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The Secret to Social Business Scale? An Overlooked Need in Moving Past the Startup Phase
How can social entrepreneurs move from the startup phase into the growth phase? Whatever the focus of their business, entrepreneurs have to build capacity to benefit and employ more people as they scale – and this requires a unique set of skills. Carola Schwank at Siemens Stiftung Foundation discusses the crucial but often overlooked need of organizational development in social business, and describes how the foundation is helping entrepreneurs address it.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Finding Hidden Talent in a Kolkata Suburb: An Innovative Solution for Youth Employment in India
With more young people entering India's workforce than ever before, creating the next generation of jobs is one of the country's biggest challenges. That's why iMerit’s delivery center in Kolkata – along with four other centers like it in east Indian cities – is employing hundreds of young men and women from low-income families to provide on-demand digital data services to leading global internet companies. Santhosh Ramdoss at the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, an investor in iMerit, profiles the company and shares an interview with its founder.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
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Bridging the Gender Gap in Agriculture: Eight Success Stories for International Women’s Day
Women account for more than 40 percent of the agricultural workforce worldwide, but they own less than 20 percent of the world’s land, and earn just a fraction of what their male counterparts do. On International Women’s Day, Oumou Camara, writing on behalf of Farming First, shares the stories of eight remarkable women who are bridging the gender gap in agriculture in emerging markets around the world.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Four Steps to Avoid Dead-End Impact Investing Leads
Dead-end leads are frustrating for both entrepreneurs and investors. They involve wasted time and resources, disappointment, and the erosion of relationships – and sometimes the exchange of capital that's a poor fit for the entrepreneur’s business. To prevent these issues, the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) has created an online toolkit to help impact entrepreneurs identify their top investor targets. Kimberly Langsam and Cathy Clark at CASE summarize the simple four-step process – and CASE will host a free online demo with more information on March 13 and 19.
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- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Impact Investing Lessons for NGOs: Mercy Corps’ Scott Onder Discusses its Social Venture Fund
We don’t typically associate NGOs, particularly humanitarian organizations like Mercy Corps, with impact investing. But since 2015, Mercy Corps has run the Social Venture Fund, which invests in and accelerates the growth of innovative, scalable ventures that can positively impact millions in the developing world. NextBillion interviewed Scott Onder, managing director of the fund, about Mercy Corps' experiences as an investor, the rationale behind this ground-breaking approach – and lessons for other NGOs that may be considering a similar move.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Breaking the Catch-22 of Poverty: What’s Next for the Graduation Model?
People in extreme poverty are trapped in a catch-22: They're poor because they can't build a livelihood, and they can't build a livelihood because they're overwhelmed by the crises of poverty. The graduation approach can break this cycle – but though research has demonstrated its effectiveness, it's difficult to scale. Evelyn Stark of MetLife Foundation and Jaya Sarkar of Trickle Up discuss Trickle Up's efforts to adapt the model to achieve mass scale and sustainability.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Building BoP Ecosystems: Register for the 2018 BoP Global Network Summit, April 18 – 20, New Delhi, India
Ecosystem development in BoP business has evolved from a buzzword to an emerging reality, with multiple new partnerships and platforms. The 3rd BoP Global Network Summit aims to catalyze and support such partnerships, convening 200 participants from 15+ countries on April 18 – 20 in New Delhi, India. Register soon: Early bird pricing ends Feb. 28. And subscribe to NextBillion Notes for a chance to win one of two free tickets we'll be raffling off to subscribers in the coming weeks.
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- Uncategorized
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Closing the Gap: Identifying Key Challenges for the Missing Middle SMEs in Francophone West Africa
Many small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries fall into the “missing middle”: They're too big for microfinance and too small or risky for traditional finance. To better understand this sector and how to support it, the Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF) commissioned studies on the entrepreneurial ecosystems of Benin, Cote D’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Senegal and Togo. WDI's Ekta Jhaveri discusses the research with Julia Kho, knowledge manager at TripleJump, an investment management and advisory services firm that manages DGGF’s Investment Funds Local SMEs effort.
- Categories
- Investing
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