The Big Issue is a magazine that originates from London, England. Apart from publishing news that emphasizes social value, such as environmental issues, humanitarian and so on, the magazines are also sold by homeless people, helping these homeless people fend for themselves.
Strengths:
Personally, I find The Big Issue’s stance for social welfare is its unique strong point. In Taiwan, we sometimes see homeless people begging. Some people may stop and give them some coins, while others ignore them completely. However, ever since news about fake homeless people who cheat people out of their kindness, the society are less forgiving about these underprivileged people.
Yet, with TBI, these homeless people have a way to earn money, rather than beg for their next meal. In a sense, the Taiwanese would feel as if they’re doing a social justice by buying TBI from the volunteers, and they’d get a magazine in return.
Weakness:
Perhaps the most trickiest weakness is how TBI subscriptions is only open to organizations. While I understand if everyday citizens get subscriptions, there wouldn’t be any money for homeless people to earn, however for people who don’t pass by TBI selling points, a subscription would be a lot more sensible. I believe TBI could create a platform where people can subscribe to the magazine, in return donate to a homeless person. However one of the downfalls of this idea would be that TBI needs to find a way to track the homeless person (or have them come to the HQ, get their fundings from the platform and their magazines to sell).
Opportunities:
Media in Taiwan doesn’t always broadcast or publish foreign news on a more serious note. TBI does that, and not only provides news from the US but also from Europe and the UK.
Threats:
Online New Media- compared to paper magazines, online media is accessible to all, and also free.
Wandering Introvert 
I really like this ideal and wish they did something like this here.
where do you live, if you don’t mind me asking? We had TBI for a few years, but it only became a lot more popular due to their marketing and getting more popular culture icons as their feature story topics. (like we had Benedict Cumberbatch for February’s series)
here’s the link to the english version of TBI 🙂 http://www.bigissue.com/