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Three Social Business Lessons from Detroit’s ‘Grassroots Entrepreneurs’
The self-determination that characterizes many Detroit entrepreneurs is a powerful paradigm for emerging markets, say authors Amy Gillett and Nathan Rauh-Bieri, and would-be providers of social entrepreneurship interventions should note a lesson learned: Make sure what you are offering is requested by the community, customized for the community and implemented with the community.
- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise
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‘Wall Street Meets Impact’: SOCAP’s Owners – New and Old – Discuss its Move Toward the Mainstream
Last month, SOCAP made headlines with a bold announcement: The network of social impact-focused investors and entrepreneurs is moving to new ownership to "begin expanding its brand reach to larger, more mainstream audiences." As its first initiative, this new-look SOCAP is launching the Good Capital Project, which aims to "drive greater collaboration and accelerate capital flows into purpose driven investments." We discussed these developments with SOCAP's co-founder, Kevin Jones, and John Morris of V2V Associates, who helped pull the new ownership deal together.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
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Putting Vision into Focus: Lessons on Scaling Up a Social Enterprise
Out of everyone experiencing vision losses globally, 2.5 billion of them can have their vision restored with just a pair of eyeglasses. BRAC and VisionSpring are tackling this problem in Bangladesh through an innovative social entrepreneurship model: They sell low-cost reading glasses to low-wage earners through BRAC’s network of community health workers.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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How Can Inclusive Business Advance the SDGs?
Two recent publications released in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals' first anniversary share the view that inclusive business is a part of the solution to deliver on the SDGs. That's a sign of progress, according to Jenny Melo, but we still need to go deeper in the conversation and ask for impacts, measurements and specific connections.
- Categories
- Education, Energy, Environment, Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Social Business Roundup: The Problem with Sachets, the Beauty of Rats and the Dark Side of Cross-Selling
Everyone seems to love the products in individually-sized sachets being sold at the BoP ... except for Mother Nature. Ethiopia's only too happy to roll out the welcome mat for some rats with amazing TB-sniffing skills. A questionable cross-selling strategy in South Africa harms a vulnerable population and raises uncomfortable questions about financial inclusion. It's all part of our weekly Social Business Roundup.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Engineering Social Impact: Being a Hardware Entrepreneur is Hard … But Worth It
There's nothing fast or easy about hardware innovation. Hardware is, well, hard. But a growing number of stakeholders in the development space see the importance of hardware-led social ventures and the impact they make in emerging markets, and they'll be especially interested in ASME's upcoming Innovation Showcase, a competition with events in in India, Kenya and the United States.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise, Technology
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How Water.org ‘Took a Leap of Faith’ into Social Impact Investing
As we recognize World Water Day, Water.org is launching a $50 million fund, targeting enterprises in India, Indonesia, Cambodia and the Philippines that help the poor meet their water and sanitation needs – with a particular focus on MFIs. This seven-year fund, managed by the nonprofit's WaterEquity initiative, aims to reach at least 4.6 million people at the BoP, while offering pre-tax financial returns of 3 percent.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
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With New Partner, Wello Rolling Down ‘the Fastest Path to Scale’
Social enterprise Wello today announced it will license sales and manufacturing of its main product, the WaterWheel, to Mumbai-based Nilkamal Limited in India and Sri Lanka. The publicly traded Nilkamal is one of Asia's manufacturers and sellers of injection mold plastic furniture and other plastic home goods. We hear from Cynthia Koenig, founder and CEO of Wello, about what the deal means not only for the for-profit company, but also for other social enterprises facing the perennial struggle of scaling their products.
- Categories
- Environment, Social Enterprise
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