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Venture Philanthropy
Venture philanthropy is a type of impact investment that takes concepts and techniques from venture capital finance and business management and applies them to achieving philanthropic goals. The term was first used in 1969 by John D. Rockefeller III to describe an imaginative and risk-taking approach to philanthropy that may be undertaken by charitable organizations. Examples For example, in 2000 The Chicago Public Education Fund became the only venture philanthropy in the United States focused on a single urban school district, which served as a catalyst and strategic investment partner for Mayor Richard M. Daley and four Chicago Public Schools (CPS) administrations. Other examples of this type of venture philanthropy are New Profit Inc., the Robin Hood Foundation, Tipping Point Community, Cure Alzheimer's Fund, The Redstone Acceleration & Innovation Network (TRAIN) initiative from FasterCures, the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN), Social Ventures Australia (SVA) in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impact Investment
Impact investing refers to investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". At its core, impact investing is about an alignment of an investor's beliefs and values with the allocation of capital to address social and/or environmental issues. Impact investors actively seek to place capital in businesses, nonprofits, and funds in industries such as renewable energy, housing, healthcare, education, microfinance, and sustainable agriculture. Institutional investors, notably North American and European development finance institutions, pension funds and endowments have played a leading role in the development of impact investing. Under Pope Francis, the Catholic Church has seen an increased interest in impact investing. Impact investing occurs across asset classes; for example, private equity/venture capital, debt, and fixed income. Impact investments can be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used by Károly Ereky in 1919, meaning the production of products from raw materials with the aid of living organisms. Definition The concept of biotechnology encompasses a wide range of procedures for modifying living organisms according to human purposes, going back to domestication of animals, cultivation of the plants, and "improvements" to these through breeding programs that employ artificial selection and hybridization. Modern usage also includes genetic engineering as well as cell and tissue culture technologies. The American Chemical Society defines biotechnology as the application of biological organisms, systems, or processes by various industries to learning about the science of life and the improvement of the value of materi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philanthrocapitalism
Philanthrocapitalism or philanthropic capitalism is a way of doing philanthropy, which mirrors the way that business is done in the for-profit world. It may involve venture philanthropy that actively invests in social programs to pursue specific philanthropic goals that would yield return on investment over the long term, or in a more passive form whereby " social investors" benefit from investing in socially-responsible programs. History The term was coined by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green in their book ''Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save The World''. The book was endorsed by Bill Clinton, who wrote in its foreword that this concept drives the Clinton Foundation.Linsey McGoey, ''No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy'', , 2015 The shift in implementing business models in charity is not a new concept – John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie sought to apply their business strategies in their philanthropy in the 20th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impact Investment
Impact investing refers to investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". At its core, impact investing is about an alignment of an investor's beliefs and values with the allocation of capital to address social and/or environmental issues. Impact investors actively seek to place capital in businesses, nonprofits, and funds in industries such as renewable energy, housing, healthcare, education, microfinance, and sustainable agriculture. Institutional investors, notably North American and European development finance institutions, pension funds and endowments have played a leading role in the development of impact investing. Under Pope Francis, the Catholic Church has seen an increased interest in impact investing. Impact investing occurs across asset classes; for example, private equity/venture capital, debt, and fixed income. Impact investments can be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Effective Altruism
Effective altruism is a philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, called , often choose careers based on the amount of good that the career achieves while donating to charities based on maximising impact. The movement developed during the 2000s, and the name was coined in 2011. Prominent philosophers influential to the movement include Peter Singer, Toby Ord, and William MacAskill. Several books and many articles about the movement have since been published, and the Effective Altruism Global conference has been held since 2013. As of 2022, several billion dollars have been committed to effective altruist causes. Popular cause priorities within effective altruism include global health and development, social inequality, animal welfare, and risks to the survival of humanity over the long-term future. Ef ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a merging of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported as of 2020 to be the second largest charitable foundation in the world, holding $49.8 billion in assets. On his 43rd birthday, Bill Gates gave the foundation $1 billion. The primary stated goals of the foundation are to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty across the world, and to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology in the U.S. Key individuals of the foundation include Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, Warren Buffett, chief executive officer Mark Suzman, and Michael Larson. The BMGF had an endowment of approximately $50 billion . The scale of the foundation and the way it seeks to apply business techniques to giving makes it one of the leaders in venture phila ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacobin (magazine)
''Jacobin'' is an American political magazine based in New York. It offers socialist perspectives on politics, economics and culture. As of 2021, the magazine reported a paid print circulation of 75,000 and over 3 million monthly visitors. History and overview The publication began as an online magazine released in September 2010, expanding into a print journal later that year. ''Jacobin'' founder Bhaskar Sunkara describes ''Jacobin'' as a radical publication being "largely the product of a younger generation not quite as tied to the Cold War paradigms that sustained the old leftist intellectual milieux like '' Dissent'' or '' New Politics'', but still eager to confront, rather than table, the questions that arose from the experience of the left in the 20th century". In 2014, Sunkara said that the aim of the magazine was to create a publication which combined resolutely socialist politics with the accessibility of titles such as ''The Nation'' and ''The New Republic''. Note ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eli Lilly
Eli Lilly (July 8, 1838 – June 6, 1898) was an American soldier, pharmacist, chemist, and businessman who founded the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical corporation. Lilly enlisted in the Union Army during the American Civil War and recruited a company of men to serve with him in the 18th Independent Battery Indiana Light Artillery. He was later promoted to major and then colonel, and was given command of the 9th Regiment Indiana Cavalry. Lilly was captured in September 1864 and held as a prisoner of war until January 1865. After the war, he attempted to run a plantation in Mississippi, but it failed and he returned to his pharmacy profession after the death of his first wife. Lilly remarried and worked with business partners in several pharmacies in Indiana and Illinois before opening his own business in 1876 in Indianapolis. Lilly's company manufactured drugs and marketed them on a wholesale basis to pharmacies. Lilly's pharmaceutical firm proved to be successful an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royalty Fund
A royalty fund (also known as royalty funding) is a category of private equity fund that specializes in purchasing consistent revenue streams deriving from the payment of royalties. One growing subset of this category is the healthcare royalty fund, in which a private equity fund manager purchases a royalty stream paid by a pharmaceutical company to a patent holder. The patent holder can be another company, an individual inventor, or some sort of institution, such as a research university. Royalties are a usage-based payment from one individual or entity to another individual or entity, giving the right to the use of an asset, product, service or idea. Structure of Royalty Investments Royalty funds are a specific type of income trust, used for special-purpose finance, created to hold investments or cash flow in operating companies. These funds aren’t stocks or bonds but a form of investment fund. A royalty fund raises capital in order to purchase the right to a royalty of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Vertex Pharmaceuticals is an American biopharmaceutical company based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was one of the first biotech firms to use an explicit strategy of rational drug design rather than combinatorial chemistry. It maintains headquarters in South Boston, Massachusetts, and three research facilities, in San Diego, California, and Milton Park, near Oxford, England. History Vertex was founded in 1989 by Joshua Boger and Kevin J. Kinsella . to ''"transform the way serious diseases are treated."'' The company's beginnings were profiled by Barry Werth in the 1994 book, '' The Billion-Dollar Molecule''. His 2014 book, ''The Antidote: Inside the World of New Pharma'', chronicled the company's subsequent development over the next two decades. By 2004, its product pipeline focused on viral infections, inflammatory and autoimmune disorders, and cancer. In 2009, the company had about 1,800 employees, including 1,200 in the Boston area. By 2019 there were about 2,500 employe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aurora Biosciences
Aurora Biosciences was a biotechnology company founded in 1995 in San Diego to commercialize fluorescence assays based on Roger Y. Tsien's discoveries concerning green fluorescent protein and its uses in basic research - work for which Tsien eventually won the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry along with two other chemists. Aurora was formed at a time when established pharmaceutical companies were seeking to harness the fruits of the Human Genome Project, which had overwhelmed them with potential drug targets, and the explosion of new research tools enabled by biotechnology, as well as revolutions in chemistry that allowed many more, and many more kinds, of potential drugs to be made. In 2000, as the investment climate turned against platform companies, Aurora started to work on its own drug discovery programs. It struck a deal with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation under which CFF invested $30 million in Aurora, with the promise of further investment based on success, in exchange fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivacaftor
Ivacaftor is a medication used to treat cystic fibrosis in people with certain mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene (primarily the G551D mutation), who account for 4–5% cases of cystic fibrosis. It is also included in combination medications, lumacaftor/ivacaftor, tezacaftor/ivacaftor, and elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor which are used to treat people with cystic fibrosis. Ivacaftor was developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals in conjunction with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and is the first medication that treats the underlying cause rather than the symptoms of the disease. It was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in January 2012. It is one of the most expensive drugs, costing over per year, which has led to criticism of the high cost. The combination drug lumacaftor/ivacaftor was approved by the FDA in July 2015. Cystic fibrosis is caused by any one of several defects in the CFTR protein, which regulates fl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
