Case Study: Kiva achieves higher microloan funding rates with DataRobot

Kiva Uses DataRobot to Increase Microloan Funding Rate

Kiva, the San Francisco–based nonprofit that crowdfunds microloans for underserved communities, faced a challenge getting some loan listings enough visibility to be funded. To raise the daily funding rate for loans at risk of going unfunded, Kiva partnered with DataRobot’s AI for Good program to apply machine learning to predict which loans would or would not be funded each day.

DataRobot built more than two dozen predictive models using loan-level data (including daily popularity) and integrated the solution with Kiva’s website to reorder and promote at-risk loans daily. The DataRobot-powered system increased visibility for loans across geographically diverse regions, raised Kiva’s microloan funding rate, marked Kiva’s first large-scale ML deployment for this problem, and has led Kiva to expand its use of AI.

Kiva

Melissa Fabros

Software Engineer