LivingGoods Calling
LivingGoods sends its version of Avon ladies—white-uniformed "health promoters"—knocking on doors in hundreds of Ugandan communities.
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Good TV
Using TV as an engine for giving.
The Sun Boat
Move over, Prius; here comes the Aquatanker.
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.
She’s Crafty
World of Good connects female artisans in poor countries with retailers (including Whole Foods Market, pictured) in the West.
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Drowning in Data
Funders are calling for more program evaluation, but nonprofits are often collecting dubious data, at great cost to themselves and ultimately to the people they serve.
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.
For Love or Lucre
A veteran social entrepreneur provides a guide to those who are thinking through the thorny question of whether to create a nonprofit, a for-profit, or something in between.
The Profit in Nonprofit
Why Kiva chose to be a 501(c)(3), what this tax status buys the organization, and how being a nonprofit poses challenges.
Do No Evil
Google DotOrg launched in 2004 with bold ambitions and almost $1 billion in seed funding. But the results have been less than stellar.