Social Innovations
Kiva Introduces Lending Team Feature
Kiva, the world's first person-to-person microlending Web site, has facilitated nearly $40 million in loans to entrepreneurs worldwide.
Tag: Poverty
Understanding why people are poor and innovative ways to alleviate poverty
Social Innovations
LivingGoods Calling
LivingGoods sends its version of Avon ladies—white-uniformed "health promoters"—knocking on doors in hundreds of Ugandan communities.
Social Innovations
Chinese Activity in Africa, Part 2: The Path of Least Resistance
Africa is finding Chinese investment less demanding than that of the West.
Podcast
Organizational Development
Dr. Christopher Elias - Advancing Technology to Improve Health
PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology and Health) is a nonprofit organization designed to ensure that the benefits of innovation in science and technology are available to developing countries and remotely located, low-income groups. In this audio interview, host Sheela Sethuraman speaks with Dr. Christopher Elias, president and CEO of PATH, about the PATH's origins, accomplishments, and challenges.
Podcast
Economic Development
David Funkhouser - TransFair’s Work in Fair Trade
Coffee price fluctuations over past decades have created extreme financial crises and long-term poverty for thousands of small-scale Latin American farmers. In this Stanford Center for Social Innovation sponsored audio lecture, David Funkhouser of TransFair USA, details how the Fair Trade movement arose as a market-based approach to poverty alleviation and international development. He discusses Fair Trade's function to offer suppliers fair, above-market prices, and TransFair's role in supporting that movement.
Social Innovations
Microloan Sharks
Commercial microfinance institutions (MFIs) must calculate two bottom lines: alleviating poverty for clients and also generating profits for investors. To achieve the latter goal, some MFIs charge their impoverished clients exorbitant interest rates. The recent Banco Compartamos IPO in Mexico raises a red flag, demonstrating how easily well-intentioned MFIs and their investors can shift from microlending to microloan-sharking.
Podcast
Health
Vera Cordeiro Rio - Breaking the Cycle of Poverty-Related Illness
When Dr. Vera Cordeiro Rio worked at Hospital da Lagoa in Rio de Janeiro, she witnessed a constant admission/re-admission cycle in childcare treatment. To break that cycle, she gathered medical community volunteers to form Renascer, addressing root causes that prevent families from providing adequate care. In this audio interview, join host Sheela Sethuraman as she learns how Cordeiro Rio translated her passion translated into a methodology that is quickly sweeping through Brazil and the world.
Nonprofits
She’s Crafty
World of Good connects female artisans in poor countries with retailers (including Whole Foods Market, pictured) in the West.