The BOP Beckons
Why grassroots design will determine the winners in developing markets.
Social Innovations
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Rick Duke - Reducing U.S. Emissions Affordably
Now that global warming is recognized as a real and serious problem, discussion is turning to practical challenges of reducing emissions in the long term. Host of the Center for Social Innovation, Rick Duke, discusses a new report by McKinsey & Company that considers how to address the problem affordably. In this audio lecture, Duke outlines some of the emerging technologies and public policy changes that will be needed to support such a process.
Podcast
William Drayton - The Importance of Being a Changemaker
If you're living on this planet you probably sense that the world is in a time of tremendous change. Ashoka founder William Drayton calls it "Revolution" in his keynote address on the occasion of receiving the Purpose Prize Entrepreneurial Leadership Award. In this audio lecture, Drayton offers inspiring words about the nature of the times we are in, and how becoming a change maker is critical for seizing opportunities that are emerging in these unprecedented times.
Podcast
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.
MicroEnergy Credits Corporation: Catalyzing Clean Energy for the BoP
Using existing microfinance institutions and recent developments in the carbon credit markets on the supply side to facilitate the adoption of clean energy for the very poor.
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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.
Collective Impact
Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, not the isolated intervention of individual organizations.
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.
Creating High-Impact Nonprofits
Conventional wisdom says that scaling social innovation starts with strengthening internal management capabilities. This study of 12 high-impact nonprofits, however, shows that real social change happens when organizations go outside their own walls and find creative ways to enlist the help of others.
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.