see the attached.  much is fairly basic, but I like the vision expressed in slide #9... matt

In May 2013 the European Crowdfunding Network held its first International ECN Crowdfunding Convention in Vienna at the head offices of the Austrian Chambers of Commerce. After the event speakers were asked to elaborate on some of the key trends and issues within the crowdfunding sector in 2013. This paper is the result of this and aimed to broaden the views on crowdfunding, away from the stereotypes, while remaining accessible to the widest possible audience.

Servane Mouazan started a network 12 years ago for those in social entrepreneurship -- then just a nascent field -- she noticed something interesting: Only women were signing up.Women, she observed, seemed to have a profound interest in businesses with a mission, perhaps because of their innate quality to be caretakers.She decided to make her U.K.-based organization, Ogunte, exclusively focused on supporting, connecting and promoting women social entrepreneurs.

New research from the Initiative for Smallholder Finance reveals that local bank lending to smallholder farmers – which should be a main avenue for improving their access to finance – amounts to only $9 billion. That number represents less than 3 percent of the estimated total smallholder financing demand.This gap in finance deserves attention, as global development practitioners consider the world’s 450 million smallholder farmers a linchpin in poverty-reduction strategies. As population growth and rising incomes create unprecedented demand for food, multinational companies increasingly rely on smallholders to secure their supply of agricultural commodities. As a result, smallholders present a compelling opportunity for buyers, lenders and other actors in the agricultural value chain. However, most smallholders lack access to finance, holding them back from producing larger crop yields of higher quality to propel both economic growth and poverty alleviation

Before any enterprise model has been demonstrated, before there is customer traction or any talk of “post-revenue, pre-profit” ventures worthy of investment and certainly before any impact is evident, there are countless early stage entrepreneurs who first believe innovation is worth the effort to create new solutions to existing market problems. Investors, on the other hand, are inherently looking to manage risks of all types. This difference in perspective between entrepreneur and investor is at the heart of a persistent gap in seed stage funding for social entrepreneurs.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is supporting the development of small businesses in Egypt with a US$ 50 million credit line to the National Bank of Egypt (NBE). The funds will be on-lent to Egyptian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Women's empowerment looks to be one of the transformative economic trends of our time. There is a business case for gender inclusiveness and how investors can work with a gender lens to achieve their investment goals. A wealth of research shows how investing in women around the world produces powerful results that benefit families, communities and entire societies - and on top of all makes for good ROI. While the flow of significant investment assets toward gender lens investing is still in its initial stages, success of those at the forefront is proving that this trend is here to stay.In a previous blog post we discussed how to strengthen female leadership and career development across the impact investing sector. We now review what are some of the leading organizations when it comes to investing with a gender lens, where to look for opportunities and resources and what are some of the key investment vehicles specifically targeting women.

"No matter how long the night is, the morning is sure to come," goes a Congolese proverb. Ruth, a cross-border trader in Africa, knows that only too well. She gets up every morning long before sunrise to prepare for the exhausting climb over the border from Rwanda to Congo. Rising early means beating the unbearable heat that makes her journey on foot with a heavy load of maize on her head even more arduous. It means getting to the border crossing before custom officials - who frequently ask her for a bribe or worse - and securing a place at the market ahead of her competitors. After all this, she makes the return journey back to collect water, look after her children and tend the fields.

Over the past several years, we’ve seen a growing focus on how important early-stage innovations are in solving major global problems, and the barriers standing in their way.Each of these pieces make the case that—to really make a difference—organizations that believe that entrepreneurs can solve major global problems should invest at the earliest stages. But this isn’t happening. Anywhere you look, it’s difficult to find risk capital for innovation. Of over 300 self-described “impact investment” firms, fewer than five invest at the catalytic stage—less than $250,000 per investment. According to the Center for Venture Research’s report “Where Have All the Angel Investors Gone?”, capital committed to US companies from angel investors has fallen 25 per cent since 2007.

The EBRD is providing a senior loan of US$ 4 million to Microfund for Women (MFW) for on-lending to support the development of larger, expanding microfinance enterprises in Jordan, with a focus on women entrepreneurs.

This investment will allow MFW to extend the remit of its lending to include loans for growing microfinance clients until these clients are eligible for full access to the commercial banking system. The EBRD loan will also be partly used to finance the existing microfinance clients of MFW.