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Avoiding Death by a Thousand Cuts: How a Young Social Enterprise Weathered a Series of Microfailures
David Santillán Giles thought everything was on track with his young social enterprise. But he soon found himself dealing with a string of unforced errors that would put his company in jeopardy. He discusses these mistakes and what he learned from them in the latest post in our series on failure in social enterprise.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Kennedy School to Create New ‘Social Enterprise Incubator’
As it revisits major aspects of its curriculum in conjunction with its capital campaign, the Kennedy School of Government is in the early stages of creating a new “social enterprise incubator,” according to HKS spokesperson Doug Gavel.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Tags
- incubators
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Reaching ‘an Emerging Market Within an Emerging Market’: JPMorgan Chase and Omidyar back new impact fund aimed at Brazil’s middle class
Entrepreneurs who can deliver high-quality basic services on the cheap are rushing to meet the pent-up demands of Brazil’s 112 million lower- and middle-class consumers. Those entrepreneurs can tap a new source of capital: impact investors - including one backed by JPMorgan Chase and the Omidyar Network - focused on the huge population of Brazilians who make under $10,000 a year.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Who Moved My Cheese?: A social enterprise discovers that the dairy business is harder than it looks
In a poor region of Bolivia, goat milk producers often drink their own product, for lack of a market. Pro-Milk was launched to help them make and sell cheese instead. But the company was soon undermined by challenges in its business model and region. Fundación IES, a development institution that supported Pro-Milk, tells the story in the latest post in our business failure series.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
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Too Many Cooks: How lack of effective leadership almost killed my social enterprise
Fernando Noroña co-founded Deltarec to advance Mexico’s plastic recycling efforts. The company was initially run by two funders and four entrepreneurs, with decisions made by a 10-strong management board dominated by its funding partners. But this leadership structure soon became a prime factor in the company’s struggles, as Noroña describes in the latest post in our series on social enterprise failure.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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When Awards and Idealism Aren’t Enough: My social enterprise earned a ton of public acclaim – but it was missing something even more important
In her early 20s, Leticia Gasca launched a social enterprise to help some of Mexico’s poorest people. Powered by idealism and some promising early results, the company garnered both national and international acclaim. But behind the scenes, it was struggling with the harsh realities of doing business. Gasca shares the story in this frank post, the first in our series with F*ckUp Nights on failure in social enterprise.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Enter Unreasonable Labs: Trial and error on a global scale
Teju Ravilochan, CEO of the Unreasonable Institute says the social enterprise organization needs "co-conspirators" to help them forge a new system of trial and error. They’re looking for 10 teams from 10 locations around the world to run 10 Unreasonable Labs, five-day versions of Unreasonable Institute with 10 ventures each.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Announcing NextBillion’s Latest E-book (and the first from NextBillion Financial Innovation): A compilation of posts and videos from our Impact Investing Insights series
In the spring of 2014, NextBillion Financial Innovation videotaped interviews with 11 top investors, academics and advocates working in impact investing. We published the Q&As in a series called Impact Investing Insights. We have compiled the posts and videos into this e-book, which covers a broad cross-section of the topics and trends that drive the sector today.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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