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Best of 2013: What’s Next for Impact Investing : How to bridge the ‘Pioneer Gap’ and support entrepreneurs in the earliest stages
Announcements of impact-branded seed funds and investor networks have become so commonplace they no longer seem novel. However, the fact is most are structured to only invest in companies that are already succeeding and ready to scale. The resulting Pioneer Gap – best captured in the Monitor Group and Acumen Fund’s “From Blueprint to Scale” report – has been exposed.
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- Entrepreneurship, Investing
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The Best of 2013: What’s Next for Impact Investing?: The value of a formal fund structure to maximize impact
Impact investing has been building momentum both in the United States and abroad, promising to be a new model for sustainable development. Numerous reports in the past two years have pointed out the growth of the industry. Yet despite this promise, the industry faces many challenges. Here’s what some organizations are doing to address these challenges.
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- Entrepreneurship, Impact Assessment, Investing
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Unfinished Business
Winston Churchill said it best when he concluded, "democracy is the worst form of government ....except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
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- Entrepreneurship, Impact Assessment, Investing
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66th World Health Assembly: 5 takeaways
The 66th World Health Assembly concluded with a number of resolutions and action plans adopted and approved in the more than week-long conference.
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- Health Care, Investing
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NexThought Monday – Early Risks, Big Returns: What’s next for Impact Investing series – rethinking what’s ‘investible’
It’s hard enough to build a business that makes money in emerging markets without focusing on social impact. But that’s only part of the issue. Investable companies are out there, but too often we’re looking in the wrong places—or, we need to reconsider what’s “investable.”So far, Accion Venture Lab has found a rich pipeline of investable companies where others haven’t, thanks in part to our three-prong strategy: investing earlier, tolerating more uncertainty, and concentrating on big-picture priorities over returns.
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- Entrepreneurship, Impact Assessment, Investing
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What’s Next for Impact Investing – Facing Market Realities: Why the environment is the core of impact investing in China
When I first started China Impact Fund, I thought that impact investing in China should give equal weight to the country’s social and environmental issues, just as what my peers do in most other emerging markets. As I am relocating back to China, my thinking evolved toward environmental for several key reasons.
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- Entrepreneurship, Environment, Investing
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What’s Next for Impact Investing Series: : 5 Things You Need to Know About Impact Investing Metrics
After the IDB joined the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), the Inter-American Development Bank’s Opportunities for the Majority Initiative (OMJ), which focuses on Base of the Pyramid sustainable business models, restructured its impact measurement system across its grant and investment portfolio, putting Impact Reporting & Investment Standard (IRIS) metrics at its core.
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- Entrepreneurship, Impact Assessment, Investing
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Made to Measure? Understanding Investor Challenges with Social Impact Measurement: Two new publications explore the upsides and downsides of metrics platforms
Never before have impact investors had so many social measurement approaches and tools at their fingertips to evaluate the effectiveness of their investments. Yet investors are keenly aware of their limitations and challenges. Purpose Capital conducted a interviewed more than 20 Canadian impact investors to better understand how they use metrics.
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- Entrepreneurship, Impact Assessment, Investing