Yasmina Zaidman, our Water Portfolio manager, was recently in Delhi during the bombings. Here she shares her immediate reaction and reflections…

Within the last few hours news began streaming in that seven bomb blasts had gone off in Mumbai, killing more than a hundred people and injuring many times that number. As I sit in the Delhi airport waiting for my flight home, the numbers are being updated. Now it’s eight bomb blasts and 146 killed. Some of my fellow travelers are glued to the screen, and trying to get calls through to loved ones or colleagues, while others seem indifferent, as though this is business as usual. As far as I know, this is the biggest bombing since a series of blasts in 1993. I have been reading about the previous attacks in a current bestseller, Maximum City, and somehow as I was reading, the bombs seemed like a part of ancient history, some distant turbulent past. But now the past I was reading about is all too relevant to the present. (more…)

Check out this piece on Venture Philanthropy Partners that highlights six years of hard earned successes in building local community institutions in Washington, DC using a venture capital-like approach. Mario Morino is a friend of Acumen Fund and an extraordinary leader. I share the article with you because it captures so many lessons that are relevant to building and scaling nonprofit institutions. I share Mario’s letter to his community because it reflects the kind of leader that he is - one who moves from a place of humility and inclusion and is always asking questions rather than believing he has all the answers. We need more leaders like him at all levels of society. Our hat is off to Mario and his entire team and there is much to learn from the work of VPP. (more…)

As the Housing Portfolio manager, I am constantly excited to see the entrepreneurialism of residents of slums, who are taking initiative to improve their own lives. A case in point was the striking presence of residents of slums themselves at this year’s World Urban Forum III, sharing their success stories in their own voices. The power of their attendance was notable - whereas the discussion rooms were often full, they were more than overflowing for those panels on the plight of the residents of slums and their new ideas for change. (more…)

This is a good article on Bottom of the Pyramid opportunities, and our friend and advisor Allen Hammond is included as an expert on what is happening around the world. We are constantly looking for such viable business models that can enable the poor to make their own decisions around healthcare, clean water and housing.

It is exciting to see Acumen Fund featured in The New York Times in an article on building businesses at the bottom of the pyramid.

Fighting Poverty With $2-a-Day Jobs
By DANIEL GROSS
Published: July 16, 2006

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ, a veteran of the Rockefeller Foundation and a former consultant to the World Bank, talks enthusiastically about the development of a company in Africa where some 2,000 women earn, on average, $1.80 a day producing antimalarial bed netting. With the assistance of a $350,000 loan from an American investor, the business started making the nets nearly three years ago and is likely to add 1,000 more jobs within the next year… For full article click here

This past May, two members of the Water Portfolio Team visited Kenya, Uganda and South Africa, to explore investment opportunities and learn more about the major water challenges. During the trip, we gained important insights into the context for water and sanitation issues. On the one hand, in the face of significant unmet need, we constantly saw potential for entrepreneurial models. On the other, due to significant dependence on donor funds and systemic challenges such as corruption and lack of infrastructure, we witnessed major hurdles that could easily limit investment opportunities. Through a series of meetings with a cross-section of entrepreneurs, banks, not-for-profits or NGOs, foundations, donor organizations and community-based organizations (CBOs), it became increasingly clear that creative partnerships - between the private, public and citizen sectors - present the richest opportunities to support the growth of sustainable water systems. (more…)

Recent stories in the New York Times on the fight against malaria highlight the complexities of creating effective malaria-prevention technologies and distributing these technologies to the poor. On the one hand, the W.H.O. and other agencies have raised hundreds of millions to purchase long-lasting insecticide-treated bednets that effectively combat malaria at the local level. On the other, distribution continues to be a challenge.

In the push to get products to those most in need, funders should not overlook the importance of building sustainable enterprises that will remain after public money dries up. Building private distribution channels - even heavily subsidized ones - will not only enable more people to access this technology, but such market mechanisms will also allow the poor to express their preferences for which products they want, and choose among them with dignity. Scalable and sustainable solutions such as these are critical to ensuring the long-term success of the global fight against malaria.

The British metal firm BHP Billiton’s recent efforts to reduce malaria prevalance in Mozambique are a good example of a public-private partnership, driven through the efforts and innovation of a single company that saw the potential for doing something important and powerful. The world needs more such partnerships. I thought you would enjoy this article.

Acumen Fund would be very interested to know if our community has ideas for corporations that might be interested in following suit and doing something similar for their own employees and local communities. We would like to do a “road show” with A to Z to determine whether there are more such opportunities for local market distribution.

I recently attended the Aspen Ideas Fest at the Aspen Institute. While Acumen Fund values and works as a global community, and not from any one viewpoint, I was also speaking here as an American on Independence Day weekend - a reminder that we all speak as ourselves in different communities and have slightly different messages. What is important - and exciting - is to do so always with the view of reminding ourselves, and the world, that we are all in this together. And that, together, we really can solve tough problems.

On this celebratory day of American independence, I am reminded of a Big Idea on which this country was founded… (more…)