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NexThought Monday: A strategic approach to scaling impact
By 2017, agriculture-focused TechnoServe aims to double its 2012 impact to directly benefit at least one million families a year and create cumulative financial benefits of more than $500 million for program participants. TechnoServe’s Simon Winter explains how, and provides insights on what other market-focused NGOs can do to increase their impact.
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- Agriculture
- Tags
- scale
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Weekly Roundup – 4/25/14: Ringing the Bell on Social Enterprise, Remembering Rana Plaza
Each week the New York Stock Exchange invites a different group to ring the opening and closing bells to start and stop the day’s trading. On Monday, a new group did the honors: representatives from the U.S. National Advisory Board (NAB) to the Social Impact Investment Task Force. While the bell ringing is purely symbolic, the symbol is important nonetheless: Impact investing has moved from the fringe to the mainstream – or at least mainstream recognition.
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- Uncategorized
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Putting Microbusiness on the Map: U.S. students survey local businesses to compete for social enterprise seed funding
In the U.S., 3.7 million people remain long-term unemployed. Without job opportunities, many Americans are becoming entrepreneurial out of necessity - but they often lack capital. That’s why Lend for America is working with local students in the Philadelphia area to provide microfinance for social entrepreneurship.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Why Chevron is in the Business of Stopping HIV: Each year mother-to-child transmission of HIV affects 70,000 babies in Nigeria
Chevron has partnered with Pact, an international NGO, to help prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Nigeria. Deji Haastrup, a Chevron GM, explains: "While fighting AIDS is not our core business, it is core to the success of our business."
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- Health Care
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Roadmap to Defeating Childhood Diseases: The infrastructure that helped India whip polio could be used to immunize against other preventable killers
The elimination of polio in India is "one of the greatest public health achievements in modern history," says Dr. Geeta Sodhi, and it’s now time to build on that legacy and focus on other preventable childhood diseases.
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- Health Care
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Impact Investing at a Crossroads: Sustainatopia Impact Conference highlights excitement and concerns about the future of the sector
Despite the excitement surrounding impact investing, it’s clear that the sector is nowhere near big enough to make a dent in the problems the world is facing. As the industry strives to get to the next level, participants in Sustainatopia’s 2014 Impact Conference shared their hopes and insights (and aired a few frustrations).
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- Environment, Impact Assessment, Investing
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New Ventures Ditch the Product Invention Lab, Target Distribution Instead: The 12 D-Prize Competition winners are all about sharing proven tech, innovations – not inventing them
Some 500 teams of aspiring entrepreneurs pitched their idea for a new poverty-fighting venture as part of the D-Prize competition. This is no doubt impressive. But what is truly remarkable is that not one single team sought to invent a new technology or poverty intervention. Instead of spending resources inventing a new product, these ventures will distribute solutions that already exist.
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- Uncategorized
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Comply or Explain: Corporate India takes on a new model of CSR
Corporations and NGOs are still working to interpret and implement India’s Companies Act, which requires corporations to spend 2 percent of their average net profits on corporate social responsibility. The law affects about 8,000 companies that will spend a combined total of about $3.2 billion. The Companies Act was the centerpiece of the 2nd Global Conference on CSR in India last week.
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- Uncategorized
