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Why South Asia is a Hub for Social Entrepreneurship
An April 2012 study of the social entrepreneurship landscape in India found that the sector has really taken off since 2005. But while social entrepreneurs are excited to consider next steps, they clearly have a lot of learning to do—and must do a lot more to prove positive outcomes, financial and social. But, if they can, India could become a hotspot and global test ground for impact investing.
- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise
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The Art of ‘Nice,’ Putting ‘Care’ In African Healthcare
What’s the secret to attracting 300 patients a month to a brand new, three-room health clinic in a sprawling industrial area? It might be the free manicure/pedicure women receiver after paying for a full “head-to-toe” checkup, but more likely, it’s the value of Penda. In Swahili, Penda means love, and that’s the key to Penda Health Clinics, a new chain of low-cost health facilities in Kenya that puts “care” at the center of their business model.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Gender Roles in Green and Inclusive Business – Replicating Old Patterns or Breaking New Ground?
The green economy has the potential to empower women – but risks replicating old gender patterns of the ‘brown’ economy, says a new DCED / GIZ study. How does the case look for social entrepreneurship and impact investing?
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education, Environment, Social Enterprise
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Weekly Roundup: Flushed – Is This Any Way to Crowdsource a Social Enterprise?
On Tuesday, founder and CEO of Good Goods, took a seat on the throne and didn’t get off until 50 hours later - all while under the watchful eye of a webcam. By then Simmon Griffiths and company had raised more than $50,000 in pre-orders to fund the first bulk production run of Good Goods’ new line of toilet paper: ‘Who Gives A Crap’. Working with WaterAid, the company plans to dedicate 50 percent of the paper’s profits to build toilets and improve sanitation in developing countries.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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NexThought Monday: European Impact Investing – Poised to Grow or Largely Irrelevant?
Last year, Ashoka’s Germany Director, Felix Oldenburg, took on – and took apart – impact investing as we currently know it, challenging it on a few specific points. Now, we share a telephonic debate between Oldenburg and Johannes Weber, founder of Social Venture Fund, the first pan-European social venture capital fund, who contests Oldenburg’s assumptions to push forward the dialogue on our much-discussed, much-anticipated new space of impact investing.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
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Focusing on a Virtuous Circle Around Business Strategy and Impact Assessment
As a first-timer at the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) Metrics Conference in Washington D.C. last month, I was surprised to see a packed room on the first morning of the conference. After all, this was a conference about a very niche topic – the techniques used to measure social and environmental impact within the embryonic industry of impact investing. Impact investing is a broad term that describes profit-seeking investments that also generate positive social and/or environmental impact.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Part III: Getting the Most Out of Your Board
If designed and managed correctly, a corporate governance board,strengthens, not weakens, the leadership of a social enterprise and helps to ensure the success of the social enterprise.
In last week’s post, we at the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship discussed the first step: creating the right governance board for your social enterprise. The focus of this post is on managing the board once it is created.- Categories
- Social Enterprise, Uncategorized
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Weekly Roundup: Planting the SEED
Social enterprises face a number of extreme challenges that are difficult to surmount in the first few years, at the center of which is the challenge of creating viable, scalable business models around their social innovations. That’s why Villgro, a social enterprise incubator in Chennai, India, has created an intensive training program geared to speed up the business model refinement process for entrepreneurs who have not yet raised external investment, with the aim of helping them to raise their first rounds of funding.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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