Economic Development
Leaving Money on the Table
An excerpt from There’s Nothing Micro about a Billion Women on how financial service providers can reduce inequality and build a more inclusive world by better serving women customers.
Excerpt
Tag: Financial Inclusion
Philanthropy & Funding
Reimagining the Request for Proposal
As currently structured, requests for proposal (RFPs) are counterproductive to social change efforts. We must redesign granting systems to empower the communities in which we work.
Collaboration
Building Blended Finance in India
While blended finance has the potential to accelerate development in India, there are bottlenecks holding back its potential.
Impact Investing
Democratizing Capital
New laws enabling ordinary people to become equity investors have the potential to uplift marginalized communities, if the new market creates the infrastructure to include them.
Scaling
The Promise of Social Sector Franchising
The massive growth of commercial franchises like McDonald’s offers inspiration for scaling social impact. Although still very young, social sector franchising is spawning an array of successful enterprises that offer lessons for further expansion.
Collaboration
Civic Mobilization Infrastructure in an Age of Existential Threats
Brazilian civil society worked together to win basic income for the poor. Its success illustrates how organizations must interlock to secure rights and push for social change.
Advocacy
How to Ensure Survivors of Modern Slavery Stay Free
We must listen to survivors: Without providing financial security and the resources necessary to sustain freedom, simply liberating the victims of human trafficking isn’t enough.
Business
The Dangerous Allure of Win-Win Strategies
For the past 30 years, celebrated academics and business leaders have promoted the idea that companies often profit by addressing social and environmental problems. Although these proposals have been hailed as promising breakthroughs, they are unscientific and counterproductive.
Social Enterprise
Applying a Gender Lens to Social Entrepreneurship
The social sector will flourish through embracing less patriarchal and more collaborative approaches that focus on long-term systemic change.
Economic Development
Unveiling the Informal Economy
Stereotypes cloud our perception of the informal economy, but we have much to learn from the entrepreneurship that unfolds there.