Rising Pyramid |

Looking at Collective Impact: Does Social Business Solve Poverty?

February 4, 2010

Most social businesses share the ultimate goal of solving global poverty by fixing various underlying development issues. Each organization is a piece of the puzzle, but how do we know whether social businesses are having any success as a whole? In his book “Small Change: Why business won’t save the world”, Michael Edwards argues that business is not the answer (as described on Social Edge here). Though I believe that Edwards is wrong (Full disclosure: I haven’t read the book yet, but am eager to report back once I do), how can we demonstrate that social business is the answer to the problems of the world’s poorest?

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Are we judging organizations like Kiva the right way?

February 2, 2010

By Christopher Cuellar

A recent article by Adam Kemmis Betty, a Kiva fellow in Boliva, tries to provide some supportive reasoning for the existence of Kiva, and more generally, the concept of micro-finance. He starts off the article with a “disheartening” stat (citing a Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) report) that

…institutional and individual investors, including pension funds, commercial banks and online lending platforms such as Kiva, only amounted to 7% of total funding for the microfinance industry in 2008.

While acknowledging that this data is inclusive up through December 2007, I aim to ask a broader question: Should that be the metric used to justify the point of Kiva and other microfinance organizations? What are we trying to rank microfinance organizations on? Are we even trying to rank them? Read more »

Trust the locals: the power of partnership & lessons from Haiti

January 28, 2010

By Bryan Farris

The meat aisle at a 'grocery store' in Vietnam

If you’ve ever traveled to a developing country, you’ve experienced how different and unique the culture is. Even simple day to day activities such as shopping for food or buying a souvenir can involve a process that is brand new to you as an outsider. Sometimes your shopping experience is enlightening, while other times it may just seem down-right crazy. As an example, when I was in Zanzibar, an arts & crafts market was being shut down by the government and cops were literally destroying all the arts and crafts that the merchants owned. Despite the fact that their goods would soon be destroyed, the vendors were completely unwilling to budge on prices with me. Read more »

Why do you pay attention to the BoP?

January 25, 2010

By Christopher Cuellar

During the last couple of weeks, an international spotlight has been shone on Haiti and their desperate need for aid. Donations have poured out through a previously underutilized medium – texting – and through the more traditional ways like telethons with celebrities. Right now public interest in helping out those less fortunate is running high. Media coverage on Haiti is around the clock and will most likely continue to be high for the weeks to come. However, when the weeks turn into months, will the rest of America go back to leading their normal lives and ‘forget’ about the base of the pyramid? How do we sustain the international interest in our cause?

Please Stop Donating: Why aid can’t solve global poverty by itself

January 21, 2010

By Bryan Farris

Photo Credit: Flickr User JAS662

Many of us in the developed world want to do good by donating money to help the cause of solving global poverty. Unfortunately, donations, if applied to the wrong cause, have the potential to do more harm than good. That isn’t to say that we should stop all charitable acts; there are still plenty of very impactful projects that rely on the largesse of the wealthy. Rather, donors should be careful to make contributions that do not impede the progress of market based solutions. This blog argues that the solution to global poverty is through a new form of capitalism that includes those at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) as both consumers and suppliers. In this new system, donations have their rightful time and place, but economic incentives are the primary drivers of progress.