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What Makes Toniic Tick? Part One of an Interview With Stephanie Cohn Rupp, CEO of the Impact Investor Network
Investing for social impact can be a risky business, and it helps if impact investors can leverage the knowledge of like-minded peers. Toniic, a global network of impact investors, aims to facilitate those interactions, bringing social entrepreneurs and investors together for the benefit of both. NextBillion Financial Innovation recently spoke with Toniic CEO Stephanie Cohn Rupp to discuss its approach, and the evolution of the sector.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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From Financial Education to Capability – A Paradigm Shift: Financial education on its own is not enough to improve consumers’ financial health
Classroom-based educational programs for improving financial health have mixed results. Improved methods that support behavior change as well as knowledge gains are needed. Sarah Gordon, Vice President, Innovation Labs at CFSI spoke with the Citi Foundation’s COO, Brandee McHale, about the importance of these new approaches, and the organizations that are pioneering them.
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- Education, Impact Assessment
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Impact Investing in the Base: A chat with Vox Capital’s Daniel Izzo
Daniel Izzo is the pioneering co-founder of Brazil’s first impact investing fund, Vox Capital, which focuses exclusively on BoP-serving businesses. Vox has invested in 12 companies, six with equity stakes and six with convertible debt investments, in Brazil. Tara Sabre Collier talks with him about the ins and outs of reaching the BoP demographic.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Mobile Money Movers – Part 4: An interview with Greg Chen, Senior Financial Sector Specialist at CGAP
In Part 4 of our Mobile Money Movers series, Mercy Corps’ Kyla Yeoman and Greg Chen, Senior Financial Sector Specialist at CGAP, discuss the benefits of moving toward a cashless society, and the ways that financial service providers are using technology and innovation to onboard (and maintain) new clients and increase uptake among the unbanked.
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- Finance
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The Power of Interoperability: An interview with Zahir Khoja, CEO of MasterCard’s Mobile Payment Solutions
Lack of interoperability is widely seen as a key barrier to mobile money’s global uptake. But MasterCard’s Mobile Payment Solutions thinks it has found an answer. In this interview with Mercy Corps’ Kyla Yeoman (part 3 of our Mobile Money Movers series), CEO Zahir Khoja discusses the challenges of working with telcos, banks and merchants, and the ways that an interoperable payment tool can impact people’s daily lives at the BoP.
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- Finance
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(With Video) One Acre Fund’s Drive Toward Sustainable Farming and Sustainable Finance: An interview with Stephanie Hanson
Today is Thanksgiving here in the United States, so we’re taking time to think about the farmers that bring forth our bounty, not just in the U.S., but around the world. NextBillion managing editor Scott Anderson spoke with Stephanie Hanson, Director of Policy and Outreach at One Acre Fund, a nonprofit based in East Africa that provides loans, training and other agricultural services to farmers in four countries.
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- Agriculture
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The Power of Choices: Applying behavioral economics to financial services – part 1 of our interview with Alexandra Fiorillo, VP at ideas42
If you’re working to alleviate poverty, steering people toward wise financial choices can make a huge difference. That’s why we’re excited to introduce ideas42, a consulting organization that specializes in behavioral economics, as a content partner on NextBillion Financial Innovation. We spoke with their VP Alexandra Fiorillo about how behavioral economics can be used to promote financial inclusion and improve lives at the BoP.
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- Finance
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Beyond Competition: An interview with Grameen Foundation’s Steve Wright
From a traditional business perspective, social enterprise seems to be built upon a contradiction. How can you run a company whose ultimate goal is to foster and empower competitors rather than defeat them? That’s one of the topics discussed by Steve Wright, vice president of Grameen Foundation’s Poverty Tools & Insights division, in this BoP Summit 2013 interview.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise