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Why You Can’t Talk About Impact Investment Without Corporate Governance
Mention the term “impact investing” at a social enterprise gathering and eyes widen and enthusiastic words flow. Mention “corporate governance” and it’s likely that those same eyes will glaze over and someone will share a frustrating experience from a board meeting. The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, the Technical University of Munich and the European Business School created The Governance of Social Enterprises: Managing Your Organization for Success, a guidebook for leaders of social enterprises on how to set up a robust corporate governance board.
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- Uncategorized
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TechnoServe: Introducing Our Updated Vision and Mission
Today, we launch our 2011 Annual Report, where we share the first elements of our refreshed brand –the new vision and mission statements. Although the language is updated, the vision and mission reflect the spirit of TechnoServe throughout our 44 years.
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- Agriculture
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Weekly Roundup: Extending Customer Credit – the Way to Scale?
This week we received the exciting news that VisonSpring has sold more than one million pairs affordable eyeglasses customers living at the Base of the Pyramid. But for every VisionSpring, surely there are countless other social startups that have failed to reach scale, and not necessarily because they are marketing an inferior product. It might be because their customers cannot reasonably afford to make a purchase, even one as “small” as $10. This is the need identified by Invested Development, which announced the creation of the Impact Factoring Fund, (IFF) that looks to provide short-term liquidity and working capital to early stage, high-growth companies in emerging markets.
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- Energy
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The Impact of Impact Investment – A Chat With Root Capital
During the SOCAP Design the Future in Malmö, Catherine Gill, vice president of investor relations, and Saurin Nanavati, director of Financial Advisory Services, sat down to talk about their business model impacts clients and their communities, but also its influence other impact investors.
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- Agriculture
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Mindful Metrics: Gaining Momentum With Social Enterprise Funders, Public and/or Private
Regardless of constituency – from donors to social enterprises to government development agencies – the momentum behind the metrics field is accelerating. Private funders are increasingly requiring investment enterprises to collect metrics – some are even specifying how the metrics are collected. Investors and donors are also soliciting new research on impact to inform what is and isn’t working in development. This research continues to push the envelope with new methods to collect metrics.
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- Impact Assessment, Investing
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- impact investing
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A Formula for Social Innovation?: Reflections from the UN Social Innovation Summit, 2012.
At last week’s United Nations Social Innovation Summit in New York, all manner of change agents - from social entrepreneurs, to philanthropists, industry titans, impact investors and celebrities stretched the confines of a term that, admittedly, gets thrown around haphazardly and can mean different things to different people. What exactly is “social innovation?”
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- Impact Assessment, Technology
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Introducing the 2013 NextBillion Case Writing Competition Judges
Winning cases for the NextBillion Case Writing Competition will be published and likely adopted by numerous university professors instructing the next generation of business leaders. So we’re happy to have a team of judges with seriously strong CVs and a depth of experience in the worlds of academia, consulting, development, and business.
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- Education, Social Enterprise
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Key Findings from the Base of Pyramid Week
Last week, top executives of multinational and regional companies, leading impact investors, members of government, and international organization representatives came from around the US and the globe to learn from the IDB and each other about how business models for the base of the pyramid can launch and scale quickly and profitably. The event was organized by Opportunities for the Majority (OMJ), the IDB department in charge of spotting, nurturing and funding business models to engage base of the pyramid markets on a large scale in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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