Latest
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From Impact Investing to ‘Impact-First’ Investing: Seven Ways Investors Can Take a Holistic Lifecycle Approach to Impact
Impact investing is playing a growing role in addressing many complex societal problems. But as Varad Pande and Twinkle Malhan at Omidyar Network India point out, one of the critiques of the sector is that its approach to impact is not holistic – i.e., many investors' focus on impact stops after a fund's strategy has been set and its deals have been vetted. To address this issue, they propose a more holistic approach to creating impact across the lifecycle of each investment – from sourcing higher-impact deals, to supporting investees' efforts to sustain and increase their impact.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Creating New Pathways in Retail to Support Persons with Disabilities in India
In many countries, the retail, hospitality and services sector is a great source of employment for people with disabilities. Yet in India, which has one of the largest retail sectors globally, current working conditions within this industry are often unwelcoming for disabled people. B.S. Nagesh at Trust for Retailers and Retail Associates of India (TRRAIN), Celia Sanchez-Valladares Barahona at Ashoka Nordics, and Kristina Humphreys explore how TRRAIN is working to create employment opportunities for people with disabilities in India’s retail sector at an industry-wide scale.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship
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Why Social Enterprises Struggle to Measure Impact – And What Impact Investors Can Do About It
Impact investors typically rely on output measurements, such as total capital invested or number of people served, to assess their impact. But it's harder for investors and their investees to sustainably capture outcome data that assesses actual improvements in customers' lives. Spencer MacColl at Kiva shares data from Kiva's annual impact measurement survey, which reflects the current measurement practices and challenges of the microfinance institutions and other social enterprises Kiva supports. He explores the lessons these findings offer to impact investors and others who are working to design more effective measurement practices.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment, Investing
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Accomplishing the Impossible: Lessons on Scaling From BRAC Founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed
Countless books and articles have addressed the challenges of going to scale in the development sector — yet a systematic approach to scaling remains out of reach. However, as Scott MacMillan at BRAC USA explains, BRAC founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed was arguably more successful than anyone at scaling effective poverty programs. He shares insights from his new book on Abed's life and work, which sheds light on how BRAC has created and scaled programs to an extent that no other nonprofit or social enterprise has managed to achieve.
- Categories
- Education, Finance, Health Care
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To Tax or Not to Tax Mobile Money: The Impact on Digital Financial Services in Africa and Beyond
Mobile money is widely seen as a promising engine for global development. But governments in Africa are also increasingly viewing it as a lucrative source of tax revenue. With critics raising concerns about the impact of taxing mobile money and other digital financial services, Adrienne Lees and Phil Mader at the Institute of Development Studies explore whether existing research can inform any confident predictions about the effects of these taxes on providers, customers and the broader financial inclusion sector.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Finance
