👑 CROWN LETTER: JESSICA JACKLEY

Lender Mentor

Lady Banyan of Village Savings & Loans

Board Member, Liana Banyan Corporation

Dear Ms. Jackley,

You heard Muhammad Yunus speak, and it changed your life.

So did I.

You quit your job, moved to East Africa, interviewed entrepreneurs in Uganda, came back, and built Kiva. $2 billion in loans. 98.5% repayment rate. 206 countries. The world’s first peer-to-peer microlending platform.

I didn’t build Kiva. But I’ve spent nine years building something that needs what Kiva proved: that if you trust people with small amounts of capital and wrap community around them, they will build something worth more than the loan.

I’m writing to ask if you’ll help me build the next chapter.

WHO I AM

My name is Jonathan Jones. I’m a 53-year-old father of eight, U.S. ARNG veteran (, 11B/15A), 21 years I.T. developer. I was the child of missionaries in Tanzania — no television until 13, so I read a lot, and I’m good at chess. I’ve spent 40+ years thinking and nine years building a cooperative commerce platform called Liana Banyan.

I’m not famous. I don’t have an MBA from Stanford. I’m just someone who wants what SHOULD be good to ACTUALLY be GOOD. The systems we have aren’t protecting or helping people well enough, and arguably are part of the problem. So I’ve designed different ones.

One of those systems is called VSL — Village Savings & Loans.

Everything I know about microfinance, I learned from you and Yunus.

WHAT VSL IS

VSL is our microfinance initiative. Small loans. Community-backed. Designed for people the banks won’t touch.

The philosophy is Kiva’s philosophy:

• Trust people
• Start small
• Build community accountability
• Tell their stories
• Let lenders connect to borrowers as humans, not numbers

You said it yourself: “The stories we tell each other matter very much.”

That’s the foundation of everything I’ve built.

WHAT LIANA BANYAN IS

Liana Banyan is a cooperative platform in which three commercial divisions — .com, .biz, and .net — drive sustained funding for the .org charitable initiatives. All the time, by design, sustainable beyond our lifetimes because of the infrastructure we build that operates far beyond us.

The economic principle is simple: Cost + 20%. Creators keep 80%+ of every transaction. The 20% funds operations, and 100% of charitable funds go directly to the people doing the work.

VSL is one of fourteen initiatives:

• Let’s Make Dinner — meal preparation and delivery
• JukeBox — music licensing where artists keep 80%+
• Defense Klaus — protection for domestic abuse survivors
• Lifeline Medications — affordable prescriptions
• Rally Group — crisis response embedded in every interaction

Each one supports the others. The economic engine funds the charitable work. The charitable work builds community trust. The community trust drives the economic engine.

VSL isn’t a standalone microfinance platform. It’s microfinance embedded in a cooperative ecosystem — where the borrower might also be a meal provider, a musician, a small business owner using our other services. The loans aren’t isolated. They’re part of a network.

WHAT I’M ASKING

I want you to be the Lender Mentor — the Crown of Village Savings & Loans.

Every initiative in Liana Banyan operates as a council. The Crown is the First Seat — the leader, the tie-breaker, the voice on our Steering Committee. As the council grows with workers and members, they elect their own representative to the Board of Directors. In the early days, that representative would likely be you.

What the Crown includes:

What I’d ask of you:

• Review our VSL architecture
• Tell me what’s wrong with it (you’ve seen what works and what doesn’t)
• Advise on scaling — you took Kiva to $2 billion
• Bring the storytelling lens (borrowers as humans, not data points)
• Be the voice that says “this is how trust-based lending should work”

WHY YOU

You could have stayed in consulting. You could have taken a comfortable corporate path. Instead, you heard a speech, moved to Africa, and changed how the world thinks about lending to the poor.

Then you did it again with ProFounder. And again with Alltruists. And again as Disney’s first Entrepreneur in Residence. And again as Chief Impact Officer at Aspiration. And now you’re teaching the next generation at USC while running Untapped Capital.

You keep building. You keep starting things. You keep asking: “What’s the next story we can tell?”

I need people who build. I need people who understand that microfinance isn’t about money — it’s about dignity, trust, and connection. I need people who can look at a platform architecture and see where the human stories live.

You’re that person.

THE LINEAGE

I’ve also written to Muhammad Yunus. Not to ask him to lead VSL — he’s 84 and running a country through one of its most difficult transitions. I wrote to ask for his blessing. To acknowledge that VSL is a child of Grameen, that Kiva carried the torch, and that we’re trying to carry it forward in a new form.

If he blesses it and you lead it, VSL would have the spiritual authority of its founder and the operational expertise of someone who scaled it globally.

That’s the lineage I want to build.

You wouldn’t be leading an isolated project — you’d be part of an ecosystem of hundreds that lead thousands to benefit millions. Check out the structure and connections at Cephas.LianaBanyan.com/The300.

INCLUDED WITH THIS LETTER

I’ve included two documents for your review:

1. The Considered Approach — An academic paper outlining the theoretical and economic foundations of Liana Banyan. This is the “why” behind the architecture.

2. VSL Business Plan — The operational blueprint for the initiative you’d be leading. This is the “how.”

Read them. Check out the implementations at LianaBanyan.org and pick them apart. Tell me what breaks with the feedback tool or contact me directly by email or phone.

With respect,

Jonathan R. Jones Founder & Redshirt Crewman #6 Liana Banyan Corporation

Founder@LianaBanyan.com 406-578-1232

There is a walkthrough at LianaBanyan.com/RedCarpet. No scheduling, no pitch deck, no salesman.

Help each other help ourselves.

As You Wish. lianabanyan.com

Enclosures:

• The Considered Approach (Academic Paper)
• VSL Business Plan

How We Amplify You

Liana Banyan amplifies the people it serves. We drive our audience to your storefronts, your channels, your practices. We don’t ask you to be our billboard. We ask to be your megaphone.

The louder you get, the louder we get — because your success is our revenue, and our revenue is your influence.

We amplify you. You amplify makers. Makers amplify their communities. Everyone gets louder together.

“I was so completely blown away by the idea that I quit my job, dropped everything and moved to East Africa to help.” — Jessica Jackley, on hearing Muhammad Yunus speak