Inspired? Make an Offer

Job creation and enterprise development

Results are sorted by date modified.

European Commission (EC) - How to apply for grants from the European Social Fund

This page provides a brief overview of how to participate in European Social Fund actions. The European Social Fund (ESF) is one of the main funding streams provided by the European Commission, and is based on co-financing and shared management. The ESF provides support for five key areas of...

Make Poverty Business: Increase Profits and Reduce Risks by Engaging with the Poor

Make Poverty Business: Increase Profits and Reduce Risks by Engaging with the Poor (2006) is a book by Craig Wilson and Peter Wilson that sets out to provide a blueprint for on-the-ground managers of multinational corporations to create sustainable profits and reduce country risk by helping...

Doing business with the poor - a field guide

The Guide explores the way in which several leading companies, including Shell, Coca Cola and Procter and Gamble, are developing inclusive business models designed to assist them to create new revenue streams while serving the needs of the poor through sound commercial operations. The companies are...

People at the heart of sustainable business - the IBLF Annual Review 2008-9

The IBLF annual review examines the way in which the Forum has been contributing to the development of sustainable business, arguing that the members of the Forum are leaders in this field, and that IBLF has a particular understanding of the way in which business solutions can contribute to...

Social enterprises 'growing strongly'

The UK's social enterprises - businesses trading for social or environmental purposes - bucked the recent recession, a report has said.

BBC article: So Afr-Eco Community Upliftment Project (SAECUP)

SAECUP is a non-profit organisation established a decade ago in South Africa to provide refuge for poor women and children. This BBC article explains the history behind SAECUP, and includes an interview with the founder. Over 130 woman are involved in a micro enterprise project, which transforms...

Microcredit Summit

Micro credit programmes offer small loans, and other financial services such as savings, to very poor people for self-employment projects that generate income, allowing them to care for themselves and their families. The Micro credit Summit Campaign brings together micro credit practitioners,...

Trade Finance: Make it work for women

Trade Finance: Make it work for women, a news article, reports that women make up 70% of the world's poor, and it is important that they be given access to finance, which is critical to business success. The global financial crisis exacerbates an already dissatisfactory situation of trade financing...

Linking Business with Pro-Poor Development

Linking Business with Pro-Poor Development explores two key questions, How can business be pro-poor? and How can such partnerships be made sustainable? The document showcases how an innovative private-community partnership transformed the livelihoods of highly vulnerable families in far flung...

Virtual Library on Microcredit

The Virtual Library on Microcredit is an online resource published by the Global Development Research Centre. The Library collects articles, conference reports, case studies, publications on microcredit issues and lists of microcredit organisations. It also provides links to internet resources...

Inclusive Business: Profitable business for successful development

Inclusive Business: Profitable business for successful development, a paper published by The Alliance for Inclusive Business and the WBCSD, defines Inclusive Business as one that seeks to contribute to poverty alleviation by including lower-income communities within its value chain while not losing...

Business and Poverty: Opening markets to the poor

Business and Poverty: Opening markets to the Poor, an issue of Development Outreach published by the World Bank Institute, discusses how companies can operate profitably in emerging market economies, while enhancing the well-being of the poor by nurturing them as producers and consumers. The...

The Hard Work of Measuring Social Impact

Professor Alnoor Ebrahim of Harvard Business School explains how he thinks non-profit managers should respond to increasing demands from donors to measure social performance. The concepts he examines in a recent article include: * Rather than simply complying with the demands of the most...

Nonprofit Networking: The New Way to Grow

How can a nonprofit increase its social impact? Many would say it needs to grow big to be strong. Instead, says Harvard Business School professor Jane Wei-Skillern, the answer could be in the power of strategic networks.

The Global Social Venture Competition

The Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) is the largest and oldest student-led business plan competition providing mentoring, exposure, and prizes for social ventures from around the world. The competition aims to catalyse the creation of social ventures, educate future leaders and build...

New guidelines to help investors measure success of microfinance institutions

According to this news article, socially responsible investors are choosing to invest in microfinance to help alleviate poverty. By means of often very small loans, financial services, and technology, microfinance helps the poor, often women, to start self-sustaining businesses in order to escape...

Social Enterprise Summit 2010

With over 730 attendees the 2010 Summit was the bigges event organised by the Enterprise Alliance. Social entrepreneurs and enthusiasts from over 30 countries around the world convened for three days in April, attending sessions and panels, sharing ideas and making connections. Most importantly,...

Stimulating Youth Entrepreneurship - Barriers and incentives to enterprise start-ups by young people

The world’s population is growing at a time when traditional, stable labour markets are shrinking. More than 1 billion people today are between 15 and 24 years of age and nearly 40 per cent of the world’s population is below the age of 20. The ILO estimates that 47 per cent of all unemployed...

Millennium Development Goals Report 2008

Millennium Development Goals Report 2008 is a report based on a master set of data that has been compiled by an Inter-Agency and Expert Group on MDG Indicators led by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, in response to the wishes of the General Assembly...