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NexThought Monday: Impact Investing ‘Skeptics Have Been Defeated’ – Our Q&A With LeapFrog CEO
LeapFrog Investments' portfolio of companies make insurance and financial services their business, and their clientele are those who earn $10 or less a day. With a recent investment from development organization OPIC, LeapFrog has raised more than $1 billion. In an interview with NextBillion, CEO Andrew Kuper details LeapFrog's trajectory, the shakiness of emerging markets, and the challenges of reaching consumers for whom insurance can provide both a safety net and an economic springboard.
- Categories
- Health Care, Impact Assessment, Investing
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Weekly Roundup: Grading Super Bowl Ads, Teaching Social Entrepreneurship, Fact-Checking Global Health
Three commercials at this Sunday's Super Bowl 50 come from financial services providers focused on customers who can’t afford a ticket to the game. We grade the three ads in terms of how effectively they present the inclusive elements of these companies' brands, discuss a new school for social entrepreneurs, and explore a new fact-checking initiative for global health in this roundup.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
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Investing in Detroit’s Comeback: Optimism & Challenges on the Road to Inclusive Growth
Detroit’s comeback story is replacing the apocalyptic headlines of recent memory. Thanks to new investment, thousands of new streetlights are on and blight is being tackled at a faster pace than ever before. But fundamental questions remain: Will redevelopment in Detroit lead to equitable growth? Will the city's lower-income and working-class residents who have lived there for decades continue to be a significant part of Detroit’s rich culture, history and vibrancy? These are questions that are being asked in urban areas across the country, says Bradford Frost, director of the Detroit Initiative.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- impact investing
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Your Cheap Solar Lamp is Garbage
It’s easy to think of “the poor” in two-dimensional, homogenous terms and rattle off assumptions like "They’re poor people, aren’t they happy with anything?" or "Isn’t something better than nothing?" Incorrect. As the charity research organization SolarAid once put it, “The quickest way to fix a problem is the best,” and in most cases, that means quality.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Tags
- Base of the Pyramid, solar
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How to Make New TB Technology More Accessible to the Private Health Sector
Dr. Madhukar Pai, citing research about tuberculosis testing that he recently helped publish in The Lancet Global Health, lays out some of the strategies that might lead to more consistent access and pricing among private TB health care providers worldwide.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Building Efficient Social Sector Initiatives Through New Generation Impact Measurement
The social sector is going through a massive change never seen before. Thanks to the advocacy of innovative foundations, impact investments are now becoming mainstream, along with collective impact programs and other initiatives like social impact bonds and Pay for Success programs. As these trends spread, we are witnessing the rise of thousands of collective impact ecosystems accompanied by improved impact investment models. These ecosystems incorporate different catalysts to impact measurement, when what we really need is a unified strategy of metrics.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Technology
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Weekly Roundup: Zika’s Super Challenge, LeapFrog’s Play, American Express’ Retreat
Our editors discuss three recent developments in the global development/social business space, including a disheartening new global health crisis, some major impact investing news, and a setback in the mainstreaming of the financial inclusion agenda.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing
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A Solution to Urban Blight? Crowdfunding’s Potential to Transform Cities
Lending through peer-to-peer platforms, or "real estate marketplace lending," involves connecting borrowers seeking alternative sources of financing for their real estate investment needs with investors seeking passive income opportunities. As more Americans embrace crowdfunding sort of solutions, we believe cities that were once forsaken can be revitalized and brought back to life.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
