impact investment

share

Social Enterprise

Why China must build a supportive ecosystem for its new crop of NGOs

China’s fast-growing mass of social entrepreneurs are being held back by government regulation and a lack of funding, according to a new report by Hong Kong-based FYSE.

share

Financial Inclusion

Two ways to get farm loans where they're needed most: the boonies

To get small staple-crop farmers the loans they need, lenders must use new approaches tailored to the 90 percent of smallholders not in farmer organizations.

share

Value Chains

Chocolate shortage by 2020? How mini loans could save the day

Social lenders aren't meeting poor farmers' financing needs. If commercial buyers don't provide more capital, the world could face shortages of luxury cash crops.

share

Social Enterprise

Pakistan patches up a startup culture tattered by disorder

With unrest stirring, Pakistan needs leaders to provide constructive answers to society’s challenges. Social entrepreneurs can do that, but they need mentors, says a recent report by the Economic Policy Group.

share

Social Enterprise

For NGOs, self-measurement is rare but precious

Each year, promising new approaches to global problems fail. Better evaluations could tell us why.

share

Social Enterprise

Renewable energy gone wrong: a cautionary tale for impact investors

Acción Energía’s controversial wind farm on Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec shows the dark side of “positive social investments” that ignore their impact on the local community.

GBF directly assists companies in its portfolio with setting up their businesses. Photo: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151242669923058&set=pb.38287283057.-2207520000.1359077029&type=3&theater">Grassroots Business Fund (Facebook)</a>

share

Social Enterprise

New impact fund will wed cash investments with training

A U.S.-based hybrid impact investment fund is moving to invest $47 million, which it secured in a deal announced in early December.

Vilseskogen (flickr)"/>

share

Social Enterprise

As aid to Haiti slows, a private co-op scores loans and turns heads

This article was republished by The Christian Science Monitor.

Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/abufaiqa/4434157815/sizes/z/in/photostream/">Salim Photography (Flickr)</a>

share

Mobile Technology

From designer crops to social stocks: Our top five posts of 2012

It's holiday season here at Mercy Corps headquarters—time for the Global Envision team to look back on our work this year and look to what's next.

Kevin Spencer (flickr)"/>

share

Value Chains

Why the biggest brand sometimes isn't the best innovation partner

A new case study of the Ethiopian bean industry includes a depressing anecdote reminding us that innovation rarely starts at the top of the market.

share

Social Enterprise

Quotable: Social enterprise needs both smart grants and investment

"Philanthropy has more than one tool," writes Felix Oldenburg of Ashoka in Forbes today:

Traditional cooking fire in Myanmar. Photo: B. Manser for Mercy Corps.

share

Sustainable Energy

Clean cookstoves in Mozambique lure big investors

This article was republished by The Christian Science Monitor .

B Lab, 5 minutes to curtain. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/structures-nyc-photos/5280663070/">flickr, Structures:NYC</a>

share

Social Enterprise

B Lab looks to make social enterprises great and powerful

In the world of social businesses and impact investing, B Lab is the man behind the curtain.

A Malawian farmer in her groundnut plot. Photo: <ahref:http://www.flickr.com/photos/44760652@N05/7337617292/">CIMMYT (Flickr)</a>.

share

Value Chains

Farm growth fights poverty twice as fast as other growth

The most equitable way a country can stimulate a post-conflict economy is to invest in agriculture, an African nonprofit says.

Pages