Posted on July 20, 2018
By Anneli Jefferson and Ilse de Villiers
Anneli Jefferson and Ilse de Villiers are founders of Largesse, a mission-driven business that specializes in curating handmade, eco-conscious and/or fairly traded corporate gifts.
Corporate gifts and promotional products have the purpose of creating brand awareness and strengthening relationships. This multi-billion-dollar industry has traditionally been one of ease, speed, and low-cost mass-production, often with little regard for the environment. Yet change is in the air.
Millennials, who will represent almost half of the recipients of these products and gifts within ten years, are more conscious about the impact of consumer goods. They want to know where things come from and are asking the question: “Who makes what I buy?”
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Posted on July 16, 2018
Ferdouse Oneza, CEO of Spreeha Foundation recently provided an update from her visit to Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh. Her organization, Spreeha, was recently selected by students at the University of Washington to receive a grant of $25,000 to assist with its response to the Rohingya refugee crisis.
Photo credit: Spreeha Foundation.
“We visited two camps, one in Unciprang, where we already have two early childhood development centers, and another in Balukhali, where we are considering providing additional services,” writes Oneza.
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Posted on July 12, 2018
By Will Poole
Picture credit: Dirección de Prensa de la Presidencia de Chile
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with President Sebastián Piñera of Chile who was interested in hearing a global perspective on impact investing and discussing ideas that Chile could consider to promote both foreign and domestic impact investing. President Piñera was recently elected to his second term, so he is no stranger to the importance of adopting good policies to address challenges faced by Chileans. Not surprisingly, he is an impressive man, with a keen knowledge of affairs local and abroad, and a clear agenda to advance Chile. An entrepreneur himself and with a PHD in Economics from Harvard University, President Piñera is well aware of the relevance of private and public contribution and alliances to provide solutions to social problems, both from a market based perspective and public support.
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