Selected for its plan to allay abjection by accretion acceptance to microfinance, Unitus to appear in Fast Company’s January 2006 issue.
Seattle, WA -- Unitus, a Redmond, Wash.-based alignment that alleviates all-around abjection by accretion acceptance to microfinance, is a allotment of the 25 winners of the 2006 Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Awards.
The affairs ceremoniousness non-profits, or “social entrepreneurs,” above the nation who amalgamate adroitness and adeptness with business solutions to abode the a lot of arduous amusing problems today, alignment from poor healthcare in developing nations to diff apprenticeship access, homelessness, unemployment and actuality bribery in the United States.
Unitus is transforming the lives of poor humans common by accretion their acceptance to microfinance articles such as microcredit loans, accumulation affairs and insurance. By partnering with the highest-potential microfinance institutions (MFIs) and accouterment them with basic abetment and consulting services, Unitus is allowance them serve exponentially added clients. In accomplishing so, Unitus is aswell demonstrating that MFIs can be run as profitable, large-scale, poverty-focused businesses with links to bounded basic markets. Unitus’s seven MFI ally currently serve added than 500,000 audience in India, Kenya and Mexico.
“We’re abundantly appreciative to accept been called by Fast Company,” said Unitus admiral and CEO Geoff Davis. “This accolade validates our action of allowance microfinance advance against a market-based model, and abroad from a donor-based model, appropriately enabling our MFI ally to accompany microfinance to added humans than anytime before.”
Unitus and the added 24 accolade winners will be featured in the January 2006 affair of Fast Company, actualization on newsstands on December 27. (See page three for the complete account of winners.) Winners accepting appear today cover Boston-based ACCION International, a arch all-around microfinance alignment with whom Unitus has afresh partnered to actualize the Unitus-ACCION Alliance for India. Based in the India Microfinance Center in Bangalore, the Alliance will advice authorize banking casework for 15 actor of India’s neediest by 2015.
Rigorous Evaluation
Unitus was called from a acreage of 240 Social Capitalist Award nominees. Of the 240 nominees, 125 agreed to participate in an appraisal process, which appropriate them to abide two years of audited financials, tax filings and online surveys and to participate in a 90-minute account with the choice board.
Unitus will be accustomed at a celebration in New York City, on Thursday, January 12, 2006. This year, The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, started by Klaus Schwab, architect of the World Economic Forum, will aces a champ from the Social Capitalists account to accept a chargeless cruise to Davos and accompany its arrangement of all-around amusing entrepreneurs.
Investor’s Guide to Giving
“We acclaim the efforts and business accuracy of Unitus, which, in accession to its plan to abate abjection common through a commercially acknowledged amusing investment model, is a business-oriented alignment of eyes aces of apery in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors,” said Mark Vamos, editor of Fast Company.
“By abutting amusing affairs in a rigorous, data-driven fashion, our appraisal action reveals the absolutely amazing attributes of Unitus – and all of our winners,” Vamos said. “And while appraisement non-profits is controversial, Fast Company thinks it is a all-important footfall for the area to abound and improve. Frankly it’s a way to see that these accomplished organizations get the acceptance they deserve.”
Fast Company ally with the Monitor Group, a all-around strategy-consulting firm, to baddest the accolade winners. Monitor Group created the aboriginal alignment to analyze non-profits of altered sizes and ages above amusing sectors. The Monitor Group manages the appraisal action for the awards affairs and measures anniversary organization’s plan in 5 categories: amusing impact, entrepreneurship, innovation, aspiration and growth, and sustainability.
“Prior to the Social Capitalist Awards, no baronial action existed to anon analyze these kinds of organizations,” said Mark Fuller, administrator and CEO of Monitor Group. “Our appraisal measures the appulse and capability of these non-profits, authoritative the Social Capitalist Awards a able-bodied antecedent of advice for performance-oriented leaders of such organizations, as able-bodied as a donor's adviser for those who ambition their accommodating dollars to get the accomplished ‘social’ acknowledgment possible.”
About Unitus
Unitus is a all-around microfinance accelerator that acts as a amusing adventure basic broker for the microfinance industry. Unitus identifies the highest-potential microfinance institutions (MFIs) in developing countries and helps advanced their advance through basic investments and capacity-building consulting, appropriately allotment them to advice exponentially added poor humans worldwide. In accomplishing so, Unitus aims to authenticate that MFIs can be run as profitable, large-scale, poverty-focused businesses with links to bounded basic markets. As of October 2005, Unitus had seven MFI ally common confined added than 500,000 poor clients. Based in Redmond, Washington, USA, and with an appointment in Bangalore, India, Unitus relies on avant-garde banking instruments, and the banking assets of agreeing individuals and foundations, to accomplish its mission. Unitus accustomed the 2006 Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Award for demography an innovative, entrepreneurial, business-minded access to abating all-around poverty. For added advice about Unitus, amuse visit: www.unitus.com.
About Fast Company and Monitor Group
Fast Company, founded in 1996, is a annual for and about the artistic class. It is a account of change and changemakers — dynamic, acute leaders in both the for-profit and non-profit spheres who are authoritative affecting innovations to appearance the future. Visit http://www.fastcompany.com for added information. The Monitor Group is a ancestors of able casework firms, affiliated by aggregate ownership, administration philosophy, and ability assets. Each article in Monitor's all-around arrangement is committed to accouterment articles and casework that fundamentally enhance the competitiveness of its clients. Visit http://www.monitor.com for added information.
The 2006 Social Capitalist Awards winners are:
- ACCION International (Boston, Mass.) BELL (Dorchester, Mass.) Calvert Social Investment Foundation (Bethesda, Md.) Citizen Schools (Boston, Mass.) City Year (Boston, Mass.) College Summit, Inc. (Washington, D.C.) First Book (Washington, D.C.) Grameen Foundation USA (Washington, D.C.) Heifer International (Little Rock, Ark.) Housing Partnership Network, Inc. (Boston, Mass.) Jumpstart (Boston, Mass.) KickStart (San Francisco, Calif.) New Community Corp. (Newark, N.J.) New Leaders for New Schools (New York, N.Y.) PATH (Seattle, Wash.,) Pioneer Human Services (Seattle, Wash.) Raising a Reader (Menlo Park, Calif.) Rare (Arlington, Va.) Room to Read (San Francisco, Calif.) Rubicon Programs Inc. (Richmond, Calif.) Teach for America (New York, N.Y.) Transfair USA (Oakland, Calif.) Unitus (Redmond, Wash.) WITNESS (Brooklyn, N.Y.) Working Today (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
For added advice about the Social Capitalists Awards program, appointment www.fastcompany.com.
Contacts:
Robert Lowry
PR Associate
Unitus
425-881-2574
Carol Schuler
Haberman & Associates, Inc.
612-372-6451
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