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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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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.
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- Impact Assessment
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Press release: Common Cents Report: Hacking Human Behavior to Improve Financial Health
Common Cents, a financial research lab at Duke University supported by MetLife Foundation, today unveiled its 2017 Annual Report. The report details behavioral interventions aimed at improving financial health for low- to moderate-income people with more than 27 organizations over the course of 2017, including startups, credit unions, non-profits, and local governments.
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- North America
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Press release: Financial Solutions Lab Launches $3 Million Year-Four Competition to Support the Financial Health of Underrepresented Communities
Given the diversity of Americans who struggle with financial health, in this year’s Challenge, the Lab is particularly interested in products developed by entrepreneurs of color, women and people with disabilities, and designed to meet the financial needs of often overlooked populations.
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- Finance
- Region
- North America
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Deciphering the Data Deluge: Making Data More Useful for Financial Inclusion
Data can have a transformative impact on financial inclusion efforts. But it will reach its full potential only if industry stakeholders can truly understand and utilize it for the benefit of customers. In this Q&A, Camilla Nestor, CEO of MIX, discusses how MIX's FINClusion Lab is making data available to financial services providers, regulators, policymakers and others in a format they can actually use.
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- Finance, Technology
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Super Platforms in Africa: Not if, but When
Imagine low-income, rural entrepreneurs throughout Africa actively leveraging super platforms like Facebook and Alibaba to conduct all their business interactions, from customer payments to orders from suppliers. This scenario isn't that far-fetched, says BFA's Yanina Seltzer. She explains why the march of the super platforms into Africa is inevitable – and what it will mean for financial services providers, regulators, and small and medium enterprises.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Technology
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