By Christy Marshall
Rebecca Kousky’s goal was lofty: find a job that combines her passions—international social work, empowering women, fighting poverty, a love of fashion—into one neat package.
She’s all of 24 years old: tiny, lovely, with brown hair and a clean-scrubbed face as open and welcoming as a map of the world. And that pie-in-the-sky ambition? She’s already checked it off her To Do list.
At the end of August, Kousky launched an online shopping site called Nest, a place where you can buy exclusive designs in clothes, jewelry, baby and children’s togs, and accessories for the home from 37 designers (with 45 more on their way). The proceeds go into a microlending kitty for female artists worldwide. In the first month, Kousky rang up sales of $10,000.
“Because I’ve always had this heart for social change—that’s been my focus, my education, my life—it has always frustrated me that a lot of the places that give money to charity weren’t necessarily selling the things I was buying,” Kousky says.
For Nest, she created a website that sells, for a good cause, work by the designers already carried in boutiques—must-have items people would buy anyway, anywhere.
Since 1976 when the first microfinance bank, The Grameen Bank, was established in Bangladesh, more than 5.77 million people (96 percent of whom have been women) have received monies from the bank. The loan recovery rate is 98.45 percent.
“Giving loans, as opposed to other forms of charitable giving, was a purposeful choice,” Kousky says. “Studies have shown that women receiving such loans repay them at a higher rate, raise the standard of living for themselves and their families, raise their social status and, in the process, stabilize their communities.”
By the time of the launch, Kousky had received loan applications from women in Turkey, Madagascar, Kenya, India, Brazil and Colombia.
When asked why she focuses on women across the seas rather than those in the States, Kousky responds: “When traveling and working internationally, I was both appalled and touched by the poverty I saw in many places—poverty on a vastly different scale than in the United States. I was also disheartened by the international efforts at aid. When I came back, I wanted to find a way that fully supported women and families in poverty, while respecting their existing talents, abilities and cultures.”
At first, Kousky planned on opening a boutique and using all the proceeds to fund microlending. But without collateral, the banks balked. “But I didn’t want to give up. So I just kept twisting the idea until we came up with this product line: all the artists are giving us one to three exclusive products that they are not selling anywhere but through us.” For example, Boston-based jewelry designer Hillary Olk of Designs by Hillary has created a necklace, earrings and bracelet set for Nest. Other designers include Ben-Amun, Meleana and Wool & Hoop.
To cover her rent, Kousky nannies part-time for two little boys. That way, she explains, even more money goes into the Nest microlending bank.
“I feel like I have created a job that encompasses everything I love in life,” Kousky says. “And I’ve actually managed to find a way to do it.”
