KIZ (Communication and Innovation Centre) GmbH, was established in 1997 to encourage entrepreneurialism and to support people to start up their own business. In the past ten years, KIZ has assisted over 10,000 entrepreneurs and their businesses through consulting, training, and coaching, and has become one of Germany’s leading personal and professional development consultancies. Their body of work includes building up structures for microfinance, supporting self-employment, supporting regional networks, helping people to recognise and identify their own potential and excellence, and showing how individuals - through aspiration building - can earn money through entrepreneurship and self-employment.

KIZ also provides microcredit help to existing entrepreneurs or start-ups to finance their business when banks have rejected their loan application. KIZ looks to help groups that are often neglected by mainstream banks, such as migrant women. KIZ worked in partnership with the German Microfinance Institute and the city of Offenbach to develop Indigo-Kredit - a project to help foreign-born women in Germany start their own business. The project provided its participants with management training, business planning, funding through micro-lending, and technical support. As part of the training process, participants were required to complete an online course for which they would collect points that would reflect their accumulated knowledge and progress. Depending on the number of points a participant collected, she would then be granted a credit of up to €5,000 over two years.

Levi Strauss Foundation also supported KIZ’s “entrepreneurial license” project which was aimed at young people leaving school without qualifications. Through coaching sessions, participants underwent training to assess their entrepreneurial skills to help avoid future unemployment or get caught in the trap of low-skilled, low-wage positions.