I've been thinking about this for the last few days, and I'd love your contributions to this thought experiment. It seems to me, I've only come across 3 types of business models for serving low-income/impoverished people.

They are:

Cheap - Finding a way to provide a product or service cheaper than normal to the masses. Think of Grameen Danon, which provided nutritious yogurt at cheap prices to Bangladesh's masses. I figure this could be done by making the manufacturing more efficient, or cutting out luxury components of a product. In that case, you make money by selling volume. Where I think this falls short is that it doesn't work for high-cost/customized services, like business consulting, legal advice, etc.

Generative - By this I mean helping people generate new wealth and taking a percentage. Think of micro-finance, for example. Another example, YSEC was exploring the option of helping start-ups and then taking a stake in them. Sisterings Studio also works like this.

High Traffic - This emulates the internet model of first getting the traffic, and then using it to place ads. Many community orgs that deal with low-income neighbourhoods have huge outreach capabilities, and therefore could become a portal for interested advertisers. There's of course the question of the community org risking its authenticity by "selling out", and there's also a question of how many advertisers want to market to a low-income target group.

I can't think of others - but I can't imagine those are the only ways. And at any rate, it seems like a lot of vital services aren't incorporated in these three. Can you add to this/reflect on anything I've written here?

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jacreative/148129344/

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