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Yunus Was Right — Credit is Indeed a Human Right, and Savings is Important Too: Why the Microfinance Sector Must Avoid the ‘Circular Firing Squad’ and Promote Multiple Approaches to Financial Inclusion
Alex Counts, financial inclusion pioneer and founder of Grameen Foundation, took issue with Jeffrey Ashe’s recent NextBillion article, “Yunus Was Wrong—Savings, Not Credit, is a Human Right.” He argues that, instead of seeing the world through an “either/or” lens, the financial inclusion sector should embrace multiple tools, including credit, savings, insurance and more — and he urges today's changemakers to avoid promoting one social innovation at the expense of others.
- Categories
- Finance, Social Enterprise
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Closing the ‘Subjective Impact Gap’: How Social Enterprises Can Motivate and Retain Talent by Overcoming Doubts About Their Impact
Social enterprises often struggle to recruit a skilled workforce, leading many to attract workers by promising a rewarding job that makes a difference. But as Andreana Drencheva at King’s College London explains, workers don't always experience this sense of positive impact — something she terms the "subjective impact gap." She explores how this issue can affect staff morale, recruitment and retention, and shares five ways social enterprises can address it.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Accelerating Social Unicorns: How an Impact Accelerator is Supporting the Innovators Who are Tackling the World’s Biggest Problems
The holy grail in venture capital is to invest in a “unicorn” — a startup that achieves a valuation of over $1 billion. But as Leslie Labruto at 100x Impact Accelerator explains, this approach overlooks the businesses and organizations that are tackling pressing societal issues at scale. She argues that it’s time to shift the focus to "social unicorns" that aim to make a massive positive social impact, and explores three keys to these enterprises' success.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Scale vs. Systems Change: Three Ways Impact-Led Organisations Can Achieve Both
The social impact sector is increasingly recognizing that scaling a solution does not always result in lasting change. According to Emma Colenbrander at Spring Impact, Nell Lemaistre at 100x Impact Accelerator, and Kasthuri Soni and Sharmi Surianarain at Harambee, this realization may seem to force businesses and organizations to choose between scaling their own work and attempting to change the broader system. But they explore how these two goals can actually be pursued simultaneously — if organizations leverage the right kind of funding, mindsets and support.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Accelerating Systems Change: An Innovative Accelerator Shows How Funders Can Amplify Social Enterprises’ Impact by Transforming Their Funding Model
There’s a growing belief that lasting solutions to today's complex challenges will require fundamental changes to the systems that underlie these issues. According to Celia Sanchez-Valladares Barahona, Stella Printezi and Lucía Tornero at Ashoka, social entrepreneurs are well-placed to accelerate systems change, but the funding models they rely on may end up prolonging the issues they're trying to solve. They explain how funders can transform these increasingly outdated models to better support long-term, systemic change, as illustrated by an accelerator co-created by Ashoka and IKEA Social Entrepreneurship.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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A DIY Approach to M&E: Four Tips to Overcome the Complexities of Monitoring and Evaluation
Most social enterprises and non-profits recognize that high-quality data and evidence can help them improve performance, attract more funding, and understand — and eventually increase — their impact. Yet as Mia Jeong and Linh Vo at IDinsight point out, these organizations often face financial constraints in creating and sustaining effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems. They share some simple but effective ways to create these systems on a limited budget, by taking a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach to monitoring and evaluation.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- data, impact measurement, nonprofits
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Outgrowing the Flower Pot: Why Just Selling Productive Equipment to Smallholder Farmers is Not Enough
A new wave of companies are bringing equipment powered by renewable, decentralized energy to smallholders, and these devices can significantly boost farmers' yields and product quality. But as Daniel Waldron, Christopher Emmott, Priyanka Dudeja, Paraag Sabhlok and Chris Wayne at Acumen explain, just like a tree growing in a flower pot, this new growth can become a burden if it has nowhere to go. They argue that productive equipment must be combined with market access interventions to truly benefit smallholders, and highlight two innovative companies that are demonstrating the impact of this approach.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Taking Inspiration from Innovation: Key Insights from Eight Entrepreneurs Making an Impact in Emerging Markets
Whether they're working to increase smallholder farmers’ profits, promote water or sanitation solutions, or address other key needs in emerging markets, social entrepreneurs tend to face common challenges. That's why they must learn from each other if they hope to flourish. Brigit Helms at Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship shares insights from eight entrepreneurs in Miller Center’s Clean Water and Climate-Smart Agriculture program, who discuss their innovations, the challenges they’ve overcome and the lessons they’ve learned.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise, WASH
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