{"id":738,"date":"2010-10-18T09:40:04","date_gmt":"2010-10-18T09:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2010\/10\/does-africa-need-more-coke.html"},"modified":"2010-10-18T09:40:04","modified_gmt":"2010-10-18T09:40:04","slug":"does-africa-need-more-coke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/10\/does-africa-need-more-coke.html","title":{"rendered":"Does Africa need more Coke?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Coke is everywhere. In all my travels throughout the world, I can tell you that a Coke product is easy to find. <\/p>\n<p>Recently at the TEDxChange event, Melinda Gates made this same observation, and offered three areas where international development professionals can learn from the global distribution and sales strategy of Coke. <\/p>\n<p>Calling herself an &#8220;impatient optimist,&#8221; Gates writes, &#8220;My TEDxChange talk focuses on the question of how Coca-Cola has become so ubiquitous around the world and what governments and the development community can learn from the company&#8217;s success. By analyzing what Coca-Cola has done to become so prevalent, we can apply those lessons to the millennium goals and save even more lives.&#8221; [<a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2010\/OPINION\/10\/17\/gates.millennium.goals\/index.html?iref=allsearch\">Full Article at CNN.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p> <object classid=\"clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000\" id=\"ep\" height=\"374\" width=\"416\"><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\" \/><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/i.cdn.turner.com\/cnn\/.element\/apps\/cvp\/3.0\/swf\/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed_edition&amp;videoId=living\/2010\/10\/16\/ted.melinda.french.gates.ted\" \/><param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"#000000\" \/><embed src=\"http:\/\/i.cdn.turner.com\/cnn\/.element\/apps\/cvp\/3.0\/swf\/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed_edition&amp;videoId=living\/2010\/10\/16\/ted.melinda.french.gates.ted\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" bgcolor=\"#000000\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" wmode=\"transparent\" height=\"374\" width=\"416\"><\/object><\/p>\n<p>Her talk is about 15 minutes, and I think she offers some interesting stories and conclusions based on her experiences funding large-scale projects throughout the developing world. <\/p>\n<p>I want to note that I don&#8217;t necessarily agree with everything Mrs. Gates says in her talk, but she offers insightful analysis of a complicated problem.<\/p>\n<p>The idea that nonprofits and governments should adopt and deploy business strategies (like Gates encourages with her Coke example), is not new at all.<\/p>\n<p>An equally thought-provoking question is, with all the data, why isn&#8217;t this happening more regularly? When the human impact and return on investment is so obviously high, why wouldn&#8217;t NGO&#8217;s and governments rush to employ these same strategies? <br \/><!--more--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coke is everywhere. In all my travels throughout the world, I can tell you that a Coke product is easy to find. Recently at the TEDxChange event, Melinda Gates made this same observation, and offered three areas where international development professionals can learn from the global distribution and sales strategy of Coke. Calling herself an&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,8,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-current-affairs","category-the-poor"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Does Africa need more Coke? - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/10\/does-africa-need-more-coke.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does Africa need more Coke? - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Coke is everywhere. In all my travels throughout the world, I can tell you that a Coke product is easy to find. Recently at the TEDxChange event, Melinda Gates made this same observation, and offered three areas where international development professionals can learn from the global distribution and sales strategy of Coke. Calling herself an&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/10\/does-africa-need-more-coke.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-18T09:40:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Does Africa need more Coke? - Red Letters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/10\/does-africa-need-more-coke.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Does Africa need more Coke? - Red Letters","og_description":"Coke is everywhere. In all my travels throughout the world, I can tell you that a Coke product is easy to find. Recently at the TEDxChange event, Melinda Gates made this same observation, and offered three areas where international development professionals can learn from the global distribution and sales strategy of Coke. Calling herself an&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/10\/does-africa-need-more-coke.html","og_site_name":"Red Letters","article_published_time":"2010-10-18T09:40:04+00:00","author":"Tom Davis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/10\/does-africa-need-more-coke.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/10\/does-africa-need-more-coke.html","name":"Does Africa need more Coke? - Red Letters","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-10-18T09:40:04+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-18T09:40:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/10\/does-africa-need-more-coke.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/10\/does-africa-need-more-coke.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/10\/does-africa-need-more-coke.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Does Africa need more Coke?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/","name":"Red Letters","description":"Christian, Christian Inspiration, Christian News, Christian Activism News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92","name":"Tom Davis","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","caption":"Tom Davis"},"description":"Tom Davis currently serves as CEO of Children's HopeChest (www.hopechest.org), a global orphan care ministry headquartered in Colorado Springs. A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}