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Is Your Impact a 1, a 5, or a 10?: Rating human needs and aspirations
The problem at the base of the pyramid is most often not the absence of needed goods and services, but rather difficulties in accessing them. Social enterprises are an exciting prospect because they have the potential to address this challenge. At their core, successful businesses are profitable, sustainable, and scalable. When they are successful, social enterprises can be a source of hope for serving the billions living in poverty today. But how do we measure the products of their work?
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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What Is eBay’s Omidyar Doing on Delhi’s MedTech Row?
Pierre Omidyar is best known as the founder of the online auction company e-Bay, which he grew from an “odd little Web site” to one of Web commerce’s biggest and longest-lasting success stories.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
- Region
- South Asia
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Fantino’s private-sector foreign aid: It can work, if he gets the details right
The world’s poorest, sacrificed to the whims of the almighty market. Charities and non-governmental organizations carrying the water for profitable mining companies. Profits before people. These are just some of the critiques levelled against the federal government’s foreign-aid pivot, recently formalized in an address by new International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Confidence in social impact claims ‘shockingly low’
Demonstrable social impact is often overlooked by social investors, says leading social enterprise academic
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Tags
- impact investing
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Jewelry Designed to Disarm
NEW YORK — As icons go, few things communicate global menace more effectively than the stark silhouette of an AK-47. Designed more than six decades ago by Mikhail Kalashnikov, a former Soviet tank commander, the assault rifle boasts the dubious distinction of being the most abundant and reliable killing device in history.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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There’s More to Measurement Than … Measuring : An Overview of the 2012 Social Finance Forum
As Arlene Dickinson of Venture Communications put it, when she considers impact in an investment she asks: “Is the entrepreneur really baking in, right from the very beginning, this triple bottom line mentality? Or are they bolting it on afterwards to appear like they are making a difference? ... If it’s bolted on, I’m not interested.” She was one of many experts taking part in the 2012 Social Finance Forum.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Tags
- impact investing
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The Poor Measurement of Poverty: The Chilean Case
When the Chilean government announced a decrease in poverty and extreme poverty rates earlier this year – from 15.1 percent to 14.4 percent and from 3.7 percent to 2.8 percent, respectively the response was incredulity. Chile is seen not only as a successful country for poverty reduction, but also as serious and honest in statistics, and the measurements were, until this episode, thought to be reliable. Nevertheless, the discussion lifted the veil on what was being measured.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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The Promise of Measuring Shared Value: A New FSG Report reveals how companies can use measurement to unlock value
In a new report, “Measuring Shared Value,” co-authored by Michael E. Porter and FSG, we illuminate how companies can use measurement to unlock additional value for their business and society. An outgrowth “Creating Shared Value” by Porter and Mark Kramer in Harvard Business Review, this report tackles the key shared value challenge we hear from companies all over the world – how to measure and improve shared value approaches.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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