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The Role of Philanthropy in Impact Investing Part 2: Silicon Valley Without Stanford

Lack of Pipeline is Impact Investing’s Biggest Problem The conversation surrounding the recent Monitor report (From Blueprint to Scale: The Case for Philanthropy in Impact Investing) focuses on the role of philanthropy in supporting game-changing business models that might not … Continue reading

The Case for Philanthropy in Impact investing

The Report The latest must-read report on impact investing suggests the field needs to invest more philanthropy into building a market for early-stage entrepreneurship. Philanthropic investors should listen. From Blueprint to Scale: The Role of Philanthropy in Impact Investing, written … Continue reading

The most important impact investing conference….that has nothing to do with impact investing

“The purpose of the university…is impact, not output.” - Michael Crow, President, Arizona State University. I’ve just returned from the future, and I’m pumped. Ashoka U Exchange 2012 was a fantastic conference. Unlike many conferences out there, this one had a clear … Continue reading

Three Key Camps at the Heart of the Impact Investing Movement

If you are like many people, you are new to impact investing, have a mild notion of what it is, and believe that it could be important, maybe even revolutionary. But this notion is tempered by massive confusion surrounding the … Continue reading

Gratitude to the Servant Leaders of B Lab

Recently, I walked into one of the most beautiful and magnificent rooms I have ever seen – the walls were completely covered in vines and flowers. In front of me were three charming men, each offering me and the other … Continue reading

Antony Bugg-Levine: “My biggest failure at Rockefeller Foundation”

Antony Bugg-Levine Last week I sat on a panel at Columbia Business School’s Social Enterprise Conference moderated by Antony Bugg-Levine. As some may know, Antony’s influence on the creation of the impact investing industry has been massive. In his capacity … Continue reading

Can we sprinkle SoCap’s pixie dust to the developing world?

Next week, over a thousand people will descend on Fort Hood in San Francisco for Social Capital Markets or SoCap. The conference, in its fourth year, is a paean to the sustainable capitalism movement and will be filled with the kind of people who are, relative to the rest of the populations, off-the-charts optimistic. Continue reading

Entrepreneurs vs. Empresarios

Outside Silicon Valley, the world is not so enthusiastic about entrepreneurship. In Central America, where we work, the word has a stigma. Continue reading

The Man Who Dreamed of Growing Oysters

We have been working with entrepreneurs in Nicaragua since 2005. The first entrepreneur we worked with was a man named Jaime Salazar. Everybody loved Jaime and everybody loved his dream – to build a world-class oyster farm off the coast … Continue reading

What’s Holding Back the Impact Investment Movement?

Agora’s Impact Investor Conference July 12-15 – Connecting capital with the best opportunities for impact in Central America. Get to know the companies that will define impact entrepreneurship in the region. Continue reading

Entrepreneurial Leadership

The world needs more impact entrepreneurs. The question then is how to bring this situation to be? It seems like a very daunting task — and it is. (And it’s one reason we have adopted the classic Ernest Shackleton advert … Continue reading

The Big Picture: Impact Entrepreneurs

As I’ve said before, we need as many entrepreneurs and concerned citizens to step up as possible. We need more entrepreneurs who can imagine the future and make it happen. We need more concerned citizens who feel obligated to make … Continue reading

Social Capital – Agora Retreat Part II

What is the hardest kind of capital for entrepreneurs to find in the developing world? A strong argument can be made that it’s social capital – basically a feeling of trust, community, and mutually agreed upon norms and expectations that … Continue reading

It’s Working. Thoughts on Agora’s Entrepreneur Retreat.

It’s working. We just wrapped up our first Agora Entrepreneur retreat and I couldn’t be more pleased exhilarated, really. From our cabins we could see in the near distance the bay of San Juan del Sur, where Vanderbilt’s ships used … Continue reading

The Big Picture: Entrepreneurs and Concerned Citizens

If you are reading this post, chances are you already know we humans are facing many challenges right now. Approximately 1.5 billion people living in poverty; lack of rights and opportunities, especially for women; a planetary eco-system strained to the … Continue reading

What a Miniature Golf Course Taught Me About Development

This blog, which we are re-launching today, is about people who do things – and how can we help them. Our focus is on a particular type of person — impact entrepreneurs — and their journey. Continue reading