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Globally Changing Vulnerable Families: Gretchen Villegas

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In this conversation, Gretchen Villegas shares her personal journey in global development and the changing landscape of the industry. She discusses the role of NGOs and for-profit organizations in creating social impact and the potential of impact investing to disrupt poverty. Gretchen emphasizes the importance of breaking through systems that hinder development and empowering vulnerable populations. She also highlights the need for public-private partnerships and the evolving role of women in global development. Gretchen recommends The Impact Table, a platform for women working in social impact, as a valuable resource.

Takeaways

  • The future of global development lies in partnerships between nonprofits and for-profits, with for-profits taking a stronger lead in driving wealth creation in developing countries.
  • Impact investing offers an opportunity to disrupt systems that keep vulnerable communities in poverty by combining financial returns with measurable social and environmental impact.
  • Breaking through systems and empowering vulnerable populations requires a combination of diversification, access to markets, and addressing the root causes of poverty.
  • Women are playing an increasingly important role in global development, with more women CEOs in large nonprofits and a growing presence in the corporate social responsibility space.

    • Gretchen Villegas is a 25+ year veteran global development professional specializing in mission-driven innovative program designs through partnership development, impact scaling, and revenue growth. 

    Gretchen has professional experience working in collaboration with both non-profit and for-profit partners in the implementation of local country programs that support vulnerable communities in Latin America, Africa and Asia, with a portfolio totaling over 320M+.

    Gretchen has wide-ranging expertise in executive level leadership of global program portfolio effectiveness through evidence and data, intentional program design

    to optimize impacts for vulnerable children and their families, rigorous research to learn and adapt in program implementation, and revenue strategies
    to scale and enhance reach of programmatic initiatives.

    She has secured funding and implemented projects for Institutional donors including the United States Agency for International Development and the United States Department of Agriculture, Foundations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MasterCard Foundation and worked closely with private sector partners General Mills, Cargill Animal Nutrition and Danone to name a few. 

    Get In Touch With Gretchen:

    Website:  www.GretchenVillegas.net

    LinkedIn:  Gretchen Villegas | LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/gretchenvillegassocialimpact

    Book Recommendations:

    Big Bets by Rajiv Shah - this book sums up the fact that we need to tackle global development challenges as consortiums and large funding sources; the trickle affect does not make significant enough change happen.  COP28 can be summed up to this. We need to think bigger.

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