Articles by Deepti Doshi

We are excited to announce that the application process for the 2009-2010 class of Acumen Fund Fellows is now open. Applications will be accepted online until noon EST on October 20, 2008. Detailed information about the program and application the process, as well as bios of current and past fellows, can be found on our website. To apply directly, please click here.

We are looking for dedicated individuals with the moral imagination, the practical skills and the leadership potential to effect real change. The program thus far has been a resounding success – both for the Fellows and the Acumen Fund enterprises they support. Fellows have called their time with the program a life-changing experience, allowing them to build critical business skills and a better understanding of the challenges involved in serving low-income consumers around the world.

We are also excited to welcome our new class of 2008-2009 Fellows later this month. They will soon join Acumen Fund in New York to begin training and to prepare to support Acumen Fund investments. The Fellows have committed to sharing their experiences both from New York and on the ground, so expect to see frequent posts from them on the Acumen Fund website and blog.

If you know exceptional individuals who should be part of our 2009-2010 class, please encourage them to apply.

For me last week, it was a week of reunions, inspiration, and hope. We kicked it off with the 2008 Fellows’ Mid Year Meeting. The 3-day reunion allowed us to reconnect as a group, discuss challenges the fellows face in the field, share success stories, brainstorm solutions, support the fellows’ career development and - perhaps most importantly - just be together.

We designed the Acumen Fund Fellows Program to provide much-needed support to our investees, and to build leaders to push the sector forward. It is our sincere hope that they will do it together and support each other for many years in the future. As such, ensuring that the fellows grow as a cohort is an important dimension for us as an organization.

The importance of community was never more front and center than during the Skoll World Forum, on which Ann, Brian and Jacqueline have already commented. Session topics ranged social entrepreneurs’ engagement with governments to the role of women in our work to post-conflict environments to more operational topics, such as metrics, where Brian was a panelist.

One session in particular stood out – Replication and Scale. I had just come from a 3-day session where the fellows talked at length about the challenges they – and the entrepreneurs – face when it comes to scale and replication. From recruiting to business development and fundraising to defining distribution models like franchising, the issues that Chuck Slaughter of Living Goods, Martin Burt of Fundacion Paraguaya, and Dorothy Stoneman of YouthBuild discussed resonated quite closely with what the fellows struggle with as they too face similar challenges with our entrepreneurs.

I could not agree more with Carol Thompson Cole’s recent article on talent shortages within the non-profit sector. Cole – of Venture Philanthropy Partners – hits on some key issues, especially the increasingly important role of non-profits and hybrid organizations in the delivery of social services around the world.

Furthermore, given the sector’s expected growth, talent is an issue that Acumen Fund believes is of paramount importance. As such, we commend VPP for the article and the study on which it was based: Ready to Lead? Next Generation Leaders Speak Out (PDF).

Cole’s analysis builds on that of Tom Tierney, Executive Director of Bridgespan Group, who wrote “The Leadership Deficit” back in 2006. In it, Tierney asserts that, in order to support the non-profit sector’s growth, we will need 640,000 new leaders in senior positions – and that’s only in the United States. Just think about what this means internationally!

Applications for the Acumen Fund Fellows Program are due by noon EST on Wednesday, October 24. If you are interested in an extraordinary opportunity in venture philanthropy and social change, please apply here. For more information, visit our opportunities page - or even better, check out the words of one of our current fellows on the google.org blog.

It is hard to believe that we are onto recruiting our third class of Acumen Fund Fellows! The first class has graduated with tremendous success, and the second class has just started the training period today, actively preparing for the work of supporting Acumen Fund investments.

We have just opened the application process for the 2009 class of fellows. We’ve moved up the process to better coincide with recruiting calendars for schools in the U.S. as well as in the geographies where we work, so you can apply online until noon EST on October 24. We are looking for dedicated individuals with the moral imagination, the practical skills and the leadership potential to effect real change.

Information about the program and the process, as well as bios of current and past fellows, can be found on our website. Also, expect to see frequent posts about their experiences on this blog!

Our first cohort of fellows has finished up their assignments with Acumen Fund investees, and is re-joining us in New York as of today! We are excited to have them with us for the next month as we debrief as a group; collect their insights related to leadership, sustainability and scale for small enterprises serving the poor; and help them prepare for their next steps. You can expect them to share some of their experiences on this blog, as they have done throughout the year.  And as they prepare to leave the fellowship (but certainly not the Acumen Fund community), I’m pleased to announce that we have selected our second cohort of fellows, who will be joining us this fall.

We have certainly learned a lot in the first year of the program, but most importantly, it has reinforced our belief in the need to capture the energy of talent all over the world who can apply skills and imagination to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems. As Jacqueline discussed in last week’s quarterly newsletter, “talent” has become one of the pillars of Acumen Fund’s work – it is thrilling to see the sector moving toward developing not just the next generation of leaders, but the next generation of entrepreneurs and managers with business and operational skills.

We have been delighted by the response to our call to build our second class of Fellows. We received 466 applications from an extraordinary pool of candidates from 57 countries:

• 35% from the US
• 21% from Africa (with Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda representing the majority)
• 13% from Europe (mostly from the UK and France)
• 12% from Pakistan
• 8% from India
• 4% from Australia and Canada
• 3% from other Asian countries (even Micronesia)
• 3% from Mexico and South America
• 1% from the Middle East

We are immensely impressed with the experience, talent and enthusiasm of the young talented professionals who are seeking to strengthen business skills while making a real contribution to social change in the world. The outpouring of interest in the program is evidence of an unleashing of pragmatic idealism in the world. There is much to be done, and it is only be harnessing the energy of the next generation will we be able to accomplish our goals.

Specifically, these individuals have accomplished wonderful things in a variety of sectors and countries – from using “ginger” as the one word to describe them or working with a janitor to accomplishing his dream, each of these individuals has the moral imagination to help our investees succeed and become the leadership of our sector.

We are looking forward to learning more about them through the upcoming interviews and dinners and are looking forward to announcing our class in April.

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.

Two more of our inaugural Fellows cohort…

Ayeleen Ajanee

“The desire to work as a social entrepreneur was instilled in me since I joined the girl scouts at the age of six. My passion to help others grew as I became curious about new ideas and was stimulated by the possibilities of contributing to others…social stability at the grass roots level is a must for economic growth. Unless basic survival needs are met, it is difficult for people to concentrate elsewhere… I see Acumen as the perfect vehicle for me to contribute to the social change taking place in Pakistan.”

Eric Berkowitz

“My experiences in India have given me two important insights. First, the conditions of the poor are not hopeless but in fact there are many ways to improve their lives through health, education and microfinance initiatives. Second, only sustainable solutions to poverty can bring long term improvement - this is the motivation for my interest in Acumen Fund and its mission.”

Introducing another two 2006 Acumen Fund Fellows.

Adrien Couton

“My long term objective is to build my profession life around the transfer of knowledge and skills between the business world and the social sector in order to tackle poverty. The exchange of ideas and people between these sectors is scarce, and this divide is a barrier to addressing global challenges, from fighting pandemics to providing basic services for all.”

David Lehr

“I understand the value of building partnerships and working collaboratively. To be most effective in meeting the challenges of sustainable development, I need precisely the type of hands on preparation and in-country challenges offered by the Acumen Fund Fellowship.”

Introducing two more of our 2006 Acumen Fund Fellows.

Keely Stevenson

“I am applying to spend the next year of my life with Acumen because the universal message from my hospice patients was clear: life is short - only dedicate your talent and energy to something meaningful. It would be an honor to join the team.”

Fabrice Ndjodo

“I have learned through the HBS experience, that it is not only the tangible results of community work which will be on my scorecard as a social leader, it is also the constant pursuit of these results which will over time make a real difference. This is the reason why I want to be involved with Acumen - it is known for its relentlessness to foster entrepreneurship as a way to create wealth and reduce poverty in developing countries.”

Over the next four weeks, we shall be introducing our 2006 Acumen Fund Fellows. This year’s inaugural cohort comprises a diverse group of individuals who all share not only individual accomplishment but a proven desire to serve, to listen, and to be part of a larger community focused on significant, measurable change. It is thrilling to see talented people who could do so many things in the world choose to give back to it - a spirit embodied by the Acumen Fund team as a whole.

Nadaa Taiyab

“This fellowship at Acumen Fund immediately excited me as it combines many of the elements I am seeking in my next job: an entrepreneurial environment where I will have the space to take initiative, the opportunity to work towards a social vision, and the challenge of working in developing countries.”

Jocelyn Wyatt

“While I have always been committed to sustainable development, I wanted to be part of a pragmatic, market-based approach that went beyond the standard paradigm. I am excited by this rare opportunity to further my professional development in social entrepreneurship, to achieve my goal of creating and leading my own social enterprise in the near future.”