Technology & Design
What’s Next: Keeping an Eye on Parks
ParkScan, an interactive Web tool, enages residents as park monitors.
Tag: Microfinance
Environment
What’s Next: Out-Greening Your Neighbor
Nobody wants to be the biggest energy hog on the block.
Foundations
Q&A: Jeff Raikes
Jeff Raikes takes over the Gates Foundation at a turbulent time when philanthropic resources are down and social needs are up.
Podcast
Economic Development
Chetna Gala Sinha - International Development Through Women
Microfinance has become a staple of international development. In this audio interview, Chetna Gala-Sinha talks with Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Sheela Sethuraman about how her micro-enterprise development bank and foundation are economically empowering rural women in India. She describes the various tools and services that allow women to become financially independent, provide more adequately for their families, and drive international development.
Social Innovations
Shades of Green
Social networking tools reveal that there is an intricate web of relationships between business and environmentalists, which if developed could benefit the environmental movement.
Essentials of Social Innovation
Ten Nonprofit Funding Models
With an understanding of these 10 funding models, nonprofit leaders can use the for-profit world's valuable practice of engaging in succinct and clear conversations about long-term financial strategy.
Podcast
Economic Development
Natalie Portman - Eradicating Poverty Through Microfinance
One of the biggest problems that low-income people around the world face is the lack of access to capital that might otherwise help them rise out of poverty. Invited to Stanford, actress Natalie Portman turns the spotlight on her work to promote FINCA's International Village Banking Campaign, aiming to bring financial services to one million of the world's lowest-income families through 100,000 Village Banks by 2010.
Podcast
Organizational Development
Lynne Patterson - Empowering Women in Latin America
One of the best methods proven to alleviate poverty is microlending to women, who have a great track record for using loans wisely to create small business enterprises that sustain their entire families. Host of the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford, Lynne Patterson talks about the creation of Pro Mujer, an international microfinance and women's development network in Latin America. She details the mission, objectives, methods, and progress, illuminating the organization's empowering impact on the lives of its many clients.
Microfinance
In Microfinance, Clients Must Come First
Few microfinance institutions articulate what, exactly, their ultimate goals are and how to achieve them. If the goal of microfinance is to alleviate poverty, the authors say, then MFIs should focus on helping their clients build successful enterprises, rather than on making more and bigger loans.
Microfinance
Micro-franchise Against Malaria
How for-profit clinics are healing and enriching the rural poor in Kenya.