Indigenous Designs

Status update — November 3, 2016

Kiva and Indigenous Designs have agreed to end their partnership after nearly 3 years and almost $5,000 in loans raised. The partnership is closing because of challenges the organization faced in creating a microcredit program that could scale. This Lending Partner has repaid its outstanding balance to Kiva in full, and these funds have been distributed to lenders. We thank Indigenous Designs for the years of collaboration and wish them success in their future endeavors.

Status update — January 11, 2015

Kiva has moved this Lending Partner to inactive status. This means Indigenous Designs is no longer fundraising loans on Kiva, though Kiva fully expects the partner to continue to send repayments owed to Kiva lenders for as long as the partner has an outstanding balance. The reasons a partner might become inactive include: taking time to develop a new type of loan, turnover on the partner’s management team, a shift in overall strategy or changes in funding sources. If and when this partner requests to fundraise again on Kiva, Kiva will first conduct any additional monitoring and due diligence tasks we believe necessary.

Partner description: 

Indigenous Designs is a Northern California based Organic and Fair Trade apparel company that sources from more than 1,500 hand-knitting artisans located primarily in South America.

Founded in 1994, the organization aims to honor both people and the planet throughout every step of producing fashionable apparel. It develops and markets premium quality organic apparel to high-end fashion retailers primarily in North America, Europe and Japan. 

A unique lending approach:

Indigenous Designs provides 0% interest loans for artisans in economically marginalized communities. The organization has recently launched a new application, the Fair Trace Tool, which creates engaging supply chain transparency from the producer to each customer.  

In 2013, with concentrated effort throughout the supply chain, only 3% of employees in the Indigenous supply chain were at risk of falling below the national poverty line. With Kiva’s support, Indigenous Designs hopes to help accelerate the growth of ethical fair trade sales, drive more revenue through a just and fair supply chain, elevate many more people from poverty and provide them with opportunity and a voice.