One of my favorite social enterprises is featured on MSNBC in a pretty good 5 minute video documentary. Evergreen is a seriously successful business built around a social social model for at-risk low income kids in poor areas of the SF Bay Area…they get taken out of the gang and drug ridden environments and given […]

I thought xigi readers would appreciate this link to the proceedings of the recent St.Louis FRB conference on innovations in community development finance. It’s part of a series of similar events hosted at regional Reserves across the nation.

Locally, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco publishes the Community Development Investment Review.  The June 2007 […]

Earlier this week, MicroVest Capital Management announced that their MicroAcess Trust, more simply called “the Trust”, closed at $39 million. The $39 million portfolio will used to finance ten MFIs in Bolivia, Bosnia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Montenegro, Peru and Romania. MicroVest, the first private US microfinance investment fund, hopes that the Trust reach […]

Charles Conn wrote an article recently in Standford Social Innovation Review entitled “Robbing the Grandchildren: Foundations’ shortsightedness is jeopardizing the planet’s future.”

He points out the fact that “…only 5 percent of U.S. foundation spending goes to the environment, and a paltry 2.9 percent goes to science and technology. Of the top 50 foundation grantees

in 2004, […]

The movement for socially and environmentally responsible investing has been active and growing, but hedge funds joining in come as a surprise to many. According to an article by InvestmentNews, there seems to be a rising demand for hedge funds to heed the call for social and environmental consciousness. Read more here.

Here’s a phrase I’m using that seems to be resonating: “We’re creating market innovations to do the things the societal safety net used to do. Since the market swallowed the public square, that’s just the way it is..” I’ve thought about using guilt at that point; like “The market has a responsibility to do that.” […]

The MacArthur foundation, perhaps best known for the so-called genius grants it hands out each year, has given the Center on Public Diplomacy of the University of Southern California $550,000 to stage events in Second Life, including discussions of how foundations can address issues like migration and education, reports the NY Times. Lucy Bernholz finds […]

I’ve been talking to a lot of young entrepreneurs lately, some of whom have businesses that are ready for the fund we are raising at GoodCap, and some who are not quite there, but could get there if they make the right moves along the way. The ones who are still perfecting the model are […]

Forbes.com did a story recently, The New Activist Givers, (06-01-07) about the trend in activism and giving. The article highlighted the work of The Wealth & Giving Forum, Venture PhilanthropyPartners and Acumen Fund.

Who are these other in-your-face crowd? “These young activists are mostly coming up through the high-finance and tech industries. They […]

On June 22nd, MacArthur Foundation President Jonathan Fanton and Second Life CEO Philip Rosedale will host a discussion in Second Life on the role of philanthropy in virtual worlds.