The Community for Open Source Microfinance | Microfinance: Why Open Source Means Bigger Impact. The World at Work is powered by GE. This new series highlights the people, projects and startups that are driving innovation and making the world a better place. Name: Mifos Big Idea: Mifos is an open-source, back-end operating system — built and backed by a community — to track the many loans and payments involved in microfinance. Why It's Working: Mifos is a platform used by more than 30 microfinance institutions, which offer small loans to nearly 825,000 clients. Think of Mifos as Quicken for microfinance — it's a streamlined, organized system, and it can help the sector scale and get people out of poverty.
Mifos was born out of a project at the Grameen Technology Center back in 2004 — James Dailey realized that the software being used by most microfinance institutions (MFIs) was outdated, expensive or otherwise fell short. Mifos is a destination for several kinds of users. "We want to be that platform for getting financial services to the poor," says Cable. Series presented by GE. The Network For Social Change - Funding principles. We fund a variety of charitable and non-charitable projects, each sponsored by a member. We look for projects that promote social change (broadly defined) and tend to favour projects which are innovative, highly leveraged, and/or difficult to fund (a category which may include core funding for an organisation). We like addressing the root causes of a problem, not the symptoms.
We do not fund responses to one-off disasters, most types of building, or direct contributions to political parties. Non-charitable projects are required to use our money for non-violent and legal purposes only. We do not accept unsolicited funding applications, but if you have a project that you think a member might be interested in sponsoring for funding, go to our Project Noticeboard.
Funders & Supporters | The kindling Trust. Citizens Co-op: Local Food + Community by Citizens Co-op. Two young entrepreneurs residing in Gainesville, Fl aimed to retrofit a neglected building space on small town Main Street into a thriving local food marketplace, revitalizing community through both visual and edible art. Utilizing sustainably-produced and salvaged materials - we designed a fresh, clean, and modern appeal for an otherwise low-income sector of town.
Three years into the project, and Citizens Co-op currently has over 700 members & co-owners. All of our funds to date have been raised locally through small investments and membership shares - over $200,000 from within our community. At our deepest roots, we are cultivating community through the establishment of a storefront that will bring people closer to their food and to each other. We are collectively owned by the people who provide the food, the people who work here, and the people who will shop here. Wall mural in Co-op Market, just completed! Interior design rendering of the Co-op Market: building the community garden: National Lottery Fund - National Lottery. The National Lottery's mission is to operate a world class lottery raising funds for good causes on behalf of the Government and we are proud to have delivered on this again in 2012, raising €225.3 million. This brings the total amount raised since the establishment of the National Lottery to over €4.2 billion which is a very significant milestone in the history of the National Lottery.
Over 24 years this fund has been allocated to worthwhile projects in the areas of Youth, Sports and Amenities; Health & Welfare; Arts, Culture & National Heritage, and the Irish Language. So remember, every time you play a National Lottery game you are making a very positive impact on local communities throughout Ireland. Click here to see the ways in which the National Lottery has helped good causes across Ireland. Funded Projects National Lottery funding is distributed through the following Government Departments and Bodies: Further sources of information Annual Estimates for the Public Services. LEADER Funding « National Rural Network. Contents Making an Application for LEADER funding Any entrepreneurs or community groups interested in establishing a business or a service in a rural area should approach their local LEADER group (LAG).
Whether you are at a very early stage and need advice, training, mentoring or encouragement from people who know the challenges associated with rural enterprise development, or if you have a project which needs matching capital funding you should contact the LAG in your area. Funding can be secured up to €500,000 for community groups and €150,000 for any private promoter with eligible Farm based projects being in a position to apply for up to €200,000. Where are the LEADER Companies? There are 36 individual companies administering LEADER funding throughout rural Ireland.
What type of funding is available through LEADER? There are seven measures under LEADER all are open to any rural dweller however there is one, farm diversification, which is exclusive to Farmers and their families. Giving More Than Money. Live notes from the "Giving More Than Money" session at the Awesome Summit, by Rahul Bhargava, Ethan Zuckerman and Willow Brugh. Matt Stempeck (@mstem) comes to the Center for Civic Media from the Washington activism world.
The organizations he worked with always lacked money. When it became time to run a campaign, organizations always wanted to figure out what to ask for... and the obvious question is to ask for money. But people don't like to be asked for money. Now, more people do their jobs over the Internet - can we structure organizations so we can benefit from people's skills, not just from their ability to write checks.
Jeremy Liu thinks about professional skill matching in the Bay Area. Jeremy Liu Jeremy Liu starts by asking us how many of us have heard of community development corporations - only a few hands go up. Emilie Dubois - Connected Learning Research Network She's been participating in the time-bank by copyediting, carrying out photography assignments and walking dogs. Rootstock. Raise Money on your donation website! Fundit.ie :: Crowd Fund Creativity. Hacking Kickstarter: How to Raise $100,000 in 10 Days (Includes Successful Templates, E-mails, etc.)
Mike Del Ponte co-founded Soma, which raised more than $100,000 on Kickstarter using virtual assistants and free apps. I first met Mike Del Ponte two years ago when he was running marketing at BranchOut, a startup I advise. Before joining BranchOut, Mike had explored a variety of career paths, including preparing for the priesthood at Yale Divinity School and serving as a peacemaker in the West Bank. Earlier this year, Mike came to me with a new product idea called Soma. Soma is, in its simplest form, a high-end competitor to Brita water filters. It combines Apple-inspired design (e.g. sleek glass carafe) with a subscription service that delivers the world’s first compostable water filter to your door.
From form to function, from funding model to revenue model, Mike was eager to disrupt a sleepy but enormous market: water. I became an advisor. You can replicate what he did. This post is as close to copy-and-paste Kickstarter success as you will find. Enjoy! Enter Mike So, we got creative. I. KIVA - Loans that change lives. Spacehive. How to crowd-fund community projects | Voluntary Sector Network | Guardian Professional. A radical new solution to funding community regeneration projects is being piloted in the ex-mining town of Glyncoch, South Wales. While most donors will never even visit, the reach of Twitter allows popular projects to tap into new funding sources. Can Twitter build a community centre? Stephen Fry seems to think so.
He's backed a campaign to crowd-fund a community centre in a town battered by disappointment for seven years. Fry called on his 4 million Twitter followers to pledge "the price of a cucumber sandwich" to rescue the project that already has 96% of its funding from grants. The community is using Spacehive.com to raise the money. With the Spacehive model, funders only pay if the project actually goes ahead. The ideal result will be a collaboration of the private and public sector, with individuals, businesses and councils all chipping in to get projects funded. Can the model work? While the technology is new, the notion of crowd-funding public spaces is not. 15 ways to crowdfund your startup or project. Have you considered asking the community to support your new enterprise? Target audience: Social enterprises, nonprofits, volunteer groups, sustainable businesses, community organizations.
Guest post by Kerry GivenGreen Marketing TV Finding funding can be one of the biggest challenges for social entrepreneurs. Fortunately, there is a growing number of options for social entrepreneurs and founders looking for capital to start or expand their social enterprise, startup or nonprofit organization and do more good in the world. One non-traditional funding opportunity that has seen exponential growth in recent years is the phenomenon of “crowdfunding.”
Thanks to social media and other forms of modern technology, entrepreneurs are able to build networks of friends, colleagues and like-minded individuals more easily and effectively than ever before. Typically, entrepreneurs post a request for funding on a crowdfunding site with a detailed project description. Crowdfunding is not for everyone. 1st not-for-profit bank open for bussiness. The UK's first not-for-profit bank was officially launched today, in an attempt to boost the developing market of social finance. Charity Bank, the brainchild of the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), has been created on the back of CAF's social loan fund, Investors in Society. It is thought to be the world's first non-profit making bank that lends to the charity sector. It will make "affordable" loans to charities that find it hard to access mainstream finance from high street banks.
To pay for those loans it will seek deposits from people wanting to use their wealth to benefit others. As a registered charity, all its operating surpluses will be reinvested in the charity sector. It's chief executive Malcolm Hayday said that CAF research had found a significant pool of people who would be willing to save with a bank that made loans for socially beneficial projects. "Charity Bank is regulated by the FSA and we think this will offer a comfort level for potential savers," said Mr Hayday. First Step.