Our Mission

Vittana is a different kind of organization. Our executives, directors and partners come from some of the best technology companies, non-profits and microfinance organizations in the world. We draw on the best lessons from business and non-profit worlds to create lasting change for young people around the world. Learn how it all comes together.

Headquartered in Seattle, Vittana pioneered the concept of student micro-loans three years ago. In just a few years, people from over forty countries have funded nearly 1,000 students. Vittana students study everything from welding to accounting to industrial mechanics to tourism, and our community has won numerous awards and recognitions.

We are hard-headed idealists who come to work each day believing that we can change the world.

"Ridiculing idealism is shortsighted, but idealism without the rigors of pessimism is misleading. We need very hard-headed idealists who can look into the worst and best of humanity and can create and implement strategies of success."
— UN Millenium Project's "State of the Future"

Our Mission

Our mission is to empower young people around the world with the the education and training they need to build a life of prosperity and opportunity.

Our Beliefs

We believe that education is the world's most powerful tool to fight global poverty.

We believe that to unleash the economic power of an education, students must be able to finish it.

By empowering young people with the right education and training, we believe we can unlock the potential of an entire generation.

Our Big Goal

We will ignite student micro-loan markets in developing countries to reach one million young people by 2015.

The Problem

Today, an entire generation of young people are finishing their basic education and hoping to do more, but they're stuck. When it comes to education, traditional aid and development have focused solely on literacy and primary school. For most of the developing world, student loans don't exist. 100 million young people around the world can't afford the additional education and training they need to build a better life for themselves and their families.

Until now, most banks and microfinance institutions didn't trust that young people would repay their education loans. This leads to a vicious Catch-22 - without a track record of success, banks don't lend; without lending, the banks and microfinance institutions can't build up a track record of success.

The cycle of poverty continues.

Our Solution

Vittana combines the massive reach of microfinance and the transformative power of education with the momentum of crowd-funding. We are cracking open the global market for education so that the millions of young people living in developing countries around the world can have the tools they need to change their lives forever.

Our solution has three main components:

• Program Building: We work directly with banks and microfinance institutions around the world to create new student micro-loan programs. For the first time ever, these student micro-loan programs empower young people with the opportunity to finish school. Learn more about how we build student micro-loan programs.
• Crowdfunding: We run an award-winning website that allows our community to lend directly to Vittana students around the world. We are the first organization that both directly creates new microlending programs on the ground, and that also supports these programs through its own crowd-funding website. The Vittana website allows our supporters to take action and be part of a movement that directly empowers young people who want to build a better future. See all Vittana students, or learn more about how it works.
• Demonstration Effect: We're demonstrating to the global financial community that students in developing countries (a) are bankable, (b) will repay their loans and (c) can change their life trajectories forever if given the chance to finish school. By proving this, we're building something beyond Vittana; we're changing the way the world thinks about global education.

Our Success

In just a few short years, we've already seen exciting proof. We're launching pilot projects all over the world, proving that this model will work equally well in the Philippines as in Mongolia, and will be just as effective in India as in Rwanda. We're also bringing these programs to scale, proving that youth are indeed bankable.

Vittana students repay. In fact, 99% of Vittana students repay their loans in full. Moreover, Vittana student micro-loans are dramatically affecting the lives and incomes of our students. Vittana students estimate a 291% income change after they finish their education.

Learn more about our outstanding partners or how you can get involved.