News & Ideas

September 20, 2016

mhNOW makes Commitment to Action at CGI

GDI was pleased to be joined on stage by President Bill Clinton and representatives from some of our 20 cross-sectoral partners as we made a Commitment to Action with mhNOW, an initiative to engage 30 cities by 2030 to close the mental health gap, at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting. Read the press release below […]

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August 10, 2016

What an ‘exit’ means at GDI: EYElliance finds new home at Tides Center

As an incubator, GDI strives to ensure our initiatives are always working toward defined endgames. For some initiatives, this journey involves ‘exiting’ GDI after 24-36 months of partnership. We believe the focus on exits makes us more accountable to our funders and partners to help build initiatives that are sustainable beyond the first three stages of our […]

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August 1, 2016

From graduates to government: success of Liberia PYPP verified in Princeton evaluation

Princeton’s Innovation for Successful Societies verified the success of the Liberia President’s Young Professionals Program in a recent report from their independent evaluation of the program. The case study tells the story of a newly-democratic country without a capable civil service. An excerpt is below: In 2005, when Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Liberia’s first democratically elected post-conflict […]

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Convergence CEO Joan Larrea in ImpactAlpha

What is blended finance? Convergence CEO Joan Larrea admits she didn’t always know, and many others don’t either. When I meet counterparts from development banks, philanthropic institutions, and the private sector, I find there’s still confusion about what exactly blended finance is. Where does it fit in the landscape of impact investing? How does it […]

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July 24, 2016

Are You Sure You Should Be Launching Another Partnership?

The number of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) in the social impact space has increased dramatically over the past few decades. Known by many names—including coalitions, public-private partnerships, and alliances—these types of organizations naturally appeal to those seeking transformative change. They offer a powerful model to solve increasingly complex global development problems, particularly because they bring together […]

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July 13, 2016

GDI on partnerships in Stanford Social Innovation Review

Building on our report “More than the Sum of Its Parts: Making MSIs Work,” GDI urges funders and founders to remember the question of “whether” is just as important as “how” when thinking about launching a multi-stakeholder initiative for social impact. Click the link below to read the full article. Source: Stanford Social Innovation Review […]

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April 24, 2016

Convergence mentioned in The Economist

“Private investors do not typically fund the construction of rural roads in Africa, say, or vaccination drives in villages, even though the returns on such investments are often enormous. That is because the returns are either hard to monetise, or the risks are too great for the private sector to tolerate. The point of blended […]

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April 15, 2016

Tendrel, new association for impact entrepreneurs, launches

Tendrel, a new global professional association for entrepreneurs committed to social impact, launched this week at the Skoll World Forum. GDI has incubated Tendrel since fall 2015, providing strategic expertise, helping build core operational infrastructure, and formulating the organization’s initial branding, positioning, and communications strategy. A a member-driven organization, Tendrel gathers entrepreneurs in local peer groups, or […]

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FIGH Forum 2016 draws investors, innovators

GDI was proud to host the inaugural FIGH forum alongside Convergence from April 13-15, 2016. Financing and Innovation in Global Health (FIGH) is an independent initiative that aims to spark the deployment of blended finance, creativity, entrepreneurship, and technology to drive effective and transformative global health investment to address the world’s most complex global health […]

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December 24, 2015

What’s Your Endgame?

Nonprofits each play a specific role in the overall solution to a social problem. To scale impact, they must define and pursue one of six “endgames”. Learn more about these endgames in our piece for SSIR.

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