Jacqueline Novogratz tells a moving story of an encounter in a Nairobi slum with Jane, a former prostitute, whose dreams of escaping poverty, of becoming a doctor and of getting married were fulfilled in an unexpected way.
Social ROI: Stories About Social Entrepreneurship
How social entrepreneurship is making this world a better place
Jacqueline Novogratz tells a moving story of an encounter in a Nairobi slum with Jane, a former prostitute, whose dreams of escaping poverty, of becoming a doctor and of getting married were fulfilled in an unexpected way.
I can offer a similar story about a city in Russia where prostitution became the means of survival for many. In 1999 a social entrepreneur invested his money in researching a development strategy including a microcredit bank.
http://www.p-ced.com/projects/russia/
It started with $6 million from USAID which was ramped up to $10 million after a year, due to its success and in 4 years leveraged 10,000 businesses with 80% started by women. The business survival rate was artound 95% for more than one year.
Applied across a city of 600,000 with the assumption that one sucessful small business helps lift 3 people out of poverty, it could be claimed that the initiative had a social return for 30,000 or 5% of population.
From Tomsk it was replicated in Novisibirsk, Severak, T’bliisi and several
other Russian cities.