Great article on the front page of the New York Times about our partner Google.org and its executive director, Larry Brilliant. It is really exciting to see Google.org push boundaries around what is possible and how we need to use ALL of the resources at our disposal to solve tough problems of poverty. If there is one thing our work over the past five years has taught us, it is that to be more effective, philanthropy cannot be thought of only as money given to help people. Google has such great reach in the world that it can influence entire sectors using much more than its money - and their vision is an exciting one.
From Acumen Fund’s perspective, watching ideas that were seen as crazy five years ago be instituted as more mainstream also is a reminder that change can happen. Varun Sahni , our India Country Manager, and I had a breakthrough with a reporter in India when she asked us if we were the new “Missionaries of Charity.” After thinking about it, we said, that no, we were not missionaries; that the world needed to get away from a bifurcated vision that organized itself in business, government and charity. Instead, what is needed is to think about how we, as a more interconnected world, need to organize ourselves to use our resources more effectively to enable all people in society to flourish. In the 21st century, it will take new kinds of organizations that incorporate ways of reaching the poor as well as covering their costs. Acumen Fund is experimenting with these new kinds of organizations - and through these experiments, will learn better how to serve people so that they can make their own choices in life.
We’re learning daily and also learning from new partners like Google who are pushing the envelope. It couldn’t be a more exciting time.
Leave a reply