It’s not often your boss and executive leadership team whole-heartedly invites you and your 3-month old baby to a company-wide offsite. Let alone in Mexico City. To say this was a unique opportunity is an understatement, especially being one of the newer members to the team. 

But that’s the thing about Kiva. No one is newer or older. No one is above or below. Everyone is authentically dedicated to each other - teammate, lender, borrower, and donor. Everyone is in it. 

Colleagues I had only known on the screen months prior soon became community. And lending partners were no longer a part of an ecosystem, but rather real people. 

During the trip, we met Brenda from Nilus, a Mexico-based social enterprise that uses technology to distribute groceries to low-income food deserts. Brenda is her community’s mercado leader and by working for Nilus she now earns an income that she uses to provide for her family. Her young son was there, babbling on her knee as she explained how her life has changed exponentially through access to fair wages, healthy meals, and an independent income she can call her own. Nilus was granted a Kiva loan of $250k powered by over 5,000 lenders to get their business off the ground. Seeing Brenda with her son while sitting there with my own daughter made this connective tissue between all of us undeniable, unbreakable, and one that I feel honored to have felt full circle.

Over the week, my baby girl sat in on team presentations, she heard our impact reports and financials, she was passed around during strategic breakout sessions, and laughed out loud during coffee breaks. She was engulfed in Mexico City’s smells, sounds, and smiles. If osmosis is real, I could not imagine a better environment for her to unconsciously absorb these ideas, senses, and goals. Goals of diminishing the concept of underbanked women, once and for all. Hope for refugees and displaced people to gain resources to rebuild their lives. Ambition to fund climate-smart small businesses around the globe. Determination to give marginalized U.S. small business owners the ability to invest in their success. Most importantly, the privilege of learning from these incredible, intelligent, passionate humans that I get to call teammates. 

As I finish out my last week of maternity leave, I can’t help but reflect on how I always used to think boundaries between work and life were imperative. And while I do think there’s a time and place for lines to be drawn in the sand, I never realized how beautiful and special the blurred lines can be. 

This post is really an appreciation to Kiva. Thank you for being such an inclusive, open, and supportive environment for all types of people - mom or not. We can do hard things. We can do it together. This trip will forever stay close to my heart and has reignited my mind, my motivation. It’s an experience my daughter and I will always share, with our own recollection and perspective. Always a reminder that work and home can coexist in healthy, empowering, awe-inspiring ways. Just like Brenda. 

Here’s to strength in community. Here’s to osmosis, from one generation to the next. Let’s do this.