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The Rise of the Cheap Smartphone : And what it could mean for BoP finance, connectivity
According an estimate from Gartner, by 2018 nine out of ten phones will be smartphones. If this comes to pass, it may require a substantial rethink about the delivery of mobile financial services to consumers in developing markets, where up until now the feature phone has dominated.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
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When Awards and Idealism Aren’t Enough: My social enterprise earned a ton of public acclaim – but it was missing something even more important
In her early 20s, Leticia Gasca launched a social enterprise to help some of Mexico’s poorest people. Powered by idealism and some promising early results, the company garnered both national and international acclaim. But behind the scenes, it was struggling with the harsh realities of doing business. Gasca shares the story in this frank post, the first in our series with F*ckUp Nights on failure in social enterprise.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Finding Realistic Impact Measures for Investors, Entrepreneurs: Presenting Unitus Seed Fund’s new guide for measuring impact
Unitus Seed Fund’s guide includes a common set of metrics that can be applied to any other venture fund. These metrics are detailed with definitions and needs that apply across sectors, with output and outcome level metrics available for different types of businesses to download and use.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Corporations are the Missing Link: Private sector is uniquely positioned to improve newborn survival in India
India accounts for 27 percent of global newborn deaths, the highest in the world. Dasra, a Mumbai-based strategic philanthropy foundation, has been conducting research which highlights a critical “missing link” that can help India address newborn survival at scale: corporates.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
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NexThought Monday – When it Comes to Social Enterprise, It’s Time to Take Ourselves Seriously
It is entirely possible that all of the ideas that we need to end global poverty are in place; however, we have so enthusiastically embraced the financial market metaphor that even the initiatives that must cooperate to succeed can’t do so fully because they are required to compete. There is an old and tired story to be inserted here about the balkanizing influence of competing for funding but instead of focusing on that, I would like to suggest a solution.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Tags
- impact investing
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Enter Unreasonable Labs: Trial and error on a global scale
Teju Ravilochan, CEO of the Unreasonable Institute says the social enterprise organization needs "co-conspirators" to help them forge a new system of trial and error. They’re looking for 10 teams from 10 locations around the world to run 10 Unreasonable Labs, five-day versions of Unreasonable Institute with 10 ventures each.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Announcing NextBillion’s Latest E-book (and the first from NextBillion Financial Innovation): A compilation of posts and videos from our Impact Investing Insights series
In the spring of 2014, NextBillion Financial Innovation videotaped interviews with 11 top investors, academics and advocates working in impact investing. We published the Q&As in a series called Impact Investing Insights. We have compiled the posts and videos into this e-book, which covers a broad cross-section of the topics and trends that drive the sector today.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Should Corporations Promote Development?: When sugary snacks and alcohol are involved, debates of health vs. paternalism abound
A business strategy that is solely focused on profits is not always unethical or bad. But there are many examples of companies entering BoP markets that leave communities worse off or, at best, do not benefit consumers.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- corporations, nutrition
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