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Before the Handshake: How to Make Corporate-Social Enterprise Partnerships Work
At first glance, value chain partnerships between corporations and small enterprises in developing markets appear to benefit both parties: Corporations gain financially while creating social and economic benefits for low-income communities. On closer inspection, however, these partnerships' results can vary. The Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership and Intellecap have learned lessons from serving as intermediaries in these relationships. James Jenkin and Lindsay Clinton address the most common questions from organizations hoping to build similar partnerships.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
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Meat Every Day: How a Rwandan Entrepreneur Aims to Satisfy Africa’s Changing Appetites
Some predict that, by the end of the century, 13 African cities will surpass New York City in population. As African economies grow and their citizens become more urbanized, their standards of living and meat consumption are also likely to increase. This shift will reshape the continent's agriculture industry – and entrepreneurs like Herve Tuyishime are responding. Tuyishime explains how his two interrelated businesses are helping satisfy Africans' growing appetite for meat, and bringing Rwandan farmers into the supply chain.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
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Up to 2.5 Billion People Need Glasses: Can This Hardware Innovation Deliver?
Roughly 25 percent of the global population needs glasses, but lacks access. The problem isn't cost: Affordable glasses are readily available in emerging markets. What's lacking are trained eye care specialists. The social startup PlenOptika is tackling that issue with a device called the QuickSee: a binocular-sized autorefractor that non-specialists can use to scan a patient’s eyes and produce an eyeglass prescription within seconds. Paul Scott, director of engineering for ASME, discusses the innovation, and the challenges and rewards of running a social hardware startup.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
- Tags
- partnerships
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The Funder Problem: Good Intentions Aren’t Enough
Despite their good intentions, funders are often the biggest barriers to social enterprises or nonprofits achieving impact. Open Road Alliance, a philanthropic initiative that gives emergency grants to impact-focused organizations, gathered and analyzed five years of data about roadblocks faced by over 100 grantees. Nearly half of the problems the group found were caused by funders. Laurie Michaels describes the three categories of funder-related barriers that account for the most frequent challenges – and offers some surprisingly easy fixes.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Making the Case for Early-Stage Impact Investing
In many emerging markets, social entrepreneurs are financing their ventures with personal funds and high-interest loans - mainly because it's so tough to grow out of the startup phase without being able to show financial returns. The nonprofit Beyond Capital Fund provides pro bono advisory services to help investee enterprises establish and implement operating procedures and regular impact reporting systems, writes CEO Eva Yazhari. She explains how these formalized structures lend credibility and stability to sustain the businesses and attract potential investors - functions that are often lacking in the impact investing ecosystem.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Hardware Innovation is … Hard: How These Entrepreneurs Overcame the Challenges
Compared with the creators of app-based products, hardware-focused innovators face a much more difficult and expensive journey, says Villgro CTO Arun Venkatesan. The resources and time required to perfect hardware iterations are larger, the lack of a mature ecosystem is a problem, and the buyer is often distinctly different from the user or beneficiary. Venkatesan profiles four hardware innovators in agriculture and health care, discussing how they worked through these obstacles.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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The Partnership Nightmare: What’s Wrong with the Social Sector’s Approach to Funding – And How to Fix It
Whether it's due to misaligned expectations, mutual distrust or power imbalances, interactions between social impact organizations and their funders can be nightmarish – for both sides. Social sector advocates Jessamyn Shams-Lau, Jane Leu and Vu Le have written a new book about these challenges, called "Unicorns Unite." In this Q&A, they discuss what's gone wrong – and how to make it better. Subscribers to NextBillion’s weekly e-newsletter can read an excerpt of the book throughout June.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Show Me the Money: How Much Do Accelerators Really Help Entrepreneurs Raise?
Do accelerators really help social entrepreneurs raise more money for their businesses? Studies from the Global Accelerator Learning Initiative suggest the answer is yes, in both emerging markets and high-income countries – but their effectiveness varies greatly. Stephanie Buck of ANDE explores valuable insights from the research that can help optimize accelerators' impact.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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