NEST TAKES MICROFINANCE TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL

Nest empowers women.  Nest preserves artistic traditions.  Nest offers exclusive and handcrafted merchandise.

Washington, D.C. – NEST is a nonprofit organization founded by Rebecca Kousky when she was just 24 years old.  Nest is a unique combination of interest-free microfinance loans, mentoring from established designers and a place to buy exclusively designed and handcrafted merchandise from many of the world’s most sought-after artists and designers, as well as crafts produced by women around the globe.  The Nest website is www.buildanest.com.

With a master’s degree in social work, an artistic sensibility and an entrepreneurial spirit, Rebecca founded Nest to draw together artists from across the globe.  Using an innovative method developed by Rebecca, one she has dubbed “microbarter,” Nest provides women, or cooperatives of women, with loans that allow them to purchase the supplies, training, bazaar space or raw materials needed to make their crafts.  Women then repay their loans in beautiful merchandise, available on the Nest website, www.buildanest.com, and at selected retail outlets.

In addition to crafts from all over the world, Nest partners with domestic designers, who offer exclusively made and handcrafted items, also available on the website, with the proceeds going to support additional female artists in the developing world.  These designers also mentor loan recipients, giving them valuable business, marketing and design advice.

Nest encourages women to develop businesses using the creative skills they already possess, many passed down through the generations.  And, through mentoring by Nest’s established designers, its financial and business curriculum, its access to a western marketplace and its wrap-around services, Nest fully supports women as they move from poverty to self-sufficiency.  Nest instills pride of ownership, preserves ancient artistic traditions and successfully moves women from poverty to self-sufficiency.

In 2007, Rebecca won the Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition of the Skandalarias Center of Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.  She was named one of the St. Louis Business Journal’s ‘30 under 30’, which recognizes the achievements of young entrepreneurs and executives.  Nest was invited to be the featured charity at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and Rebecca was recognized as a ‘Young Person who Rocks’ by CNN, which included a televised feature.  In addition, Rebecca and Nest have been profiled in numerous publications, from magazines and newspapers, both regional and international, to local and national television and on many websites.  And Nest’s traditional crafts, in addition to being available on the website, are carried by major retailers, including Whole Foods.

In three years of operation, Nest has assisted over 200 women in eight countries, including artists in India, Guatemala, Morocco, Tanzania and Turkey.  Every Nest designer and loan recipient is profiled on: www.buildanest.com.  Nest’s entire product line, including its own women’s t-shirts with the distinctive Nest logo, is sold to upscale boutiques in major cities, presented through trunk shows and trade shows, and is available via the Nest online marketplace.

Nest has created a community of artists helping artists, and women helping women, the world over.VISIT WWW.BUILDANEST.COM