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Bridging the Gender Gap in Agriculture: Eight Success Stories for International Women’s Day
Women account for more than 40 percent of the agricultural workforce worldwide, but they own less than 20 percent of the world’s land, and earn just a fraction of what their male counterparts do. On International Women’s Day, Oumou Camara, writing on behalf of Farming First, shares the stories of eight remarkable women who are bridging the gender gap in agriculture in emerging markets around the world.
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- Agriculture, Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Why Impact Investing is the Next Big Move for Grameen America
David Gough of Grameen America says philanthropy will always be at the heart of the organization's funding, but the nonprofit saw impact investing as an untapped opportunity to fight gender inequity. In celebrating its 10-year anniversary of supporting female entrepreneurship and financial inclusion in the U.S., the group established its first Social Business Fund. The impact investing vehicle is allowing Grameen America supporters to directly invest in the success of more than 100,000 entrepreneurs and receive a financial return in exchange, writes Gough.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Why the Next Steve Jobs Could Be From Pakistan
Author and professor Elmira Bayrasli sees a big shift taking place among entrepreneurs in developing markets: They're seeking opportunities in their home countries, instead of fleeing to Western nations. In this video dialogue with WDI's Amy Gillett, Bayrasli, who wrote the book “From the Other Side of the World: Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, Unlikely Places,” offers several other insights on what startup founders are really looking for and what they need to achieve it.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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The End of a Debate? India Highlights the Dominance of For-Profit Capital in Impact Investing
Can impact investing be as commercially viable as mainstream investing – or does it work better as a nonprofit model, or as a less-profitable niche in the broader investing space? This question remains widely debated, even as more empirical evidence has demonstrated the commercial success of impact investments. Disha Gandhi of Aavishkaar asserts that the long-running global debate over for-profit vs. nonprofit models in impact investing may be winding down, and India is a key case in point.
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- Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Coming of Age: Why Consolidation in the Impact Investing Industry is a Great Thing
With over $114 billion deployed into impact investments in 2017 and the total U.S. market at well above $8 trillion, the sector has gone decisively mainstream. And when that happens, industry consolidation is not far behind. In light of a recent wave of eyebrow-raising mergers and acquisitions, Stephanie Cohn Rupp at Tiedemann Wealth Management – which recently completed a merger of its own – says this trend should spark more excitement than concern.
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- Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- ESG, impact investing
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Do You Speak Social Finance? Helping Entrepreneurs and Impact Investors Overcome their Language Barrier
Social entrepreneurs and impact investors often speak different languages: Entrepreneurs are fluent in the dimension of impact, while investors are more focused on the bottom line. A new education platform called the Social Finance Academy strives to bridge this gap via free, online learning packages that enable investors and entrepreneurs to reach common ground. Christina Moehrle and Maxime Cheng of Roots of Impact explore the platform's early success and potential impact.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
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Five Series in Social Business: Announcing NextBillion’s 2018 Editorial Calendar
In 2017, NextBillion organized our content around 12 monthly themes - in 2018, we’re taking a slightly different approach. We’ll still publish special series around topics of interest to our readers, but these series will be more tightly focused, and they'll continue throughout the year. Check out the five themes we'll be exploring alongside our broader social business coverage – and learn how you can contribute.
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- Social Enterprise, Technology
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Key Strategies for ‘Social Startup Success’: A Q&A with Spark Co-founder Kathleen Kelly Janus
The nonprofit funding wall is real, says Kathleen Kelly Janus, leaving two-thirds of U.S. nonprofits at $500,000 and below in revenue. In “Social Startup Success: How the Best Nonprofits Launch, Scale Up and Make a Difference,” she explores how some social ventures are able to break through and scale, and shares lessons that are relevant to both nonprofit and for-profit enterprises. NextBillion editor Sonya Vann DeLoach discusses the book’s message with the author in this thought-provoking Q&A.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Tags
- nonprofits
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