January 2007

I thought you would be interested in Ashoka’s new class of Fellows. Bill Drayton has done so much to change the world’s thinking about the power of entrepreneurial approaches to solving the world’s problems. Indeed, as you look at many of these individuals, it becomes clear that each is an entrepreneur in his or her own right and that maybe, in this next century, we’ll drop the term “social” altogether in recognition that entrepreneurs all carry the same DNA, whether they are working on private or public issues. Congratulations to Ashoka and to all of the new Fellows — the world certainly  needs you.

At Acumen Fund, our focus on metrics has become an integral part of everything we do. Understanding the social impact and financial performance of our investments is critical to informing our portfolio decision-making process and providing support to our investment enterprises. Over the past few years, building on other established approaches, we have worked to develop a methodology for assessing our investments that is practical, understandable and useful to our ongoing work. This concept paper outlines an analytical tool we affectionately refer to as BACO (for best available charitable option) that helps us to understand the social impact and cost-effectiveness of our investment, as compared to other charitable options that address the same issue. It continues to be a work in progress and is not without its limitations, but it does provide a framework for how we think about delivering critical goods and services in health, housing and water to the poor.

I’m just back from India with the board, jet-lagged but excited by the trip and the commitment of so many stakeholders –  our board, our India team, our investees, our advisors. We are building a real community, and it is this group of people in India and elsewhere who are responsible for the powerful changes we are seeing. Cate Muther gave me Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss to read on the plane, and I completed it just as the plane was arriving at JFK. I couldn’t recommend it more highly - it is a book about India and the scars of colonialization, of the diaspora and of humans of different classes and types trying to make sense out of an increasingly complex world. It should be required reading for people interested in our issues of building viable solutions to poverty through market-driven approaches.

Ms. Desai begins the book with a poem by Jorge Luis Borges:

Boast of Quietness

Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and my death, I observe the ambitious and would like to understand them.
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of humanity.
My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty.
They speak of homeland.
My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword, the willow grove’s visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn’t
expect to arrive

My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty. Until we can really see ourselves in each other, we are not going to create the future we imagine based on the fundamental principle of human equality. It will require a reimagining of how we organize ourselves and our resources to best serve the most people possible so that everyone of us can hope to live lives with the dignity of choice. Desai brilliantly reminds us of how easily people are stripped of that choice in most every society on earth, so it is our work to see where even the most basic human dignities are unavailable and to do what we can to build those systems that best release human energies on a widescale basis.

We were pleased that one of our investments, Scojo, was recently profiled in The Economist. In additon to discussing the Scojo model, the article highlights its partnership with another Acumen Fund investment, Drishtee. By facilitating collaborations like this (and a similar one with Medicine Shoppe), Acumen Fund is helping Scojo to expand its distribution and reach in rural India.

Acumen Fund has just issued our Winter 2007 update, which highlights our activities over the past quarter. (If you don’t already receive it by e-mail, you may want to sign up here.)

We’ve also published Jacqueline’s journal from her recent trip to Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa. Jacqueline shares her first-hand experiences with our investments and with individuals who are benefiting from them.

Greetings from Mumbai. I was running along Marine Drive this morning and reflecting upon Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Each year, I read his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, but this year, I thought instead about his impact on the world beyond the U.S. 

I remember being here in India about ten years ago with a group from The Philanthropy Workshop. We had traveled for a couple of hours outside Calcutta on a day that must have neared 125 degrees, in a bus with no air-conditioning and stopped in the middle of nowhere. In the distance I could see a ribbon of gold seeming to flow above the cracked ground. We walked toward it and found instead two rows of women waiting to greet our group. They sang and ululated, throwing marigolds over us, and the yellow of the flowers mixed with our sweat and dripped all over our faces and clothes. After treating us to cool coconut milk, the women danced for us and sang a song. We talked about their programs organizing the poor to care for themselves and fight for their rights.  And then they asked us to return the favor of singing. We couldn’t say no, but it isn’t typically an American thing to do at spontaneous meetings so we were a bit flummoxed. I was thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s fight for human rights and equality as I sat among those extraordinarily generous women and suggested we sing We Shall Overcome.

We started somewhat tentatively, and then an extraordinary thing happened.  The Indian women’s group starting singing with us in Hindi and in local dialects. We all formed a circle and held hands and kept singing, each of us in our native language, each of us understanding the spirit and hope of what the world could be.

May we all take time to remember that spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. and those like him who dared to fight for others, to bring voice to the voiceless and to remind us all that we share this earth, that our futures are tied together and that our greatest gift is our shared humanity.

An article in the current issue of Business Week talks about Muslims in America. The article challenges stereotypes of Muslims and reminds us that in finding commonalities across cultures and beliefs, we can truly make change happen. One of our dedicated pro bono attorneys, Nazish Agha of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, has been rightly featured in this piece as an example of successful Muslim Americans.

I’ve been in India for two months now, but I thought I would share a story about the challenges in getting started in my work with Drishtee. It reminded me a lot of the exercise in “Everyday Barriers” that the fellows went through during our training in New York.

My business visa, which was issued in the U.S., notes that I am employed with Acumen Fund Advisory Services, Ind. Pvt, Ltd. in Hyderabad. It states ‘Registration Required Within 14 Days of Arrival in India’ although it does not say with what office or where. The Tuesday after I arrived in India, I went to the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (with several documents) in New Delhi, but, unfortunately, it was closed by 3:00 and I got there too late.

On Wednesday, I went back to FRRO, and after waiting in line and submitting the documents, I was told that since I was in a different state (Uttar Pradesh), that I needed to go to the Main Noida Police Station (Noida is where Drishtee is headquartered and where I live) to get registered. They would not give me the address or the exact name of the place – I asked many times and was told by the staff at FRRO that everyone in Noida knew where the place was. As you can imagine, when I got to Noida, no one had ever heard of this office.  I finally found the address and went there, meeting with a Mr. Singh, who informed me that my visa was not valid for Noida and that I needed to go to Hyderabad if I wanted to stay in India. After much discussion, he suggested going to the Foreigners Visa Office in Delhi. If they would provide a document approving a visa change, he would register me in Noida. I rushed back to Delhi on Wednesday, but you need to get a pass to enter the Foreigners Visa Office in Delhi. No passes are given out after 12 noon, so nothing else could be done that day.

It is hard to believe that our first class of fellows has been out in the field for two months, and we are now preparing to recruit the next class. As we reflect on the past four months, the fellows program has been an exciting way that we have been able to develop leadership – both professionally and personally – for our sector and provide on-the-ground support for our investees.

As you may have read in earlier blog posts from the fellows, the two months of training in New York was focused on discussing the variety of issues facing our work – from the perspective of entrepreneurs, development agencies, government as well as the private sector. The fellows were challenged by a variety of leaders to think about their impact as the next generation of leaders, as well as the legacies they would like to leave behind. They grounded themselves by thinking about their own moral compasses – where do they fall as it regards equality or liberty and community or efficiency?  How will these views guide them as they think about their roles supporting entrepreneurs and as leaders more broadly? They reflected on balance and sustainability, questioning the ability to manage aspirational careers and their personal lives.

As we start 2007, I’ve been reflecting on the past year, which was one of transformation for Acumen Fund. We have grown to nearly thirty people – with country offices and country teams and fellows working directly with our investments – who share a deep belief for making meaningful, tangible change in the world. 

In this next year, we will continue to grow and change. There will be new challenges and new opportunities. As we work together to change the lives of people too often considered invisible and to demonstrate ways of effecting positive change, may we all help one another keep our focus on this mission, and to hold ourselves accountable regardless of whether the world notices.

So, Happy New Year, everyone. Here’s to our individual and collective growth, happiness and to the contribution we all will strive to make. And may we never, ever stop feeling the joy along the way.