How to Help Haiti
How donors can more effectively provide long-term support in rebuilding Haiti after a devastating earthquake.
Poverty
Latest
Don’t Give Money to Haiti Now
Instead of sending the money all at once, donors should create a plan to stagger and guarantee funding for years to come.
Podcast
Martin Eakes - Responsible Investing in Community Banking
Responsible investing begins in local, underserved communities. In this education podcast, CEO Martin Eakes talks about how his organization, Self-Help, has provided almost $6 billion in financing to more than 60,000 homebuyers, small businesses, and nonprofits, and how it is serving thousands of low-income families through retail credit union branches. Eakes' presentation is an inspiring rallying cry for redirecting resources to those who can benefit the most. His talk is part of a discussion sponsored by the Center for Social Innovation.
The Wrong Risks
By paying so much attention to managing their own risks, philanthropists are no longer attending to the marginalized people who risk so much to make change happen.
Podcast
Jeroo Billimoria - International Development Through Youth
The future of international development may lie in the hands of children. In this audio interview with Sheela Sethuraman, Jeroo Billimoria talks about how her organization, Aflatoun, provides social and financial education to youth ages 6 to 14 in 31 countries. She discusses Aflatoun's work with partners to create and disseminate innovative curricula to mainstream schools, and its vision for continuing to empower young people over the next five years.
Most Popular
Design Thinking for Social Innovation
By working closely with the clients and consumers, design thinking allows high-impact solutions to social problems to bubble up from below rather than being imposed from the top.
The Problem With Fair Trade Coffee
Fair Trade-certified coffee is growing in sales, but strict certification requirements are resulting in uneven economic advantages for coffee growers and lower quality coffee for consumers.
Microfinance Misses Its Mark
Despite the hoopla over microfinance, it doesn't cure poverty. But stable jobs do. If societies are serious about helping the poorest of the poor, they should stop investing in microfinance and start supporting large, labor-intensive industries.
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.
Romanticizing the Poor
Market solutions to poverty, which include services and products targeting consumers at the “bottom of the pyramid,” portray poor people as creative entrepreneurs and discerning consumers. Yet this rosy view of poverty-stricken people is not only wrong, but also harmful.