How can we address rising income inequality? One way is quality job creation. For over two decades, Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) have invested over $35 billion in underserved communities and yet remain one of the best kept secrets in impact investing. Hear from a group of …

Needn’t be a full program. Could provide an interstitial poem or set of poems, before lunch, inbetween panels, here & there, etc. Some apt poems I might read aloud include: Naomi Shahib Nye’s Kindness ( http://www.elise.com/q/naomi.htm ) | Pablo Naruda’s Keeping Quiet ( http://bit.ly/1Ki4cTY ) | Galway …

A discussion of the millions of kids in our country’s 100,000 public schools who eat half of their calories in schools but don’t have access to healthy, nutritious food. One in three of our kids are on track to develop diabetes in their lifetime. For kids of …

“In Africa, when an old man dies, it’s a library burning.” In the last three years moved by theses words of Malian writer and ethnologist, Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Italian Specialist in Cultural Heritage, Pierpaolo Ceciliani, has developed a complex safeguard project which applies an innovative method using …

“Is you 401(k) plan destroying the future you want to retire into? If so, then it’s time for a change. Shifting your 401(k) choices to go green, fossil free, and sustainable is possible. But you have to commit, and follow through. Learn how to green your 401(k) …

In 2007 Agora launched a fund focused on early-stage high potential businesses in Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. The goal of the fund was to build a case for investing to produce both measurable financial and social returns using a innovative approach. …

As impact investors move into sectors that have traditionally dominated by industries with harmful social and environmental legacies, what can they learn from those experiences? This session explores the due diligence and operational rules that investors like the World Bank have developed over the past decades in …

In his Keynote Session, Steven Koltai will discuss his new book, Peace Through Entrepreneurship: Investing in a Startup Culture for Security and Development (Brookings Institution Press, 2016). The central theme of the book is that joblessness is the root cause of the instability that often leads to …

30 minutes, each. Last year, on my own initiative, I facilitated meditation prior to each day’s conference; over a dozen people showed up each morning. Before Day One’s events : 20-minute guided meditation on full awareness of breathing Day Two : 20-minute walking meditation on the grounds …

Work-life balance, founder compensation,, and self-care are often replaced with self-sacrifice, relationship woes, and ramen in the conversation around traits of successful social entrepreneurs. In this workshop, 4 startup founders will share their life-tested tools, (hard) lessons learned, trade-offs, and tips for successfully building a sustainable venture …

Experiments with pay-for-success funding (social impact bonds) are under way in a growing list of countries - but significant barriers to the model’s widespread adoption remain. Many of the hurdles stem from the inherent tension between the interests of government and private investors, which are not easily …

Daryl Collins, author of Portfolios of the Poor and MD of Bankable Frontier Associates (BFA), will present new work funded by the Omidyar Network that characterizes the role women play in low income households in Mexico, India and Kenya. This new research leverages a set of Financial …

Often the first step in impact investing is to define your values, but this is easier said than done and not a skill that most investment professionals learn. In this interactive workshop, impact investors and their advisors are invited to discuss values, how they influence behavior, and …

Today, more than one billion people do not have access to clean, pathogen-free, safe drinking water. According the World Health Organization (WHO), “by 2025, half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas.” Water purity is an ever-growing global problem, and today’s solutions for water …

Over the past few decades, the social enterprise spectrum has brought about innovative solutions that provide communities at the base of the income pyramid with low-cost access to virtually all the basic goods and services required to eliminate most poverty conditions. In an age where social innovation …

We want you to be in our audience for a practical, fun, and interactive quiz-show-style session at SOCAP16! Social Enterprises, mission-driven organizations and investors, join us as we explore the tricky impact investment conversations that involve the head and the heart. Together, we’ll ask and answer these …

The world is like pre-moneyball baseball, full of bias and inefficiency. But, as the world becomes more open and connected, there is no reason why any organization or individual can’t be quickly and easily matched with recommendations of potential collaborators, and have their collaborations easily actionable within …

Increasingly, Fortune 500 companies are peering into the halls of impact accelerators and investment funds to connect more than just their CSR departments to social enterprise sector. Mounting data on consumer trends, talent retention, and environmental risk necessitates collaboration with emerging social enterprises. Yet, disparities in nimbleness, …

What is my target market? Would it be easier to simply license out my technology? Should I engage in a partnership to supplement my organization’s capability gaps? How do I go about finding the right partner? If you are an early stage innovator or entrepreneur, then you …

Value for Women, Oxfam America and the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs´ regional chapter of Central America have been working together over the past year to create an innovative toolkit for integrating men´s engagement and support for women economic empowerment programs. The toolkit was created in response …

Anne Claire Broughton will overview the importance of creating an engaged company culture, highlighting innovative firms interviewed for The Hitachi Foundation’s Business Action Guide Series. One of those companies, Tom Walter of Tasty Catering, will share best practices and lessons learned about creating a culture of high …

Education is fundamental to breaking intergenerational poverty. Library For All (LFA), a nonprofit building a digital library for developing countries, was founded on a simple and proven premise: access to high quality books, particularly in mother tongue languages, will improve educational outcomes worldwide. LFA delivers locally relevant books …

According to CGAP, an estimated 500 million smallholder farming households (representing 2.5 billion people) rely to varying degrees on agricultural production for their livelihoods. However, smallholder agriculture remains an immensely underserved sector. Market failures obstruct access to appropriate, timely and affordable financial services and extension services for …

There are several models used by for-profit businesses that have varying levels of focus on “doing good” and varying ways that the focus is incorporated in marketing strategies. Some of these models include techniques such as conscious consumerism, which includes buy-one, get-one (BOGO), and responds to the …

The Social Stock Exchange is the leading avenue in the world for social enterprises to become publicly traded by investors commited to both their profitability and their social impact. Our conversation will trace social enterprises risks, challenges and opportunities from the nascent fledgling creative & tenacious startups …