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NexThought Monday: Starting a Nonprofit? Consider a Public Benefit Corp Instead
After five years of running a nonprofit organization, I was completely burnt out on fundraising. Now, after over two years of running HandUp, a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), I can compare the two models. If you have the right model for scale, with a clear market, and have tested your idea, I highly recommend taking the PBC route.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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The Innovative Finance Revolution
The costs of economic, social, and environmental problems compound over time, whether it’s an Ebola outbreak that escalates to an epidemic, a flood of refugees that tests the strength of the EU, or the rise of social inequalities that reinforce poverty.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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EcoCash removes transaction fees, makes mobile money payments free in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is currently experiencing cash shortages and this has resulted in banks reducing withdrawal limits. Mobile money services like EcoCash have also been affected and some agents have run out of cash for some transactions.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Cigarette packs are being stripped of advertising around the world. But not in the US.
This week, the World Health Organization called on countries everywhere to step up the war on tobacco advertising and promotion by introducing plain, or standardized, packaging of tobacco products. "Plain packaging reduces the attractiveness of tobacco products," said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan. "It kills the glamour, which is appropriate for a product that kills people."
- Categories
- Health Care, Impact Assessment
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India Post to open payments bank with 650 branches
India Post, which already offers limited financial services through its 154,800 post offices, is also becoming a payments bank with 650 dedicated branches involving an investment of Rs 800 crore, officials said on Wednesday.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Region
- South Asia
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Making Markets Work for the Poor: How the Gates Foundation Uses Program-Related Investments
At the insistence of Bill himself, the foundation made its first “program-related investment” in 2009. Since then, it has made nearly 50 loans, equity investments, and guarantees to further the foundation’s charitable purpose, totaling more than $1 billion. In the last seven years, the world’s largest foundation has become one of the world’s largest impact investors.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
- Tags
- impact investing
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NexThought Monday: Fending Off ‘Pilotitis’ in Global Tech
In 2008, as many as 80 NGOs were testing consumer-facing mobile health (mHealth) programs in Uganda - all at once. But none of the pilots were scalable, interoperable, or meaningfully coordinated. Uganda is far from alone. A World Bank study in 2013 found nearly 500 disparate mHealth programs being implemented around the world – particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia – without evidence of scaling or integration. A preventive treatment of sorts has arrived to help organizations address these "technology for development" problems: The Principles for Digital Development.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Technology
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GIIN Launches Annual Impact Investor Survey 2016
The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) today published the sixth edition of its Annual Impact Investor Survey, which signals continued market growth and an increasing interest in impact investing opportunities. With a sample that comprises 158 of the world’s leading impact investors, the survey provides detailed insight into investor perceptions and a number of key market variables such as types of investors, the number and size of investments made, target returns, and impact measurement practices. During 2015, respondents committed a total of $15.2 billion to impact investments and, as of year’s end, managed over $77 billion in impact assets. Impact investments continue to be made across different geographies, a range of sectors, and multiple asset classes.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
- Tags
- impact investing
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