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Category Archives: Financing
January 17, 2013, 9:17 am
Opportunity International Spins Off Insurance Company
Jacob Chikayiko (right), a farmer in Malawi, bought insurance from MicroEnsure to protect against crop failure caused by inclement weather. (Photograph by Opportunity International)
Many people in the developing world are one failed crop, one illness, or one emergency away from financial ruin. In 2008, Opportunity International started MicroEnsure to provide low-cost insurance to the people the microfinance charity serves.
“If something happens and they run into a season where they have a poor crop or they have some unusual weather, they can lose everything in one season,” Vicki Escarra, chief executive of Opportunity International, says of the farmers her group works with in Africa. “Setting up insurance provides them with stability so they don’t lose everything.”
MicroEnsure provides a variety of…
January 11, 2013, 9:53 am
Impact Investors Report Satisfaction—and Cite Challenges
Most foundations and other institutions that make investments that seek both social and financial returns say the approach is meeting their expectations on both counts, according to a new report published by JPMorgan and the Global Impact Investing Network.
In the survey of 99 organizations that each manage at least $10-million in so-called impact investments, 84 percent said that those investments were meeting their expectations when it comes to social and environmental benefits. Fourteen percent said the investments’ social returns were outperforming their expectations, while only 2 percent said they were underperforming.
When it came to financial performance, 68 percent said their impact investments were meeting their expectations and 21 percent said they were exceeding expectations. Eleven percent said the investments failed to meet their financial expectations.
Spectrum of …
September 11, 2012, 9:07 am
Cash Rewards Spur Poor Communities to Pay for Sanitation Projects
Children try out a new hand-washing station. (Photograph by East Meets West Foundation)
An international aid charity is taking an unorthodox approach to helping people in Cambodia and Vietnam improve sanitation and hygiene: It asks beneficiaries to help pay for the construction of latrines and hand-washing stations, but then gives them cash rewards when they get results. The effort will now spread, thanks to a $10.9-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The East Meets West Foundation, in Oakland, Calif., works with local groups to provide hygiene education, train masons to build high-quality latrines, and broker low-cost loans that families can use to install latrines and hand-washing devices. Families receive a $10 rebate to help offset construction costs after an independent group has…
June 1, 2012, 9:37 am
Competitions Seek Examples of Nonprofit Innovation
Several competitions that focus on innovation in nonprofit financing and programs are accepting applications:
• The Alliance for Global Good wants to encourage innovation in nonprofit financing to help top-performing organizations diversify their sources of revenue to become more sustainable and self-reliant.
The alliance is currently accepting grant applications for its Innovation Fund from charities that seek to fight poverty or focus on health, education, the environment, and global affairs. Applicants must be tax-exempt organizations in the United States that are at least 10 years old.
The deadline for applications is June 27. The alliance will host a conference call on June 11 to answer questions about the fund and the application process.
• Charities can apply for the 2012 Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation. The first-place prize is $100,000, second…
March 23, 2012, 6:02 pm
Real Innovation in Social Change Lies in Reinvention
“Innovation” has become such a buzzword lately, particularly among people working on social change. But let’s take a step back and talk about what the word could really mean. Innovation is more than just new ideas. To me, it means taking a completely new approach to how we finance, structure, and prove social change.
The nonprofit world has never lacked new ideas to address problems. In fact, you could argue that nonprofits are innately entrepreneurial, being borne out of a recognized market failing and a new idea to remedy it.
The need, then, is not more new ideas. Rather, true innovation lies in reinventing a field built on social change.
Here are some ways that is starting to happen:
New support mechanisms. The avenues for sending money to social-change efforts are increasing significantly. What started 10 years ago with venture philanthropy has now expanded into…
November 15, 2011, 9:29 am
New Fund to Promote Innovation in Philanthropy
The Alliance for Global Good, a grant-making organization in Greensboro, N.C., is starting a fund to promote innovation in philanthropy. While the exact size of the fund hasn’t been decided, organization officials say it is likely to be in the $10-million range.
The alliance hopes that the fund will draw attention to charities that have found new approaches to tough problems and provide money to help them expand their work, says David M. Brand, the organization’s chief executive.
“There are so many great ideas out there,” he says. “How can you get them front and center?”
The alliance will announce the new fund Tuesday at the Inaugural Bipartisan Congressional Conference on Innovation in Giving and Philanthropy, which will feature discussions about social entrepreneurship and the role of technology in philanthropy, as well as a speech by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg…
October 19, 2011, 5:07 pm
A Star Turn for Little-Understood Banking Groups
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Starbucks customers who give $5 or more to the Create Jobs for USA campaign will receive an Indivisible wristband.
While the Opportunity Finance Network welcomes a big donation by Starbucks to its member organizations, the network hopes the new partnership will also raise the profile of its members—nonprofit groups that provide banking services in low-income communities—and help them do a better job of explaining their missions.
The coffee giant is kicking off the Create Jobs for USA campaign with a $5-million gift—and starting November 1, the company will be asking customers at its 6,800 stores to contribute as well.
The money will go to the more than 180 community-development finance institutions that make up the network. These organizations make loans to small…
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