John Hatch, founder of FINCA, joins Kiva.org's Advisory Board

Kiva.org is pleased to announce the addition of John Hatch, founder of FINCA, to our Advisory Board.

John Hatch is the founder of FINCA, one of the world's leading microcredit institutions with programs in 23 countries and over one million low-income families assisted since its inception in 1984. John is also known as the father of "village banking", a group loan methodology now replicated by over 800 micro-credit programs in 60 countries. John's economic development career spans 44 years, during which time he was a Peace Corps volunteer and staff member (1962-67) Fulbright scholar, (PhD, Univ. Wisconsin, 1973), economist, and a consultant to small farmer development projects in some 50 countries (1973-83). John currently directs FINCA's global mission support department, which features action research by summer interns armed with Palm Pilots who interview some 3,000 clients per year to document their poverty levels, business profitability, and rising living standards. John is a co-founder and executive committee member of the Microcredit Summit global campaign to reach 100 million of the world's poorest mothers with self-employment loans by the year 2006. He has given microcredit workshops at universities at home and abroad, while also teaching microcredit at George Washington University and Johns Hopkins SAIS.

John is a microfinance luminary who we are honored to have contributing to the future and direction of Kiva.org.