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NextBillion.net is a website and blog bringing together the community of business leaders, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, policy makers and academics who want to explore the connection between development and enterprise. It is a discussion forum, networking space and knowledge base for individuals and organizations interested in the "next billion". Our goal is to highlight the development and implementation of business strategies that open opportunities and improve the lives of the world's approximately 4 billion low-income producers and consumers.

"Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is a nonprofit organization that creates and evaluates solutions to social and development problems, and works to scale up successful ideas through implementation and dissemination to policymakers, practitioners, investors and donors. Primary Objectives Innovate: Develop innovative solutions to poverty and policy problems worldwide. Use frontier knowledge from economics, psychology and public health. Evaluate: Conduct randomized controlled trials to evaluate public policies. This provides the highest quality and most reliable answers to what works and what does not. Our evaluations seek to generate insight into why particular strategies work -- not just whether they work -- so as to make the findings useful for scale-up and replication in other settings and countries. Replicate: Replicate evaluations in multiple settings. We can learn from one evaluation, but we can learn much more about what to do after seeing replications of similar interventions in multiple settings, and learn when ideas work best, and when they do not. Communicate: Communicate lessons to donors and implementers. The ultimate aim of IPA is to help resources be allocated to effective programs and policies. IPA's communication strategy targets both donors, to help guide them to programs and ideas that have been proven effective, as well as to organizations, to help guide their programming decisions towards more effective ideas and implementation strategies. We do this through non-technical communication on individual studies and sets of studies, as well as through synthesis articles and conversations that frame key policy issues and present reliable evidence to help guide development practitioners, policymakers, investors and donors towards better decisions and allocation of resources. Scale: Scale-up of effective solutions. This includes hands-on technical assistance or direct implementation if appropriate, as well as extensive communication and advoc

"The Center for Global Development is an independent, nonprofit policy research organization that is dedicated to reducing global poverty and inequality and to making globalization work for the poor. Through a combination of research and strategic outreach, the Center actively engages policymakers and the public to influence the policies of the United States, other rich countries, and such institutions as the World Bank, the IMF, and the World Trade Organization to improve the economic and social development prospects in poor countries. CGD was recently ranked among the world's top think tanks (number 15 out of several thousand such research organizations) in an independent survey-based ranking published in Foreign Policy magazine."

"Digital Provide: From Good to Gold Do good to do well - business creation for social good"

"Government Funding and Programs Federal, state, and local governments offer a variety of programs to support green and social enterprises, including incentive programs for businesses to implement energy efficiency and clean energy measures. To suggest an addition to this list send an e-mail to info [at] greenvc.org"

Vision To enable entrepreneurs to realize their dreams while benefiting the lives of people at the base of the economic pyramid. Mission To deploy needed financial and human resources to high impact social ventures addressing the needs of large, underserved populations.

"Investors' Circle is a network of over 225 angel investors, professional venture capitalists, foundations, family offices and others who are using private capital to promote the transition to a sustainable economy. Since 1992, Investors' Circle has facilitated the flow of over $133 million into more than 200 companies and small funds addressing social and environmental issues."

"The Sustainable Business Alliance (SBA) is a membership organization for businesses committed to environmentally and socially responsible practices. SBA's triple bottom line: * Promoting awareness of just and sustainable practices * Educating our members and the community on business sustainability * Networking to grow each others' businesses and the green economy"

"American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC) is a powerful coalition of business networks committed to building a vibrant, just, and sustainable economy. The Council is dedicated to moving beyond the politics and practices of the past to identify the innovative solutions that will transform our economy and society. We are committed to ensuring that America's businesses and social enterprises will be a major driving force behind this transformation. ASBC promotes policy change by educating and informing the business community, policy makers, and the media about the business case for change, and by engaging the leaders of businesses and enterprises in building broad support for the policies America needs. We work on a range of policy areas, including: financial reform, health care, chemicals policy, climate change and business taxes. We believe the policies that will lead us to a sustainable and just the right commitments, investments, and reforms today will ensure a strong economy for tomorrow."

"You want non-toxic, environmentally friendly products from companies with good social and safety records. GoodGuide rates over 65,000 products based on these factors."

"Mission Markets operates a private investment exchange for multiple asset classes and market based mechanisms within the social and environmental markets. The Mission Markets platform provides companies and organizations with access to impact investors and provides these investors with an efficient way to identify, evaluate, invest in and monitor sustainable investment opportunities."

"5 Presentation Tips from the Unreasonable Institute West Coast Pitch Fest"

"The farm is located on 410 acres of fertile land on the Bolaven Plateau of southern Laos, bordered by mountain streams on the north and southwest. About 100 acres are devoted to grasses and legumes to restore nitrogen to the soil and provide fodder for livestock. The remainder is devoted to coffee growing. Bolaven-grown coffee beans are hand-sorted to ensure quality before they are roasted, packaged and shipped. Bolaven Farms is "a for-profit business with the mandate to act justly, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God," Say explained. He also has created a companion nonprofit organization-Just Grounds-that relates directly to churches and recruits short-term missions volunteers and prayer partners. "

"About For Impact We transform "nonprofits" through training, ideas and strategic coaching based on 30+ years of experience and $1Billion+ raised. "

" As a management company, TouchPoint provides unique and innovative solutions. We do this by providing capital resources and building strategic partnerships with companies whose business models have future growth potential and are dedicated to building a responsible new economy. The recent collapse of global capital markets has been particularly onerous for companies seeking new investment to grow their business. Particularly hard hit have been Triple Bottom Line (TBL) companies, a sector of business defined by its commitment to people, planet and profit. While consumer demand for TBL products that has driven market caps to over $200B, there is currently only $5B of private equity capital invested into TBL companies. TouchPoint sees the current crisis as an opportunity for companies to raise new cash from the investment community. TouchPoint is a for profit company supporting for profit initiatives and enterprises. We do this in two ways. First, we build our own financial products. But in addition to that, we build strategic partnerships that scale and support other business models we believe have growth potential and will positively impact the future. We strive for sustainability and prosperity. TouchPoint is committed to developing sustainable resources, both at home and abroad. We share a vision with our partners of developing three sectors: Green Consumer Products, Renewable Energy and Emerging Market Development."