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The Real Architects of Social Change: Live from Davos
Everybody seemed to agree that the world is now facing some serious problems: Climate change, persistent poverty and inequality, the failure of financial systems, environmental degradation, the impeding exhaustion of cheap minerals and oil and so on. And everybody seemed determine to provide solutions to these problems.Prominent among these proposed solutions: Social entrepreneurship.
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- Base of the Pyramid, scale
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The Trouble With Impact Investing – Part 1
On its face, impact investing seems like a great deal—organizations get cheap money (er, “patient capital”) and investors get real impact. It’s great when it works that way, but the case for impact is often dubious, and there is a lot of confusion about when impact investing works and when it doesn’t.
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Microfinance Will Eliminate Severe Poverty – John Hatch
In an exclusive interview with Microfinance Focus, John Hatch, founder of FINCA and creator of Village banking, discusses the future of microfinance industry and FINCA’s efforts to stay committed to its social mission.
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Weekly Roundup: 1-29-12 – Creative Destruction in Response to Disaster
It would seem the real destruction in Haiti has encouraged a creative destruction of outmoded business practices in favor of new models to empower the Haitian people and their economy. Zafèn, which literally means “it’s our business’ in Haitian Creole, is but one example to emerge.
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The NEXT NextBillion …
Just a quick note to all NextBillion readers:
We are moving to a new site design/platform and are going through the proverbial Beta testing. Please bear with us while we work the kinks out over the next few days and bring new systems online.
Thanks in advance for your patience - and apart from a few bugs here and there, we hope you like the new site.- Categories
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Mobile Money Payments: Why It’s Time to Move From P2P to Me2Me
Many cite the high cost of electronic transfers as a key market barrier to leveraging mobile money platforms and enabling retail payments or other financial services to the poor. But recently, two leading mobile money providers in Kenya and Tanzania lowered their prices for small-value transfers.
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The Second Wave of Social Entrepreneurs?
I began to realize that the field of social entrepreneurship is becoming more professionalized. First consulting out of undergrad, then a one year stint at an NGO or social enterprise abroad, then B-school, then they land a "job" at an organization in this field. As I observe this shift, there are two things I am thinking about.
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The View from Canada: Impact Investing 2.0 – Your Money, Your Way
At the Social Finance Forum hosted by the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing last month in Toronto, speakers revealed new opportunities and new mechanisms for retail-sized investors seeking social and monetary dividends - from solar bonds to affordable housing.
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