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See Who Won NB’s Top Post of 2018 Contest
Thank you to everyone who voted in NextBillion's seventh annual Top Post of the Year contest. Here are the winners and their vote percentage totals as well as the complete results for this year's competition. Congratulations to the top three winning contributors for their articles, which both challenged and enlightened us. And Happy New Year to all of our readers.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education, Energy, Environment, Finance, Health Care, Investing, Technology, WASH
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As Impact Investors We Often Miss One Thing: Who Has the Power?
Impact investors are rightly focused on the social impact of the businesses they invest in. But they often overlook a fundamental question: How does the enterprise localize power? Galen Welsch, co-founder of Jibu, explores why the need to empower local markets should be at the core of social business and investing decisions.
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Hidden Opportunity: How Investors Can Unlock the Potential of Refugee Entrepreneurs
Globally, almost 70 million people were displaced as of 2017. But though this refugee crisis is serious and growing, a more hopeful narrative is being overlooked, say John Kluge and Tim Docking at the Refugee Investment Network. Refugees are natural entrepreneurs whose businesses can make a major impact on themselves, their families and their communities – an impact that would grow with more investor support. Kluge and Docking discuss a recent RIN report that explores the emerging “refugee investing” movement, and why it represents an exciting field in impact investing.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Gender Discrimination Drives Income Inequality: How Impact Investors Can Respond
Investors have increasingly begun to realize that income inequality is one of the most urgent socioeconomic challenges of our time. But while the problem has many causes, few stand out as significantly as gender discrimination. In light of a new report on how investors can respond to income inequality, William Burckart, Michael Musuraca and Steve Lydenberg explore the high cost of gender discrimination – and share some of the ways investors are addressing the issue.
- Categories
- Investing
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Data That Does the Work: What Acumen Has Learned About Enterprise Feedback Loops
When it comes to the litany of obstacles keeping enterprises from growing, capital – or lack of it – tends to get the most attention. But access to data from customers, operations and staff may be a close second. The key to addressing data deserts is helping companies build a data-informed culture from the start, writes Chris Bullard, who leads post-investment and value creation strategy for Acumen. Bullard draws lessons from the impact investor’s Lean Data initiative.
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- Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Electrifying Transportation: Can This Innovative Financing Model Make Electric Buses a Global Reality?
Electrifying transportation at scale is critical to fighting climate change and urban pollution. And with their affordable battery costs and lower fuel and maintenance expenses, transit buses present an excellent business case for electrification. So what is preventing the rapid deployment of electric buses worldwide? Clean Energy Works founder Holmes Hummel discusses the main barrier to adoption – and an innovative financing solution that could turn things around.
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- Energy, Environment, Investing, Transportation
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Finding the Right Financial Partner: Lessons Learned from One Startup’s Success in the Funding World
Kinnos was founded during the Ebola outbreak of 2014, marketing an innovative chemical product that allows even untrained workers to apply disinfectant correctly. Its founders (then students at Columbia University) quickly received more than $750,000 in grants and prizes. But as their company grew, they had to learn to navigate the risky landscape of startup investment. According to Christina Tamer at VentureWell, the Kinnos team's success in this area—they have raised $1 million in venture funding from angel investors—offers a number of key lessons for other entrepreneurs.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing, startups
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The Least Sexy Approach to Development: Why We Need to Focus on Systems Change
Even within the systems-change sector, people joke that it is one of the least “sexy” facets of development work. Focused on addressing the faults in social, economic and political systems that lead to problems like poverty, the approach can be overwhelmingly complex, which has limited its widespread implementation. But as Lexi Doolittle at S3IDF explains, a market-based approach that nudges these systems towards greater inclusivity and productivity is a vital tool to catalyze social change – one that we cannot afford to overlook.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise, Uncategorized
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