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Rational Exuberance: The momentum in impact investing is real – but so is the need for clarity about the changes (and challenges) underway
In spite of considerable progress in impact investing— and the staggering exuberance that’s been associated with it since it burst onto the stage— closer inspection reveals cause for serious concern in the sector. Bill Burckart details these challenges in the first post in a three-part series on the current state of impact investing, as it struggles to take the next step.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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‘the Hidden Tragedy of the Poor’: An Interview With Jonathan Morduch, Executive Director of the Financial Access Initiative
Jonathan Morduch is professor of Public Policy and Economics at NYU, and Executive Director of the Financial Access Initiative. In this interview with Upsides, he discusses the real reasons the poor struggle with their finances, how financial services providers can serve them better, and why his views on microfinance have changed.
- Categories
- Education
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NexThought Monday – We’re in this Together: With the Practical Impact Alliance, MIT building broad network to support BoP enterprise development
In February, D-Lab hosted a workshop for representatives from 15 multinational corporations, social ventures and non-governmental organizations, including Unilever, Danone, Vodafone and the Grameen Foundation. It led to the creation of Practical Impact Alliance, a community of change-makers from within leading business, social and academic actors to accelerate impact on global poverty.
- Categories
- Education
- Tags
- academia
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Weekly Roundup – 5/10/14: Every investment is an “impact investment”
Every investment has a social/environmental impact on some level - a fact that more and more investors are taking into account. We discuss Stanford University’s decision to divest its $18.7 billion endowment of stock in coal-mining companies, and a recent J.P. Morgan/GIIN survey of top impact investors, in this roundup.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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Good Ideas, Multiplied: How NGO, research collaboration is boosting social entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurs are celebrated for bringing new ideas to the table. But is a great idea enough to have the intended impact? While entrepreneurship celebrates the new, what role should existing research networks and NGOs, who bring deep sector expertise and trusting relationships with target communities, play in supporting social entrepreneurship?
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- academia, NGOs, research, social enterprise
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$23M Award at Notre Dame Fights Malaria and Dengue Fever
The grant is the second largest award to a single grant proposal in Notre Dame's history.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Social Enterprise in Haiti: An oxymoron or a reality?
More than two dozen development-minded thinkers and doers convened in Cambridge, Mass., for a competition-based workshop designed to find a market-based solution to cholera in Haiti. The winning idea, which includes recruiting and training “community chlorinators,” is expected to be up and running by this time next year.
- Categories
- Education, Environment, Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Harvard Awarded $8.1 Million for Transparency Research on Health and Other Social Sector Outcomes
Harvard University researchers have been awarded $8.1 million for a five-year project to research the impact of community transparency and accountability initiatives on health and other social sector outcomes, beginning in Indonesia and Tanzania.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
- Tags
- academia, public health, research
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