Jonathan Morduch: Five takeaways from the Microfinance USA 2011 Conference
Microfinance expert and author (most recently) of Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day, Jonathan Morduch reflects on some of the things he learned at…
Twitter Roundup: March 4 – Free design toolkits, the Big Society Bank analyzed, and mother-owned businesses
Search for the hashtag #socent and you’ll find wide-ranging interest in social entrepreneurship on Twitter. Here’s a roundup of a few interesting tweets from the last week: Human-centered design work is…
Twitter Roundup: February 25 – Roving cybercafes, the scoop on branchless banking, and TEDtalks go conversational
Search for the hashtag #socent and you’ll find wide-ranging interest in social entrepreneurship on Twitter. Here’s a roundup of a few interesting tweets from the last week: In an innovative attempt…
On fundraising: Lewis Hower of the University Impact Fund
Even the best social innovations can get stalled in the ideas-phase without funds to get started. In this series social entrepreneurs discuss fundraising: strategies, pitfalls and sweat spent on the…
Design Impact: Design solutions for the developing world
Good design can innovate solutions to problems we weren’t even aware of and create products that make everyday life easier. Ramsey Ford, a co-founder of Design Impact, spoke to Dowser…
How Nuru Lights markets LEDs via networks of micro-entrepreneurs
While driving through a village in Rwanda, Sameer Hajee came across a mother walking with her two-year-old son, who had severe burns covering a third of his body. The cause:…
On Food: How One Acre Fund’s Andrew Youn helps subsistence farmers in Africa to double their yields
With Thanksgiving approaching, we’re turning an eye to the question of food — specifically how it moves from the soil to the grocery bag, in New York and Africa alike….
Filling the Gap Between Farm and Fair Trade
We’ve all seen the ads for fair trade coffee with the beautiful photos of villagers hand picking coffee cherries in exotic regions around the globe. Fair trade is one of…
Twitter Roundup – October 22: Dollars for Docs, Kiva goes domestic, and the DoE tells you how to save energy at home
Search for the hashtag #socent and you’ll find wide-ranging interest in social entrepreneurship on Twitter. Here’s a roundup of a few thought-provoking tweets from the last week: Investigative journalism outfit…
Twitter Roundup – September 24: Student microloans, sparkling water, dog poop, and cruise ship greenhouses
Search for the hashtag #socent and you’ll find wide-ranging interest in social entrepreneurship on Twitter. Here’s a roundup of a few thought-provoking tweets from the last week: That’s right, microlending…
WATCH: David Bornstein talks about storytelling, problem solving and the idea behind Dowser
We thought our readers might enjoy a recent talk given by our founder, David Bornstein, at the Good Experience Live (Gel) conference in New York. It sheds light on our…
Top 5 graduation speeches for changemakers
Break out the champagne and mortarboards—it’s graduation time! A century and a half ago, abolitionist Robert Purvis said, “A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands…
Interview: Gina Harman uses small loans to combat big recession
When the U.S. economy took a nose dive, and banks cut back on lending, many small American businesses turned to a credit source typically associated with the developing world: microfinance….
Profiting from the poor: The ethics of microfinance
Thirty years ago, microfinance was a crazy idea. The notion that villagers, or slum dwellers, let alone women, could manage loans, and repay them dependably, was considered absurd. When I…
Marrying microfinance and education
Last week President Obama signed a bill that will make the government the primary provider of student loans, stripping banks of that power. This will lead to vast government savings,…
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