Matt Bishop of The Economist recently interviewed prolific inventor and global poverty innovator Paul Polak about his views on how best to reduce poverty on a large scale for base-of-pyramid (BOP) populations (< $2/day PPP income). A few highlights on Paul’s comments from the below video interview: We will not make a meaningful impact on… Continue reading BOP-focused businesses need to reach 100 million customers
Well-run microfinance banks are now starting to attract new and interesting sources of growth capital from investors including Legatum, Unitus Equity Fund, AAvishkaar Goodwell, Vinod Khosla, Accion Investments, Sequoia Capital and many others. This is great news as the “elephant in the room” issue for microfinance is that globally microfinance is currently serving at most… Continue reading The funding gap for BOP businesses
I am increasingly convinced that businesses focused on serving the world’s poorest 4 billion citizens are a very good investment whether you are looking for financial return and/or positive social impact return. That is, for those of us who seek to end poverty, the scale and sustainability potential of businesses focused on this “market segment”… Continue reading Businesses focused on the world’s poorest
Ebay recently opened a new web site called MicroPlace which enables individuals to make loans to the world’s working very poor. This enables what I refer to as Socially Responsible Investing version 2 … choosing to make a positive social impact with your investing. Here’s generally how it works: You can preview the investment options… Continue reading Ebay enables investing in microfinance
Good video on the concept of patient capital from TED conference. Jacqueline Novogratz is pioneering new ways of tackling poverty. In her view, traditional charity rarely delivers lasting results. Her solution, outlined here through a series of revealing personal stories, is “patient capital”: support for “bottom of the pyramid” businesses which the commercial market alone… Continue reading Patient capital
Unitus announced last week that they’ve raised a US$23 million private equity fund to invest in microfinance. I was able to catch up with Chris Brookfield, Director of Unitus Equity Fund, last week to find out more about this announcement. Dave: What is Unitus announcing today?Chris: Unitus is announcing the closing the Unitus Equity Fund… Continue reading Innovative Microfinance Equity Fund
Our family recently decided to put some savings to work for social good … more particularly for helping out extremely poor entrepreneurs. We made two investments. Yes, investments, not donations. We didn’t get a charitable contribution receipt and we expect to get our investment monies back with earnings. 1. Unitus Equity Fund (UEF). This is… Continue reading Doing What I Talk About
There has been a lot of interest in the so-called socially responsible investing (SRI) approach to investing. One report I saw [can’t remember source] is that 10% (or $1 out of every $10) is now invested with this philosophy representing north of US$2 trillion. Almost all of this money to date is invested in what… Continue reading Socially Responsible Investing v2
GlobalGiving.com was setup as a grassroots organization to match small-scale donors with entrepreneurs addressing social problems in developing nations. They describe themselves as an “online marketplace for international giving.” They address projects in categories including healthcare, the environment and education. Donors can browse and select by geography. Global Giving is a non-profit, so gifts are… Continue reading Personalized Development Donations
I discovered a new microfinance service called Kiva which is attempting to truly enable person-to-person loans between a loan provider in developed countries and a low-income borrower in developing country. I am very interested in these kind of innovations because there are currently very few options for middle-class North Americans to invest (not donate) their… Continue reading Personalizing Microfinance
Defeat Poverty 