Over the past year, Acumen Fund has been experimenting with video as a way to share stories from our work and to help educate and inspire our community of supporters. After many hours behind the camera and a lot of help from our advisors and partners, we are pleased to announce that Acumen Fund finally has a YouTube channel! It is currently organized in three different playlists: videos on our investments, videos from the Fellows and videos from our events. We’ve also picked out some “favorites” pulled from other channels, which are relevant to our work. You’ll find some overlap between some of the playlists which is mostly intentional, but ask that you excuse any curatorial inconsistencies.
In addition to other videos we’ll mention in this post, be sure to check out Tony Award-winning actress Sarah Jones’ incredible multi-character performance from our 2008 Gala Celebration (Part 1 and 2), and Acumen Fund Fellow Karthik Janakiraman’s latest video, The New Face of Farming?, which takes a look at how GEWP’s drip irrigation technology is impacting the lives of smallholder farmers in India.
We hope that you will subscribe to the channel, rate and comment on the videos, and provide us with candid feedback. The channel is a work in progress and it’s ultimately for you, so please let us know what you think!
So, why video, and what have we been doing to get here? It started in the Fall of 2007, when our newest class of Fellows, armed to the hilt with camcorders, did two days of intensive training on capturing and editing video. Chock full of Oscar-worthy ideas, the Fellows (link to 2008 Fellows class) took to their assignments in India, Pakistan, and Kenya with infinite zeal, great promise, and intentions of making-good on their Errol Morris ambitions. Fast-forward 10 months to their return to New York in September 2008, and to make a long story short, we learned a thing or two:
- If you’re going to invest in video, you’d better invest in the right technology to support it. While the video cameras provided our Fellows were quite nice, the laptops we equipped them with left much to be desired. Frequent reports of software and computers crashing led to some pretty frustrating moments bringing to mind this cathartic scene from Office Space which I’ve personally fantasized about many times over the years.
- The assignment has to match the expectations, and the expectations have to match reality. Our Fellows weren’t asked to shoot and edit video on an ongoing basis throughout the year, so imagine the difficulties we faced when the topic of video was broached again 8-9 months post-training. As talented, capable, and determined as our Fellows are, having them produce one video as a year-end deliverable was a tall order given that many of them were working 12 hour days, 6-7 days a week, and had several equally important year-end deliverables they were juggling simultaneously.
Despite these challenges - and a fair amount of blood, sweat, and tears - the Class of 2008 Fellows were able to produce some fantastic content, proving that video can and should continue to play a central role in how we share knowledge and stories of individuals and organizations that are changing the face of poverty.
Catherine Casey spent a year working at the Sustainable Healthcare Foundation (SHF) in Kenya and produced this inspiring portrait of Dorah Nyanjah, a nurse, healthcare provider, and entrepreneur who runs one of SHF’s most successful franchise clinics in Kibera, one of the poorest slums in Nairobi. Last January, during the post-election riots that erupted in Kenya, Dorah’s customers formed a human fence around the storefront of her clinic to protect it from looters. Spend three minutes listening to Dorah describe her work and then try to tell me dignity is lost on the poor.
Chris Walker spent his year helping Dial 1298 for Ambulance, a provider of emergency medical services in Mumbai, India, develop and implement a marketing strategy. In this video, he shares just one exciting example of a potential blowback innovation that the company is experimenting with: solar energy to power the onboard equipment of its ambulances.
Enlightened by both the successes and lessons we learned in video from last year’s class, we’ve decided to experiment with a new format for our current class of Fellows. Each month, the Fellows have been asked to post a short video blog. The goal of the video blog is to share a short story, observation, or Aha! moment - either personal or professional - from the previous month.
Many of these take the form of video diaries where the Fellows simply “speak to camera” in the comfort of their homes. This approach requires a smaller commitment of time and energy and also allows the Fellows to develop their storytelling skills while finding their own unique voice. To date, most of the Fellows have already completed their first two video blogs.
What’s thrilling is that some have gone above and beyond the call of duty and have produced videos that include interviews of entrepreneurs and customers in the field and combine some more complex editing techniques that they’ve learned mostly on their own. Follow what the Fellows are seeing, experiencing, and learning on their blog and their YouTube playlist.
We continue to receive invaluable feedback from the Fellows on what’s working and what’s not. But, the early results are promising, and we look forward to seeing where their discoveries and creativity take them in future months.
