Emerging Market Philanthropreneurs Alive and Well, and Wanted!

We've gotten a lot of traffic and interest in our posting on Philanthropreneurs.

For more on such individuals and ventures in emerging markets, we'd like to pass on the recommendation of Derek Newberry of the World Resources Institute. He alerted us to the existence of a solid list of examples on the WRI blog. Check out their New Ventures program . Thanks Derek -- very helpful referral.

Another comment on our blog is also worth picking up on. A Colombian NGO writes that "the challenges for NGOs is access to financing beyond donations and grants," and asks: "How can we have access to social investors that are looking for a social return and not necessarily an economic return?".

Any social investor out there who'd like to tackle this question?

Comments

[Gavin Chait]

Your comment: "the challenges for NGOs is access to financing beyond donations and grants" is wrongly phrased.

In the capital markets companies are familiar with the idea of disclosure and a plethora of analysts and ratings firms who recommend and rank different companies. No such system exists in the NGO sector and so investors have no idea who, what and how much is necessary.

This the reason I recently started my company - a rating firm for NGOs.

Whythawk Ratings (white-hawk) promotes economic development by impartially measuring and rating the effectiveness of the health, welfare and poverty relief interventions of development organisations and charities. Whythawk also conducts research on behalf of donors to investigate regional development needs and assist in ongoing surveillance and vigilance of their interventions thereafter.

http://www.whythawk.com/