Microlending pioneer, Kiva, is embarking on a new mission. After Kiva made waves when it began extending microloans to U.S. business owners (alongside its usual roster of borrowers from developing countries), the company has announced that it's expanding its U.S. borrower program through the launch of The Kiva City Program.

The Kiva City Program, which was announced Wednesday by former President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative America conference in Chicago, is essentially a new distribution model that Kiva hopes will spur economic development in some of U.S. cities that were the hardest hit by the recession. Kiva will be working in partnership with Visa, with whom it teamed up last August to expand U.S. business owners' access to mKiva microloans. At the same time, Kiva was also set its sights on the Gulf Coast and paired up with ACCION Texas-Louisiana to help local residents get back on their feet.

The Kiva City Program will be essentially taking the model that Kiva used in the Gulf Coast to other cities in the country by teaming up with local organizations to source local businesses, help them apply for a microloan, and funding the loan on Kiva. The goal is to directly focus Kiva microlending efforts on cities that have taken the most significant economic hits. A study commissioned by Kiva and Visa found that 20 of the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. lost at least 1% of their small businesses between 2006 and 2008.

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