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Crowdfunded Farming: Connecting Investors with Smallholders in Indonesia
Despite the importance of agriculture in Indonesia's economy, smallholder farmers are 2.3 times poorer than the general population – and they have little access to formal financing that could boost their production and income. Because of this, many fall prey to loan sharks and go into debt. To address this vicious cycle, the crowdfunding platform Crowde is helping smallholders connect with investors, who help finance their farms in exchange for profit-sharing. Heri Siswanto discusses the successes – and challenges – of this approach.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing, Technology
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Don’t call her start-up a social enterprise
Just don't call it a social enterprise. It makes Woomentum founder Mouna Aouri, 42, "boil internally".
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship
- Region
- South Asia
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NexThought Monday: Starting a Nonprofit? Consider a Public Benefit Corp Instead
After five years of running a nonprofit organization, I was completely burnt out on fundraising. Now, after over two years of running HandUp, a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), I can compare the two models. If you have the right model for scale, with a clear market, and have tested your idea, I highly recommend taking the PBC route.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Impact Assessment
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Viewpoint: Crowdfunding for the Public Good Is Evil
Emma Hofman, A kindergarten teacher in New Orleans, needs your money. In the past two years, she has set up six fund-raising campaigns on the website DonorsChoose.org. Her goal isn’t to fund expensive field trips or even a new computer. She just wants her kids to have books, pencil sharpeners, and a few blocks to play with.
- Categories
- Technology
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Perfecting BOGO to a T: ‘Buy One, Give One’ is established, now let’s make it better
Now that TOMS has experimented with the model, emerging companies should hit the ground running with the goal of improving on the traditional "buy one give one" (BOGO) concept. Founded by Liberian-born entrepreneur Chid Liberty, Liberty & Justice (L&J) is a for-profit social enterprise that began with the vision to overcome the setbacks of the conventional BOGO model.
- Categories
- Education, Entrepreneurship, Technology
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What’s Next for the Grand Challenges?
Innovative solutions take 15 years to reach their full potential. For the “grand challenges” model of development, now over a decade old, that means the clock is ticking.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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Zidisha Launches Its Cross-Border P2P Lending Platform in Haiti
Y Combinator non-profit alum Zidisha is launching its cross-border P2P lending platform in Haiti, its first Latin American market, its founder Julia Kurnia told TNW in an exclusive interview.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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NexThought Monday – The (Financial) Wisdom of the Crowd: How a group of non-experts outperformed traditional credit ratings at identifying good and bad borrowers
Determining risk has always been a hurdle for lenders, and a barrier for small businesses looking to expand. Non-traditional credit scoring could help - but is it dependable? A new Harvard study on a crowdsourced credit scoring approach found it predicted defaults with 45 percent greater accuracy than standard credit scores.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Technology
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