Dear Changemakers:
Welcome to this collaborative event on how to develop market-based strategies that benefit low-income communities around the world. Increasingly, citizen sector organizations and businesses are developing creative approaches centered on profit and positive social impact that provide enhanced opportunities for low-income individuals and their families. The mosaic of solutions presented on Changemakers' website and the article describing the mosaic framework give examples of such innovative initiatives.
We look forward to your contest entries, to hearing about your perspectives and to sharing and learning as a community. Use this discussion forum to pose questions about entries and challenge ideas with the aim of making them even more effective, suggest paths forward, and develop practical action templates. We believe that entrepreneurial market-based approaches represent a tremendous potential for large-scale social impact, innovation and value creation for low-income communities, citizen sector organizations and businesses altogether. However, these commercial ventures targeting low-income populations face challenges and raise important questions, including but not limited to:
- Can access to products and services contribute to improving the lives of low-income communities?
- How to strike a balance between integrating low-income communities to the global economy while strengthening local economies?
- How can companies commit to serving both low-income consumers and their shareholders?
- What ethical framework should organizations targeting low-income populations as consumers operate in?
- Is there a risk for citizen sector organizations to deviate from their original missions by opting for profit-making approaches and commercial partnerships?
- How can citizen sector organizations and businesses best collaborate to improve products/services available to low-income communities and achieve social transformation?
- And from a sustainable development perspective, how to integrate the two thirds of the world's population to the global economy while preserving the sustainability of our planet?
We hope to see your participation soon in the contest for the Changemakers Innovation Awards for Market-Based Strategies that Benefit Low-Income Populations and look forward to this learning journey. Thanks for joining!
Stephanie
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