May 1, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Charity marketing deals with credit-card companies aren’t new, but Advanta — one of the largest credit-card issuers in the small-business market — hopes that its new partnership with Kiva, a charity that makes small loans, will help both the organization and Advanta’s customers.
Kiva is a San Francisco organization, founded in October 2005, that allows people to make loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Loans made through the organization’s Web site now total more than $27-million.
As part of the Kiva Business-for-Business Project, Advanta will match the loans that their customers make to entrepreneurs through Kiva using their business credit cards, up to $200 per month.
The company will also provide materials that their customers can use to publicize their businesses’ support of the charity, such as a KivaB4B button to place on their Web sites, stickers for their storefronts, and postcards to send to customers.
“It’s almost cause-related marketing for small-business owners and entrepreneurs,” says Ami Kassar, chief innovation officer at Advanta, in Spring House, Pa.
Large companies have corporate foundations and the resources to let their customers know about their philanthropic largess, he says. “Now the small business or the entrepreneur will have tools so that they can also tell their customers that they care.”
Kiva is excited by the “thoughtful way” that the company crafted the program to both encourage new loans and spread the word about the charity’s work, says Fiona Ramsey, a spokeswoman for Kiva.
Says Ms. Ramsey: “They could have just written a check.”
For more information: Go to http://www.kivab4b.org.
