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An Uphill Climb: Smart Campaign director Isabelle Barrès, on the challenges of promoting client protection in microfinance
The Smart Campaign’s numbers are growing: It has certified 39 microfinance institutions as meeting its client protection standards, and these MFIs now serve slightly more than 20 million clients. But achieving this momentum hasn’t been an easy task for the campaign – or for the industry it’s trying to improve. Smart Campaign director Isabelle Barrès discusses the challenges in part one of this Q&A.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Needed: Naïve People with Stupid Ideas: An interview with Intellecap co-founder and director Vineet Rai
When Intellecap was founded in 2002, few people would have predicted that it would become a social business and investing powerhouse. According to co-founder and director Vineet Rai, the company’s early years were defined by failure. He discusses the lessons he learned from these failures (and subsequent successes), Intellecap’s unique model and future plans, and many other topics in this wide-ranging video Q&A.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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NexThought Monday – Tapping the Potential of the World’s Largest Minority: Two keys to boosting employment for 70 million disabled people in India
After spending three months analyzing ongoing efforts to increase employment for people with disabilities at the base of the pyramid in India, the author saw two main problems: no collective goals have been established and there’s a lack of transparent impact data demonstrating the economic and social outcomes.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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Measuring Client Health Outcomes Using Simple Indicators: Data collection is the easy part; the next test is helping organizations analyze, interpret
The Microcredit Summit Campaign is hoping financial services providers and others will use the “health outcome performance indicators” (HOPI) to assess the health and well-being of clients and their families, and believes wide usage of the HOPI could create short- and long-term value for practitioners, social investors and donors, raters and other actors.
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- Health Care, Impact Assessment
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Export, Learn … Profit: A new randomized evaluation reveals emerging market businesses that export have the advantage
Export promotion programs work under the assumption that the experience of exporting helps firms learn new skills and techniques and thereby become more productive. However, until now, no research determined whether exporting actually causes businesses to improve. Innovations for Poverty Action helped conduct the first randomized controlled trial investigating whether firms actually learn through exporting.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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Social impact measurement for business: Vision is good, (joint) action is better
In a new report, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development is calling on organizations, experts and practitioners to join them in developing a harmonized approach for businesses to measure and value their interactions with society: A Social Capital Protocol.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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The First Commandment of Social Impact Generation: We need a better understanding of the nuances of creating social impact
The first commandment for companies, organizations and investors that aim to generate social impact is: "Thou shalt adopt mechanisms to measure it." Unfortunately, this practice is not yet common. And when it does occur, it often focuses narrowly on counting the total number of units distributed or beneficiaries supported, rather than on understanding the nuances of the benefits being transferred.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Relief Through Finance: How microfinance builds resilience to disasters and crises
After a natural disaster or other crisis, like Nepal’s recent earthquake, the relief and aid community inevitably plays a major role. But according to Sam Mendelson, there is also a vital role for microfinance, which can help restore livelihoods and provide resilience to vulnerable populations thanks to existing relationships with clients that foreign NGOs lack.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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