So much of what we do is learn, share, figure things out and as we continue developing people and nations, we are excited to have this page where we can share with you some of the amazing organizations and people working to bring better business to developing countries.
If you have a link that you would like us to add, please email: info@mbaswithoutborders.org.
BOP Social Investment Funds & Resources
Agora Partnerships
Agora Partnerships gives developing world entrepreneurs the management tools, networks and financing needed to launch successful businesses capable of creating a positive social and economic impact in their communities. We are mobilizing global networks to encourage, support and unleash entrepreneurs on the front lines of development.
CARE Enterprise Partners
CARE Enterprise Partners’ mission is to find lasting solutions to poverty and promote market inclusion by developing enterprise in the world’s poorest communities. To do this, CEP operates as a social venture capital firm, incubating business models that generate both economic and social value in ‘base of the pyramid’ markets that are otherwise below the radar of mainstream investment. As an extension of CARE Canada, CEP twins the tools of business with the community development acumen of one of the world’s largest humanitarian organizations to create commercially competitive and socially positive enterprise.
Verde Ventures
Verde Ventures, or Green Ventures, invests in small businesses with a primary goal of conserving our planet’s global biodiversity. Managed by Conservation International (CI), Verde Ventures uses debt and equity financing to support conservation-oriented businesses in CI priority areas.
Equator Initiative
The Equator Initiative is a partnership that brings together the United Nations, civil society, business, governments and communities to help build the capacity and raise the profile of grassroots efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.
A simple fact lies at the heart of the Equator Initiative’s work: the world’s greatest concentrations of biological wealth are found in the tropics, in countries that also have some of the highest levels of poverty. The good news is that communities are charting a path toward sustainability, creatively using biological resources for food, medicine, shelter and improved livelihoods in ways that raise incomes and protect the environment. The Equator Initiative champions and supports community efforts to link economic development and income generation with the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.
Acumen Fund
Acumen Fund is a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. We seek to prove that small amounts of philanthropic capital, combined with large doses of business acumen, can build thriving enterprises that serve vast numbers of the poor. Our investments focus on delivering affordable, critical goods and services – like health, water and housing – through innovative, market-oriented approaches.
EcoEnterprises Fund
EcoEnterprises Fund offers capital to environmentally and socially responsible businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Fund includes an investment fund through which it provides venture financing to profitable businesses involved in sustainable agriculture (including organic, apiculture, and aquaculture), non-timber forest products, sustainable forestry, and ecotourism. The Fund also includes limited technical assistance funds to provide business advisory services to prospective clients.
E+CO
E+Co’s vision is one of Universal Sustainable Energy and its mission is to create viable, sustainable businesses. E+Co’s underlying purpose is to stimulate long-term, institutionalized channels of investment in environmentally superior forms of energy production and use in developing countries. We see these businesses as the permanent, self-sustaining change agent. The problem addressed by E+Co is the 1.6 billion people that live without electricity and the 2.4 billion people that use dirty, dangerous fuels for cooking[1]. The situation is forecasted to remain virtually the same in 2030, despite projections that US$17 trillion (‘04$) will be spent globally on energy over the next 24 years, almost half in developing countries where the energy poor live.
Business in Development Network
Bid Network’s mission is to contribute to sustainable economic development by stimulating entrepreneurship in developing countries. The BiD Network Foundation runs the BiD Challenge and this website www.bidnetwork.org. We try to achieve this by: 1. Stimulating small and medium sized entrepreneurship to create jobs and raise income in developing countries. 2. Engaging professionals, investors and organisations offering them the opportunity to directly contribute to poverty reduction through SME development in developing countries. 3. Inspiring people that business and poverty reduction can go hand-in hand.
World Bank Development Marketplace
Development Marketplace (DM) is a competitive grant program of the World Bank that funds innovative, small-scale development projects. DM’s primary objective is to identify and support creative cutting-edge solutions to the most pressing social and economic concerns of our time; ideas that deliver results and have the potential to be expanded or replicated. In this way, the World Bank gains insight from grassroots practitioners who have important contributions to make in the fight against poverty, and can share their experience with the broader development community. Ultimately, the DM seeks to find solutions beyond established channels through an open, transparent, and competitive process with minimum cost and bureaucracy.
IFC’s The Grassroots Business Initiative (GBI)
The Grassroots Business Initiative (GBI) seeks to strengthen and scale up innovative social enterprises that create sustainable economic opportunities for the poor, empowering and engaging them as entrepreneurs, consumers, employees and suppliers. GBI supports such enterprises – referred to as grassroots business organizations – and the intermediaries that support them, with appropriate financing (grants and “patient capital” loans) and capacity building. Established in 2004, GBI now works in Africa, Latin America and Asia, with some 30 different projects aiming to bring income generating opportunities and needed products and services to the poor.
New Ventures
New Ventures has an excellent track record in assisting sustainable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets in improving their business plans and strategies, leading to company growth and investment. New Ventures selects SMEs in fast-growth, environmental sectors such as ecotourism, non-timber forest products and certified wood, organic foods and fibers, renewable energy, sustainable fisheries management, and clean technologies. These SMEs are seeking capital in the range of $100,000 to $5 million. The program matches entrepreneurs with executive mentors and consultants and teams of graduate business students (MBA) to improve the enterprise’s business plan to present at a New Ventures Investor Forum.
Kiva
Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you’ve sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back. Kiva partners with existing microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified borrowers. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva.org, our partners upload their borrower profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them.
MBAs, Business and Organizations
Net Impact
Net Impact’s mission is to make a positive impact on society by growing and strengthening a community of new leaders who use business to improve the world. With more than 130 student and professional chapters on 4 continents in 75 cities and 80 graduate schools, a central office in San Francisco, and partnerships with leading for and nonprofit organizations, Net Impact enables members to use business for social good in their graduate education, careers, and communities.
World Business Council for Sustainable Business
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a CEO-led, global association of some 190 companies dealing exclusively with business and sustainable development. The Council provides a platform for companies to explore sustainable development, share knowledge, experiences and best practices, and to advocate business positions on these issues in a variety of forums, working with governments, non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations.
International Business Leaders Forum
The International Business Leaders Forum is an international not-for-profit organisation set up in 1990 by The Prince of Wales and a group of chief executives of international companies, in response to the emerging challenges of economic growth and change in the global economy.
Its mission is to promote responsible business leadership and partnerships for social, economic and environmentally sustainable international development, particularly in new and emerging market economies. Supported by the direct involvement of the chief executives and corporate resources of over 100 of the world’s most influential international companies and private investors, IBLF has a track record of enabling leadership and sustainable solutions to local and global development challenges.
Global Business Coalition
Founded in 2001, the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GBC) has spent the past five years developing a rapidly expanding alliance of over 200 international companies dedicated to combating the AIDS epidemic through the business sector’s unique skills and expertise. Following its May 2005 appointment as the official focal point of the private sector delegation to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), GBC began seriously considering adding tuberculosis and malaria to its mandate.
MBA Enterprise Corps
CDC draws upon a broad resource base that includes volunteer advisors, MBA Corps members, professional consultants, exceptional headquarters and field staffs and in-country partner organizations. From this wealth of knowledge and talent, customized solutions are created to render individual companies, vertical business sectors and entire economies more competitive. We can meet specific needs for short-term, mid-term, or long-term interventions.
Canadian Executive Service Organization
Canadian Executive Service Organization (CESO) is a not-for-profit organization that helps to build proud independent communities. Over 3,000 distinguished Volunteer Advisers (VAs) on the CESO roster share their professional experience by serving as mentors, advisers and trainers to our clients and partners at home and abroad. VAs, all seasoned experts in their respective fields, are posted in communities to promote development, build economic capacity and support sustainable businesses
Australian Business Volunteers
Australian Business Volunteers Ltd (ABV) is a not-for-profit, non-Government organisation. ABV (formerly known as Australian Executive Service Overseas Program, and later as AESOP Business Volunteers) was jointly founded in 1981 by the then Australian Confederation of Trade and Industry and the Australian Government. ABV is largely funded by AusAID. ABV aligns itself with the aims of the Australian Government’s overseas aid program. These aims are to help reduce poverty and create sustainable development. Promoting good governance is also an important goal of the aid program. ABV contributes to poverty reduction, sustainable development and good governance by providing Australian expert volunteers who, through sharing their skills and experience, assist businesses and organisations in developing countries to grow and thrive. We focus on clients in South East Asia and the Pacific.
MWB Related Blogs & Social Networks Worth a Visit
Omidyar Network
We believe every individual has the power to make a difference. We exist for one single purpose:
So that more and more people discover their own power to make good things happen.
Social Edge
Social Edge is a program of the Skoll Foundation that was inspired by Jeff Skoll’s commitment to connecting people with shared passions. Social Edge is the global online community where social entrepreneurs and other practitioners of the social benefit sector connect to network, learn, inspire and share resources.
Business 4 Good
A blog about the intersection of business and the social good, especially Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Social Entrepreneurship
Other MWB Favorites:
Next Billion - WRI
DevelopmentEx
Clinton Global Initiative
Global Giving
The Economist
Business 2.0
Fast Company