The Acumen Fund team is devastated by the tragic events in Pakistan. We mourn the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and are worried about the many families and individuals affected all across the country. I wanted to let our community know where things stand, especially as far as the Acumen community goes, and we will keep in touch as events unfold.

The major cities are experiencing a great deal of unrest — riots and a general breakdown so that all of the shops have been closed and emotions remaining very tense. The government has declared three days of national mourning but has indicated that January 8 general elections remain on schedule. 

All of our team members and our two Acumen fellows are safe and at home. Our investees’ teams also are safe, though a couple of TRDP vehicles were attacked.  We send our thoughts and prayers to team members, partners, investees, advisors, customers and friends, as well as to Pakistan as a whole. It has been a remarkable journey for Acumen Fund to have created such a strong community that has never been more needed.

Please keep Pakistan in your hearts as we move into 2008.

With hopes for a more peaceful world,
Jacqueline

Water Advocates, an organization dedicated to increasing American support for worldwide access to safe, affordable and sustainable supplies of drinking water and adequate sanitation, recently announced a decision by Congress to support the appropriation of $300 million to implement the Water for the Poor Act. This press release points out that the appropriations bill still needs to be signed by the President, but if passed, this funding would represent discreet new dollars to address the critical global issue of lack of access to safe water and adequate sanitation. (more…)

Doris Lessing’s Nobel acceptance speech is painfully beautiful in its raw elegance, and a reminder not only of the contradictions of our great world, but of the importance of literature, of stories, of reminding us all of who we are. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, the next few lines are a must-read, but, as for me, I will carry the picture of the dusty African woman reading the paragraph from Anna Karenina at the counter of the store in Zimbabwe for a long time….

We have a treasure-house - a treasure - of literature, going back to the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans. It is all there, this wealth of literature, to be discovered again and again by whoever is lucky enough to come on it. A treasure. Suppose it did not exist. How impoverished, how empty we would be.

We own a legacy of languages, poems, histories, and it is not one that will ever be exhausted. It is there, always. (more…)

This interesting article discusses the use of smart subsidies to bring critical products - in this case, fertilizer - to poor farmers at prices they can afford so that they can change their own lives. It is also a story of how many variables go into success, which means that attribution for what works and what doesn’t isn’t always straightforward. We need constant experimentation and an honest appraisal of results, of successes and of failures too. It is exciting to see an increased dialogue around some of these issues in papers like The New York Times.

This is a scathing indictment by Stephen Lewis, Co-Director of AIDS-Free World, of how data does not always drive policies; and it is also a report of how ineffective leadership is perhaps what most hinders progress. We can have the technologies and even make them affordable, but putting effective business models with real accountability into place is the culture that must be created for all individuals and groups focused on serving the world’s poor.

This piece in the LA Times’s giving supplement talks about GOOD magazine, a fabulous publication that focuses on people and organizations that are effecting change across many fields, including philanthropy, politics and design. Subscribers to GOOD can select one of its ChooseGOOD nonprofit partners, and 100% of their subscription payment will go to that organization. This year, Acumen Fund is delighted to be among the magazine’s ChooseGOOD partners. (Our page on their site is here.) The current issue of GOOD features an interview with our own Jacqueline Novogratz.

Fast Company magazine has announced its 2008 Social Capitalist Award winners, which recognizes organizations whose social impact and organizational effectiveness make them leaders in social entrepreneurship. Acumen Fund is delighted to be among this year’s winners, along with some great peer organizations, not to mention one of our investees, Scojo Foundation. The December issue of the magazine comes out today — and the Fast Company website includes additional features, like this slide show of the winners.