KIEDF recognized before many in Israel, the importance of the double bottom line, businesses who review their social impact together with their profits. Unfortunately social investments in Israel have difficulty obtaining financing.
To answer this need, KIEDF developed two loan tracks specifically for social businesses and non profits. One is through Bank Leumi, providing access to bank credit between 50,000 NIS and 500,000 NIS. The second provides non-bank direct loans of up to 30,000 NIS, through our microfinance loans.
Stores from the Field
Nalaga’at, please touch in Hebrew, in the Jaffa port, provides employment via a theater, café, restaurant and event catering to over 70 deaf, blind and deaf-blind Israelis, received a ₪400,000 loan. Dining in the dark takes on new meaning for sighted patrons, and theater audiences are often moved to tears. The expansive, converted warehouse location at the port would not have been possible without a loan from KIEDF.
At Nalaga’at patrons order their food and are then led by blind waiters inside the Blackout Restaurant, where they must rely on their senses of touch, smell, and sound to enjoy the meal presented to them in total darkness, simulating the experience of a blind diner.
Raised dots serve as guideposts on the cement floor, forming pathways from the restaurant to the theater, where inside, blind-deaf actors and actresses present their performances. Nalaga’at t continues to seek avenues to raise funds as a social business, but the successes that KIEDF’s loan enabled them to reach were vital.
The Community Farm was developed by Friends by Nature, for raising of organic vegetable indigenous to the area and also incorporating vegetables from Ethiopia which are then sold to local markets and to consumers directly. The local farmers pay for use of the land and then sell their crops both locally and in other regions. Friends by Nature accessed a direct microfinance loan to assist with their business development.
