Social venture Mona and the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation have helped 23 Chicago-area entrepreneurs get $200,000 worth of zero-interest loans from Kiva, a global microloan platform.
Mona and the Polsky Center collaborated with Kiva, which has distributed the loans to mostly South Side businesses in the past year. The loans of up to $15,000 also have no fees. Applications are still open on Mona’s website.
Borrowers include healthy snack brand Ms. P’s Gluten Free; Ecodunia, maker of bags and accessories from Kenya; and Ilava, which makes clothing in Tanzania.
Mona’s model connects underserved small business owners to capital through community lenders and corporate, philanthropic and government grants and loans. Its collaboration with Kiva is just one financing option.
Business owners complete a simple common application on Mona’s website, and its staff give personalized support to find suitable financing. Any business can apply for Mona coaching, but it focuses on under-banked entrepreneurs such as refugees and immigrants.
Overall, 80% of Mona’s funded entrepreneurs “could not get funding anywhere else, and about 50% said they may have had to close if it were not for the funding,” said Mona co-founder Andrew Leon Hanna, adjunct professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “This is in large part due to the lack of awareness, trust barriers and dearth of support for underserved entrepreneurs.”
Mona piloted its Chicago initiative with Kiva and the Polsky Center in May 2024. But since winter 2020, Mona has worked with Kiva to distribute more than $1 million in loans across the U.S.
In Chicago, the Polsky Center flagged Mona’s collaboration with Kiva to its small business clients and network. For example, Ms. P’s Gluten Free previously participated in an e-commerce program at Polsky.
After candidates completed an online application, Mona’s staff of five, including Hanna and co-founder Anny Dow, vetted candidates and helped them refine loan plans and business overviews. Profiles of the applicants were then posted to Kiva’s website. Mona and Polsky promoted the entrepreneurs to their networks to help crowdsource loans that anyone can contribute to.
Repayment rate for Mona-supported Kiva borrowers in Chicago is about 89%, Hanna said.
Mona is funded by Alpine Social Ventures and grants from Stanford’s Center for Social Innovation.
Access to capital
Like many small businesses, Ms. P’s Gluten Free needs capital for growth. Last year, founder Lisa Marsh used her $10,500 Mona-supported Kiva loan to upgrade her company’s website, switch to e-commerce site Shopify, run ads and work with a marketing firm. She also bought ingredients and paid staff and commercial kitchen fees.
Ms. P’s Gluten Free has mostly received grants but the few loans it has taken out “took a while to fund, required loads of paperwork and the interest rates were not at 0%,” Marsh said.
In her experience, conventional loan applications require “[revenue] projections, collateral and — many times — take a long time to fund. Not to mention the interest rates now are well into the double digits.”
Accessory maker Ecodunia got a Mona-supported Kiva loan of $7,000 in October 2024 and has 36 months to repay it. The funds help the company add a second booth at local artisan festivals, where it sells products from Kenya.
The loan also helped Ecodunia founder Cera Muchiri start designing jewelry with her sister. They recently put together a small collective of jeweler-artisans in a Nairobi slum.
Muchiri was born on a subsistence farm in Kenya and moved to a Nairobi slum, after her grandmother’s farm was burned down during civil unrest. She launched Ecodunia in 2019 with a mission to help lift people out of poverty. But access to capital has been one of her biggest challenges.
“So many business loans are extremely hard to get,” Muchiri said. “You have to have enough revenue and profit to qualify but can’t get the capital to grow effectively. And the fees and interest take a big portion of loan money.”
Mona’s application “felt thorough and rigorous, but not a burden. And as an interest-free and fee-free loan, it means more money goes back to growing the business and more into the communities I’m serving,” Muchiri said.
Ilava, which makes clothing in Tanzania, got a $12,000 loan in 2024. Co-owner Rahel Mwitula Williams used the funds for production, inventory, equipment and marketing, including paying for a social media manager. The loan also helped launch its MITC Studio retail space in Kenwood with Tabby’s Closets in August 2024.
Mona did not treat her company “as just another small business,” Williams said. “They recognized the social impact of our work and understood that our primary goal was not profit, but ensuring that our foundational needs were met.”
Mona-supported Kiva loans give local businesses a boost, but challenges constantly emerge. For example, Ms. P’s Gluten Free’s ingredient costs have recently jumped as much as 30% due to tariffs. The company can’t afford to buy some products anymore, such as recyclable packaging from China.
“Business is very challenging currently,” Marsh said.