:

A pertinent video:


Pertinent articles:
http://www.alternet.org/environment/140488/chevron's_inhumane_energy_exposed_to_light_of_day_but_oil_giant_keeps_on_spinning_/

http://truecostofchevron.com/

http://www.greenmuze.com/climate/energy/533-chevron-v-earthrights.html

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/afrfocus/afrfocus103108.html

http://www.earthrights.org/legalrelated/factsheet_what_happened_at_parabe.html


Judy

[Jan & John]

I feel that the discussion about Texaco Chevron's "causing some of the poverty that Kiva is trying to alleviate." as you state, Judy could continue here a long long time.  I followed your links and found many others from the other side of this debate and detailing the accusations, political and otherwise law suits that are ongoing.  And there goes another Saturday morning

The big issue for us, I feel, should be with Kiva not quickly adding the Chevron logo to the list of other supporters.  This seems to be typical of the speed Kiva makes most changes to the site (partner updates for example).  This change is probably on their "to do" list.   

We know resources are tight and Kiva staff are overworked.  I suggest they take a tiny amount of this Chevron largesse and use it to update their website.

If Chevron is willing to support Kiva with money, I am willing to let the politicians and the environment groups debate/decide the Amazon issue.

-jan-

p.s. I still fill up my car at Shell, even though we have large environmental issues here at home and around the world.

[Diane R]

Interesting that this appears to have flown in under the media radar.

I am wondering if someone from Kiva might comment on the size of this grant, and whether there are any strings attached to accepting it.  Are the funds, for instance, only to be used to further USA lending, or perhaps even California lending in particular, or are they without stipulation?  While it is always good to receive grants to help cover operating and expansion expenses, are there any grant providers from whom Kiva would refuse to accept an offer?


--Diane.

[cpbailey]

Diane,

Hmmmm, perhaps any company doing something illegal in the arena they operate in.  Or if it involves prostitution.  But guinea pigs and cockfighting donors are welcome.   

Colette

[cjp1973]

Because my curiosity got the better of me, I emailed kiva as well as Donorschoose.org to find out more about the chevron grant.

I have gotten two replies.

Donorschoose, Zach

Nice catch!
 
I believe these funds will mostly be used to match donations to math, science & technology projects in California. Not sure if all the details have been hammered out but I believe that's the plan. Half a million bucks!

Kiva, Gerard

Thanks so much for your email. That's a great question. Let me check up on it for you!

If, or when, I get any additional correspondence from Gerard, will be sure and pass it on.
Now I see that Premal has been reading this thread, perhaps we will get some additional information.  Hopefully it will come soon.
I had to write back to DC and tell them that the "nice catch" could not be attributed to me.  Thanks, Peter.

Charmaine

[Peter S]

Just noting that there is still no word from Kiva about the grant from Chevron, which was announced by Chevron in the press release of October 21st.  Chevron does not yet appear in the list of Kiva's corporate supporters ( http://www.kiva.org/about/supporters/ )

If the grant to Donors Choose was half a million (thanks for that information, Charmaine), I imagine Kiva might be getting something in that same general area, in line with my guesstimate in the opening post of this thread, based on the overall grant total announced by Chevron.

The logos of two new corporate supporters were added last week, Moody's and Common Sense Advisory, the logos linked as usual to text describing the nature of the support.  In line with Kiva's established practice, Moody's is featured at the top as a provider of major support, while Common Sense Advisory is down at the bottom with all the other more minor - but of course still admirable - donations of money or services.

Below for the record is what the top of the corporate supporters page has looked like since Moody's and Common Sense Advisory were added last week.

Peter

[cjp1973]

I just now got another reply from Gerard.

Hello Charmaine,   
 
Just following up on this - we'll be making a formal announcement about this, probably before the end of the year. We're not ready to talk about the terms of the partnership yet.
 
Best wishes, 
Gerard Niemira
Customer Service Manager

I guess we are in wait and see mode!

[Peter S]

hmmm, "We're not ready to talk about the terms of the partnership yet" kind of invites the supplementary question, why not?

Kiva has attracted probably very significant 6 figure funding from a major multinational corporation.  What possible reason could there be to be reticent about sharing what Kiva knows, especially since the fact of the Kiva / Chevron partnership is now very firmly in the public domain, through Chevron's press release, Zennie Abraham's article @ SFgate.com, his video of the event, and this thread at KF.

I find it quite disappointing that Kiva's reaction is to say nothing at all about this exciting infusion of cash, whereas Donors Choose was more than happy to share with Charmaine the fact that Chevron's support to them is worth $500,000

Peter

[Gerard]

hmmm, "We're not ready to talk about the terms of the partnership yet" kind of invites the supplementary question, why not?

Kiva has attracted probably very significant 6 figure funding from a major multinational corporation.  What possible reason could there be to be reticent about sharing what Kiva knows, especially since the fact of the Kiva / Chevron partnership is now very firmly in the public domain, through Chevron's press release, Zennie Abraham's article @ SFgate.com, his video of the event, and this thread at KF.

I find it quite disappointing that Kiva's reaction is to say nothing at all about this exciting infusion of cash, whereas Donors Choose was more than happy to share with Charmaine the fact that Chevron's support to them is worth $500,000

Peter

Chevron made an announcement before the terms of the partnership were final, and before we've received any funding. When it's all said and done, we'll make an announcement about the dollar amount and the terms. Until then, we won't be ready to make an announcement about the terms of the partnership.