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NexThought Monday: Enough With Impact; Focus on Entrepreneurs
Rather than celebrating better metrics, definitions, research and structures, we as a sector need to focus on the entrepreneurs behind each enterprise, and the motivations behind each entrepreneur.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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The State of Assessment: Why the ‘assess or not’ debate continues and how we can move beyond it (Part 1 of 2)
Recent debate has focused on whether businesses should assess social, economic and/or environmental impact. How did we get stuck here? In this two-part series, Heather Esper and Yaquta Kanchwala Fatehi of the William Davidson Institute explore the evolution of assessment and how to move beyond the paralysis.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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It Takes a Village to Build a Business – Lessons Learned From a Fintech Accelerator in Mexico
Accion Venture Lab recently teamed with Village Capital and the MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth to launch its first-ever business accelerator. Its goal was clear: to find and assemble the 12 best early-stage fintech companies in Mexico, and help them take the leap from betas to scalable businesses. Jackie Hyland discusses lessons learned from the experience in this post.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Six Questions for Microfinance’s Biggest ‘Haters’
Since January, when six randomized control trials were published stating that microcredit is not a viable poverty alleviation tool, microfinance has been taking a lot of heat in the media. But though she says the backlash is partially the sector’s own fault, BRAC’s Maria May offers six questions she wishes its loudest critics would consider.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Too Good to be True?: Is the Global Findex survey overstating growth in financial inclusion?
Since it was published a few weeks ago, the World Bank’s 2014 Global Findex report has made a splash in media around the world. It found that financial inclusion grew from 51 to 62 percent between 2011 and 2014, a shift that represents a total of 700 million people worldwide. But according to Daniel Rozas and David Roodman, there are reasons to be skeptical about this apparently massive growth.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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10 Takeaways from the World Bank Forum on Microcredit’s (lack of) Social Impact
"For a researcher working on microcredit, this is kind of a defining moment." That’s how Abhijit Banerjee described the six recent studies on microcredit’s social impact (or lack thereof). NextBillion has compiled 10 takeaways (and 11 tweets) from the research and the sector’s reaction to it, based on the World Bank event.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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Calling All Failures: Failing is a Big Part of Social Entrepreneurship. F*ckUp Nights Wants You to Talk About It
Though most new companies shut down, entrepreneurs rarely talk about their failures. This is counterproductive, especially in challenging sectors like social enterprise. That’s why F*ckUp Nights is building a movement to discuss and research business failure. This exclusive series with NextBillion will feature some of their top failure stories from would-be social entrepreneurs. And if your social business has failed, you’re welcome to add your story.
- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise
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Financial Inclusion Trends and Innovators Already Lighting Up 2015
What will 2015 hold for financial inclusion innovations? Accion Venture Lab highlights some current groundbreaking trends, and several seed stage companies leading the charge.
- Categories
- Technology
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