In its first year, Kiva, a non-profit microlending organization, helped fund a spinach farmer in Cambodia, a hot dog stand man in Nicaragua, a carpenter in Gaza, a bee keeper in Ghana, and a fish seller in Uganda. Behind each of these businesses lies a story. Now we can add Detroit stories to the mix.

Microlending for business owners is now a reality here, thanks to a partnership between Kiva, Michigan Corps, ACCION USA and Knight Foundation.

At an announcement in Shed 2 at Eastern Market, Detroit became the first city in the United States with a Kiva program and the gathered crowd was introduced to the first five businesses funded.

By using the Kiva model for microlending ... Michigan Corps to find business owners in need, ACCION USA for getting the business owners ready to accept credit and the Knight Foundation to match investments ... this collaboration is taking a unique approach to helping people take their business ideas off the shelf and put them into action.

Think Kickstarter with a repayment plan.

As Paul Quintero, CEO of ACCION USA noted, it is the people who make this project unique. "This is the first time, to my knowledge, that an effort has been made to create a coalition from churches to people to all 50 non-profits that are represented, so that we could really reach individuals, because that's who we want to serve," notes Quintero.

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