What's New in Social Entrepreneurship?
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2009-12-10 13:56
In the past week, two articles challenged previous assumptions about two of the hottest topics in social entrepreneurship: microfinance and charter schools. Tim Harford writes about the backlash microfinance receives in "Perhaps microfinance isn’t such a big deal after all," which was published in the December 5th edition of the Financial Times.
As Harford questions the impact of microlending, Nancy Hass paints a picture of hedge fund managers and analysts coming together to solve issues in education by creating charter schools. Hass' article, "Scholarly Investments" appeared in the New York Times last Friday.
Hedge fund managers are not only creating new schools; they also sit on the board of many of New York City's charter schools. Listed as an example is Whitney Tilson, founder and Managing Partner of the hedge fund T2 Partners LLC. Whitney sits on the board of a number of charter schools and supporting organizations, and was involved with the development of Teach for America.
Interested in reading what others have to say about these articles? Check out Kevin Dick's comments in "Micro-lending Is Not a Silver Bullet" and Nikhil Swaminathan's comments in "Hedge Funders Love Charter Schools. Is That a Good Thing?"
