Mathu Jeyaloganathan is currently finishing her undergraduate degree in Business Administration at the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. She first gained an interest in social enterprise and international development while working for Western Heads East, a university run organization that helps women in Tanzania start up yogurt businesses. This past summer, Mathu gained experience in banking and social finance which has motivated her to pursue a career in impact investing and venture capital focused geographically in Sub-Saharan Africa. She currently lives in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium where she spends her weekend exploring the forgotten neighborhoods of Europe's most eccentric cities. When not traveling or reading, you can usually find Mathu on a football pitch, playing a game of pickup.
Though government plays an integral role in the formation and potential success of Social Impact Bonds, its own shortsightedness might be strangling one of the best tools at its disposal for social impact.
A lack of basic business acumen could affect the long-term survival of nonprofits and inhibit the development of the impact investing and nonprofit sectors.
Armed with a nonprofit background, an impact investor is helping his firm bridge the empty spaces of a sector still discovering itself.
Human capital contracts are a new and innovative method to finance university and post-graduate education. These equity-like arrangements could provide a solution to education accessibility issues for students in developing countries. In 2008, four professors from the Harvard Business School published a book entitled Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector. They suggest that a business-like approach in the social sector would help to maximize its impact and value.
Of the 197 companies that attended the 2013 meeting of Partnering for Global Impact in Lugano, Switzerland, only 17 were from Asia. Of that 17, four were from China or Southeast Asia. During my stay at the conference, this statistic would profoundly mirror back to me, when Tao Zhang, Managing Director for the China Global Impact Fund, said, “China [is] being put on the shelf.” Why hasn’t impact investing taken off in China & Southeast Asia? An analysis of key cultural, demographic and perceptual factors could explain why North American and European firms are hesitant to enter the industry.
The underlying principles of recycling and their relevance in a business model can be used to revive local economies.
The concept of reusing human resources and abandoned physical assets if applied correctly can be the catalyst towards increasing economic activity. Archer Groupe located in Romans-sur-Isère in Drome, France is a prime example of a successful application of this unique concept.
BERLIN, Germany – For someone who still believes he has trouble articulating his ideas and vision for the future, Juergen Griesbeck, CEO and founder of streetfootballworld has gained enormous clout in the football industry for effectively illuminating the tremendous potential football has in social development. In 2002 Griesbeck created streetfootballworld, an organization that employs a network model to connect organizations all over the world that use football as a tool to tackle social issues such as homelessness, HIV/AIDS and landmine awareness. Ten years later, streetfootballworld has become synonymous with the idea of sports as an agent for change. The non-profit organization has grown to include close to 100 separate organizations in over 60 different countries and has even formed a partnership with football’s global governing body – FIFA. Yet even with the progress that has been made, Griesbeck admits that work still needs to be done to embed the idea of football as a tool for social development in the heart of powerful governing organizations, clubs and players that shape the football industry.