Category: NGOs

Next time, do the math

6 June, 2008 (08:02) | Global news, Housing, Microfinance, NGOs | No comments

About a month back, a friend of mine working on housing and microfinance sent me a link to a Time Magazine article with the provocative title, Microfinance: Women Being Cheated?
 
As microfinance moves more and more into the mainstream of the banking world, is some of its original mission getting lost in the shuffle?
 

Notice how […]

Mission entrepreneurial entities (MEEs)

9 May, 2008 (09:50) | Essential posts, MEEs, NGOs, Theory | No comments

What with my work with Slum Dwellers International, I’ve been spending inordinate time thinking about SDI’s members, which are federations of local savings co-operatives, and hearing descriptions of what they will do with money (as we’re calling it in SDI lingo, a Spend) if they get it from SDI’s in-development International Urban Poor Development Fund.    […]

The talent updraft

1 February, 2008 (10:09) | NGOs, Theory | No comments

In public-policy terms, I’m a dinosaur. 

Large, slow-moving, and up to my haunches in the swamps
 
I’ve outlived about five generations of the talent updraft — the loss of our best and brightest to other sectors, and other jobs, filched away from the lure of more money.
 
The talent updraft is an intrinsic feature of working in affordable […]