Kiva Cowork (formerly Impact Hub), Santa Barbara’s largest shared workspace provider, has announced the new year will bring a new charitable giving program aimed at supporting local nonprofits and engaging Kiva’s members to support the good work of those organizations.
Through the new Kiva Gives program, a local nonprofit will be identified as the recipient of a quarterly donation from Kiva Cowork and its members. Each quarter, a percentage of new coworking plan memberships will be designated for the chosen nonprofits.
Kiva’s community coordinator will work throughout the quarter to encourage individual and corporate members at all three of Kiva Cowork’s locations to make donations and volunteer. Each nonprofit organization will be invited to share about their work at membership mixers.
“We tried a smaller pilot for corporate philanthropy toward the end of last year and we were pleased with the results, but we want to grow it by giving more as a company and also getting more of our members involved as donors and volunteers supporting the good work of nonprofits,” said Dan Ferrick, Kiva Cowork founder/CEO.
A pilot program launched late last year provided donations for Child Abuse Listening and Mediation (CALM). The Kiva Cowork team hopes to increase the amount raised each quarter through the expanded and more active Kiva Gives program.
The first Kiva Gives beneficiary will be Explore Ecology’s school gardens program, which maintains school gardens and provides garden educators at 36 schools in Santa Barbara County teaching students about where food comes from, healthy eating, and the science of food production.
“We are so thankful that Kiva Cowork has selected Explore Ecology and our school garden program as the beneficiary of the Kiva Gives program,” said Lindsay Johnson, Explore Ecology’s executive director.
“This support will help our garden educators continue their important work, serving thousands of students and helping schools integrate science instruction and healthy eating into a real world setting that kids can see first-hand,” she said.
Kiva Cowork offices are at 1117 State St., 10 E. Yanonali St. and 1221 Chapala St. Visit http://kivasb.com.For more about the Kiva Gives program, email Michael Lewis at michael@kivasb.com.
For more on Explore Ecology, visit http://exploreecology.org.
— Michael Lewis for Kiva Cowork.