It is time organizations began recognizing the immense payoff that women offer not only in the United States and in the industrialized nations around the world but also in emerging and developing economies.
Professor Muhammad Yunus is no stranger to special honors -- having won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to alleviate global poverty through microlo...
As we celebrate our success in defeating global poverty, let's not forgot the portion of those still caught in its trap, struggling to reach the bottom rung - and the innovative solutions being deployed to get them there.
Rather than complaining that microloans aren't enough, those who support microfinance can work on figuring out how to use these great institutional resources to accomplish more.
Our digital world creates distance instead of closeness, but this month can be an exception. "Tag" a friend with "#tagURit," and joinFITE will contribute $1 towards a microloan that will empower a woman entrepreneur.
In Silicon Valley, we deploy technologies and networks to change the world. Can we deploy these techniques in an effort to break the worldwide cycle of poverty at a scale in the millions?
Mumbai -- A unique public-private partnership involving private sector giants like Unilever and Heinz is improving the health of Indian children. Two ...
In 2008 we began to help our students' caretakers, their elderly grandmothers. What began as a handful of guardians has blossomed into a program assisting over 6,200 grannies who are self-organized into 91 groups in three districts.
"A rising tide of women in an economy raises the fortunes of all families and all nations ... we don't have a person to waste and we certainly don't have a gender to waste."
Let's hope that for-profit companies can balance profit motives with social impact because government and nonprofits can't solve the world's problems by themselves.
How do we address the looming problem of youth unemployment in the developing world? The question was top of mind Monday at the United Nations Economi...
What else can the tech world do to engage more women to start and lead companies?
Impact investing has developed out of traditional philanthropy in an effort to find solutions that allow investors to make profitable investments that can also address social and environmental challenges.
The non-profit Freedom From Hunger is working to help 1.3 million women facing extreme poverty in developing nations work hard towards goals to grow, advance, and develop themselves, their families, and their communities.
One of the interesting things about microfinance in Bangladesh is that its intense market saturation has not resulted in a crisis of over-indebtedness or unmanageable default. "Overlapping" is common -- that is, clients taking loans from several MFIs at the same time.
The microfinance revolution created new ways for the world's poor to secure loans. But microfinance institutions normally don't have the capacity or authority to finance community-level infrastructure projects.
This is the story of one donation, unfolding over time, to affect thousands. Each year, the value of that initial donation expands to new heights and just like that, the impossible becomes reality.
A major problem in Guatemala is the economic disincentive for kids to go to school. Either you can pay for tuition and books from money a family doesn't have, or send your child into the fields to make money for food. Carlos was a rare advocate for an alternative solution.
I encourage you to find a philanthropic cause that provides meaning in your life. For Dermalogica, and for me personally, it has always been about women entrepreneurs.
With a booming social enterprise sector, a number of the world's leading academics, Nobel Prize winners and thinkers, a vibrant private sector, and world-class NGOs like Pratham, India has been dubbed the innovation hub for the West.
The Campus Microfinance Alliance, a coalition of student-run microfinance groups, recently launched a new campaign to spur job growth for budding entr...
Across the microfinance industry a deep examination of performance is underway, as well as work to create structures that will incentivize good practices.
Microenterprises on average only employ a few people, but they create job opportunities where very few exist. One individual we supported was Jassim, a young Iraqi entrepreneur who was the sole supporter of his three younger siblings.
"Slavery" may seem like a word from another century, but it is still pervasive in many parts of the world. In fact, there are more slaves today than in any other period in history.
To America's lasting shame, aching hunger lives down the street because our national "war on poverty" is long-since abandoned.
