-
All that Glitters is Good?
In the old and dusty-yet-safe world of development aid, things were easy: Profit was at best a necessary evil of the private sector, at worst a sign that the poor were exploited as cheap labour or consumers. In the new world of impact investing and "BoP strategies", things become more entangled.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
-
SOCAP11: Gleaning Insights in Design Thinking
Design used to be about making artifacts, but now the experience is the commodity. At SOCAP11, the Design for Social Innovation track exposed us to some powerful design thinking techniques from Hot Studio and :: CRONAN ::, two firms with household name corporate and socially known clients. In design, the age of the lone rock star is long gone.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
- Tags
- product design
-
SOCAP11: Village Capital and the Value of peer-based Evaluation
What if microfinance and angel investing had a baby? Essentially, Village Capital is that offspring, using a peer-to-peer evaluation, learning and investment model where fellow entrepreneurs in the program decide who gets the allocated funding. From SOCAP11’s "People Powered Capital" we heard from several ventures using the Village Capital process.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
-
Three Lessons for Creating Real, Scalable Impact
The Mulago Foundation maintains a striking level of focus on real impact. They are not alone in addressing market and government failures with grants and low-interest loans. But their singular focus on measuring real impact that overcomes those failures in the geographies where those failures are the hardest to solve sets them apart.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
-
5 Things Global Development Can Learn From Stand-Up Comedy
Early in his stand-up comedy career, Steve Martin started jotting down notes after each of his performances, evaluating what worked, what to tweak and what to toss. Fast Company’s Co.Design blog posted titled ’8 things stand-up comedy teaches us about innovation.’ In the same spirit, here’s 5 things stand-up can teach us about global development.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
-
SOCAP11 Preview: How to Design Empathy and Other IDEO.org Projects
Jocelyn Wyatt, the long-time leader of social innovation at IDEO, recently became the co-lead and executive director of IDEO.org, the firm’s newly-launched non-profit started to address poverty-related challenges through design. She will be hosting Design Lab Office Hours at this year’s SOCAP and shares some experiences from IDEO.org’s early days.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Tags
- scale
-
Mixing Oil and Water in SME Development
Like oil and water, many would argue major energy companies don’t mix with advancing social impact. However, in an industry better known for oil spills and fat profits, the Shell Foundation is shattering stereotypes by providing financing for energy and infrastructure organizations too small for commercial funding and too large for microfinance.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
-
Impact Measurement Mastery: 5 Lessons Learned Working With Colombian Entrepreneurs
New Ventures, which supports environmentally-focused SMEs in six emerging markets, recently hosted its first impact measurement workshop for social entrepreneurs in Bogota, Colombia. Entrepreneurs learned to measure and report impact, and New Ventures improved how to frame the value of impact measurement. Check out the five lessons of the workshop.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Tags
- impact investing
The Best of NextBillion in Your Inbox Each Week!
Subscribe to NB Notes for news, jobs & on-the-ground insights from the world of emerging markets business.
We respect your privacy. Your information is safe and will never be shared.
Don't miss out. Subscribe today.