Benjamin Stone on How to Launch Your Career in Impact Investing and Social Entrepreneurship

The Impact Investing Podcast

This Podcast is sponsored by Maine Startup and Create Week. This years conference is June 20th to 26th in Portland, ME and is going to be amazing! This year’s conference is focused on design and innovation. They’re bringing in some of the best minds to discuss and teach how entrepreneurs can use the skills that accompany great design and design thinking to help build better companies, products and solutions to the world's most pressing problems? Panels will cover topics ranging from a mixture of Biotech, Agricultural tech and innovation and environmental technology to health-care, disruption of the insurance industry, industrial 3D design and lessons from failed startups.

Keynote speakers so far for this year include Mike Perlis (president and CEO of Forbes Media), Heather Stephenson (Head of Brand Strategy at Super) and Peter Roper (Head of Mobile Brand Strategy at Google).

Last years conference drew over 4000 attendees and had 215 volunteers contributing over 10,000 hours. Check out Mainestartupandcreateweek.com for more information. If you want to volunteer, attend or think you know a good speaker for the topics at this years conference, let them know.

Enter Benjamin Stone:

Ben started his career in 2004 as a corporate litigator at a big international law firm in NYC, until 2008 when he and his college buddy (also an attorney) decided to start and scale Indego Africa, a social enterprise and lifestyle brand now partnering with more than 1000 women entrepreneurs in Rwanda and Ghana. Ben then spent some time at American Express leading programs to help small business owners in the U.S. prosper. He now serves as Managing Director & general counsel of the impact investing firm MCE Social Capital, which was just honored as an ImpactAssets top 50 firm for the fourth year in a row.

In his free time, Ben serves as vice chairman of Indego Africa and is a term member on the Council on Foreign Relations, where he often guest writes for the Development Channel, their blog on international economic development. Last year he co-founded Dollar a Day, a web platform that makes it easy for people to discover and support amazing nonprofits. Ben is also a regular speaker on a social innovation, careers, leadership, law, and entrepreneurship.

MCE Social Capital is powered by its innovative Guarantor model, and with a special commitment to empowering women, MCE Social Capital (MCE) makes loans to organizations helping people living in poverty improve their lives.

MCE is a nonprofit impact investing firm that recruits trail-blazing individuals, foundations, and other entities to back loans to MCE from institutional lenders. MCE uses its Guarantor Model to fund loans to qualified Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and other financial providers that serve a high percentage of women, operate in rural communities, and offer health, education, or business training programs in the developing world. Since MCE commenced operations in 2006, it has issued over USD $100 million in loans to more than 50 organizations reaching hundreds of thousands of people in over 30 countries across four continents.

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MCE Social Capital

http://www.mcesocap.org/

MCE Social Capital Guarantor Model

http://www.mcesocap.org/take-action/become-a-guarantor/

Indego Africa HBS Case Study

https://hbr.org/product/The-Indego-Africa-Project/an/911011-PDF-ENG

Ben Stone

https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminstone1

Indego Africa

https://indegoafrica.org/

Ben’s talks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-vwwoZ1V3M

Dollar a Day

https://dollaraday.co/