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Being the Change…. and Making a Profit: Agora Partnerships is recruiting its largest class yet
Agora has worked with 18 companies over the past two years, some of which operate in the most destitute regions of the Western Hemisphere. Over 70 percent of Agora’s Accelerator class of 2011 received millions in investment, propelling impact companies to an average 80-percent growth rate. With this year’s recruitment effort, however, Agora is getting even more ambitious: expanding from its base in Central America, the organization is seeking out a total of 30 new companies from across all of Latin America.
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- Uncategorized
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- incubators, partnerships
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NexThought Monday: (With Video) Moving Out of Orbit : Investment in emerging market small businesses is growing, like private space travel, it’s still early days
This is my third trip to the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs’ conference. The shift that I’ve noticed is the steady move from interest to excitement to action, at least on the part of big investors to finance small and growing business. I had a chance to talk with ANDE Executive Director Randall Kempner.
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- Investing
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The $450 Billion Opportunity: Catalyzing Smallholder Agricultural Finance
As population growth and rising incomes create unprecedented demand for food, multinational companies increasingly rely on smallholders to secure their supply of agricultural commodities. As a result, smallholders present a compelling opportunity for buyers, lenders, and other actors in the agricultural value chain. However, smallholder production is often characterized by low yields, low quality, poor linkages, and little access to finance. A Dalberg report released Wednesday called “Catalyzing Smallholder Agricultural Finance” suggests that with increased financing, farmers can improve their yields and products and in some cases double their income.
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- Agriculture
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Why is it So Difficult to Align Strategy for Social Impact?: Columbia Business School’s 2012 Social Enterprise Conference is Tackling the Question
Columbia Business School’s 2012 Social Enterprise Conference is asking how we can re-frame a rather narrow definition of strategy, and build collaboration within and across sectors to tackle major social and environmental issues.
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- Health Care, Impact Assessment
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After the MFI Collapse, Uniting Financial Inclusion Data in India
To build off previous efforts to unite financial inclusion datasets, MIX, with funding from Citi Foundation, is building an interactive mapping platform to house and present a range of financial inclusion data on India, down to the district level.
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- Impact Assessment
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- microfinance
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Another Online Hub? Here’s Why We Tried Something Different : The Business Innovation Facility and IAP database is a one-stop-shop for social entrepreneurs
A new Database of Financial and Technical Support for Inclusive Business aims to reduce the time and challenge involved. Produced by the Business Innovation Facility (BIF) and Innovations Against Poverty (IAP), it’s a step towards a ‘one-stop shop’ for IB entrepreneurs.
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- Education, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Uniting David and Goliath : Why Multinational Companies Like Starbucks Need SMEs to Build Green Supply Chains
Globally, demand for sustainably-sourced products continues to grow at a staggering pace. Last year alone, consumers spent $6.6 billion on fair trade products. Companies from Mars to Wal-Mart to Unilever are responding to this demand by making pledges to source all, or some portions of, their inputs from more sustainable sources.
In order to meet these pledges, companies are changing the very way they do business.- Categories
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Keep the Change: Lost Profits Offer Yet Another Reason Why Mobile Money is Better than Cash: A recent study shows African SMEs lose up to 8% in profits just fetching change
Jon Robinson, who is running the Gates Foundation’s four savings impact random control trials, and co-authors did a study of 500 or so small and medium sized enterprises in western Kenya. They found that these small informal firms spend an average of two hours per week looking for change to complete transactions. This contributes not only to lost productivity, it means losing 5-8 percent of profits.
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