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How to Avoid Three Common Pitfalls of Social Enterprise
he social enterprise revolution of the last decade has been a success. Businesses have adopted the skills of entrepreneurship and found innovative, efficient, and effective solutions to social problems.
But many businesses face challenges trying to balance for-profit endeavors with social objectives, and end up trapped by these familiar pitfalls.- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Raining Miracles: Bangladesh’s remarkable health progress
Health care has improved dramatically in Bangladesh in only a generation. The reasons are varied, but one key has been the large-scale distribution of community health workers.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
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Charting the Growth of Mobile Finance: GSMA report highlights key findings, best practices in a vibrant sector
Mobile finance represents a tremendous opportunity for social impact, and an important commercial opportunity. GSMA has been collecting and analyzing mobile money data since 2010, and today it released its annual State of the Industry report, with key findings and insights on the growth of this vital sector.
- Categories
- Education
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NexThought Monday – 2/24/14: How to grow a conference by 2500% and build a community
Why would social change organizations devote a huge amount of their valuable (and very scarce) staff, time, and resources to convenings that will only last a matter of days? What impact does a single event actually create, and how do you know you’ve created it? As a conference director at Ashoka U (the university division of the global social entrepreneurship organization Ashoka), seeing this upsurge in events has caused me to pause and reflect: What makes a great event?
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- Uncategorized
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Weekly Roundup – 2/22/14: At FLII building a collaborative flock to complex solve problems
Ramon Marmolejos ended an uplifting presentation on Day One of the Latin American Impact Investment Conference (which goes by the Spanish acronym FLII) with a big picture of what looked like a million starlings.
“There is not one bird leading the flock,” said Marmolejos, executive director of Emzingo Group, which provides a leadership training program combined with social impact consultancy projects in emerging markets. “How do we create those (economic) systems to have these sorts of flocks?”- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Tags
- impact investing
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African Angel Investors: Creating an ecosystem
Angel investor circles are notably absent in most African capitals. And there are not many formal structures where one can gain this kind of support - especially for social and BoP-focused business ideas. Tara Sabre Collier discusses the challenges and opportunities in developing Africa’s angel investing ecosystem.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
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The Eyes Have It: January’s Most Viewed Posts on NB
We’re happy to renew our NextBillion awards for the most popular and most shared posts of the month - and January’s top three brought a heady brew of sharp criticism, deep analysis on design and health care models worth a second look.
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- Uncategorized
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Considering Social Impact in Big Business: Can pioneer companies spark a race to the top?
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is defined in many ways, covering everything from employee volunteerism to recycling campaigns. But how do companies actually reach a point of systemic corporate responsibility? Aarthi Rao explores this question in the context of the outdoors industry, focusing on Patagonia and the Deckers Outdoor Corporation.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
