Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Salvaging Medical Cast-Offs to Save Lives

    Many organizations are building distribution systems to get surplus items in one place to those who need them in another. For example, an organization in Brooklyn collects the surplus medical equipment from United States hospitals and ships it to hospitals in poor countries.

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  • Sharing Patents to Wipe Out AIDS

    Once-a-day generic AIDS drugs for poor countries are hard to make because each ingredient is patented by a different pharmaceutical company. The Patent Pool provides a way for companies to donate their intellectual property safely.

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  • Instead of Student Loans, Investing in Futures

    For millions of students who could succeed in college, the limiting factor is money. Is it possible to finance higher education the way we finance start-up companies? A company called Lumni uses “human capital contracts” to offer loans for students contingent upon 14 percent of the student's salary for 118 months after graduation. There are risks to this approach and not a lot of years or data available to be sure of its efficacy, but results are promising already—with a default rate under 3 percent.

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  • The Path From Charity to Profit

    In Jakarta’s slums, families can’t buy their children nutritious food. So Mercy Corps started a for-profit chain of food carts selling healthy kids’ meals. A second column highlights the challenges NGOs face when they try to start for-profit businesses.

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  • In ‘Food Deserts,' Oases of Nutrition

    Asian cities are over-crowded and many residences are kitchenless, causing families with children to consume unhealthy food from the street vendors. Mercy Corps, a non-profit organization that advocates nutrition, has initiated some for-profit businesses in Jakarta that provide healthy food to underserved neighborhoods. The food carts are marketed at serving poor children a healthy meal.

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  • A Book in Every Home, and Then Some

    Lack of reading material is not only a third-world problem – many poor families in the United States lack access to and funds for books. A program that helps get books to into the homes of low-income families can boost literacy, and help publishers, too.

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  • To Survive Famine, Will Work for Insurance

    Oxfam is working to prevent a drought in Ethiopa by insuring crops of farmers, causing them to have a greater desire to work in the agricultural market.

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  • On the Web, a Revolution in Giving

    New crowdfunding options can help even the smallest donor's contributions to have a meaningful impact, bolstering a sense of personal involvement, maximizing knowledge about causes, and inspiring greater participation.

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  • How to Grow a Social Business

    Two columns on microconsignment, a new variation on microcredit that helps poor people living in developing countries - particularly women in rural villages - start small social businesses without taking on debt or requiring previous business skills. The organization, Soluciones Comunitarias, partners with a non-profit and a university student program to manage the supply chain and other components of the business necessary to support the social entrepreneurs in successful micro-ventures.

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  • When Microcredit Won't Do

    Microcredit can get people into debt when used poorly. A company in Guatemala is giving products to poor entrepreneurs on consignment and then charging a commission upon sale and in this way removing the entrepreneurs' risk.

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