Acumen News

• An Outlook Business article profiles social venture capital funds in India, including our investees Husk Power Systems and Water Health International. A related article features Antony Bugg-Levine of Rockefeller Foundation discussing the changing field of Impact Investing.
• Aravind Eye Care Systems won the $1.5 Million Conrad Hilton Prize for its work in extending affordable eye care to low-income populations in India.
• Business Daily Africa covers Acumen Fund investee Jamii Bora for its work in providing financing solutions for low-cost housing in Kenya.
• Acumen Fund India Director Varun Sahni discusses how to select the right legal-structure for your start-up in the Wall Street Journal’s India edition.
• Madeleine Anderson, CEO of Equity for Africa, discusses the “missing middle” of financing for African SMEs, and how impact investors are beginning to fill that gap in Beyond Profit magazine.

We’re pleased to announce that the San Francisco for Acumen Chapter will be having its Wine Tasting Event on 25th March, at the SNOB Wine Bar & Lounge from 6.30pm - 9.30pm.

In preparation for the event, local chapter leaders are gathering on Sunday, 14th March, at 50 Fremont Street for an Event Planning Session from 2pm - 3.30pm. This is an excellent opportunity to get more involved with the Chapter and Acumen Fund’s work, so if you’re interested, don’t hesitate to sign up!

For more event information, please refer to links on the Wine Tasting Event & the Planning Session on our Community website.

Yasmina Zaidman is Director of Communications at Acumen Fund.

Are you being a linchpin?

I’ve been an avid watcher of “So You Think You Can Dance“ for years, and since reading Linchpin, Seth Godin’s latest book, it has become clear to me why. The show’s name is a little ironic. The kids featured in this competition reality show, who audition from around the country for a chance to become America’s favorite dancer, really can dance. Some have years of training, and some are street dancers, but all of them get on the stage and dance their hearts out, with grace, and flare, picking up new styles effortlessly from week to week. It’s a little embarrassing to be hooked on a reality TV show, but I know I’m not alone.

What the performers on the show do for me is remind me of what it looks like to be an artist. The hunger, the hard work, the courage. And the end result is breathtaking - performances that stay with me for years after the show ends. The show is irresistible because it shows me something, I now realize, that is true about myself. I had never thought of it that way.

Linchpin is about what it takes to be indispensable, to be singularly good at what you do, to create and share the gifts that only you can offer.

Linchpin challenges its readers in a way that previous books by Godin have not. If you’re looking for a new way to think about your marketing strategy, or the best way to harness the power of the internet, this is not the book for you. If you’re willing to consider that you are capable of much more than you are doing now, pick it up. Read it. If you have read Tribes, and have decided to be a leader, then make sure your tribe reads it. If you have decided that you want to make a positive difference in the world, and have ever asked yourself the question - “am I doing enough?”, read it.

But going back to “So You Think You Can Dance,” there is a catch. Linchpin is not about seeking out genius and artistry in others.  I know now that what I love about watching these extraordinary dancers is that it calls out to some part of me that wants to be more. Linchpin has the audacity to suggest that the genius worth watching is YOU.

In Linchpin, Seth is talking, in part, to people whose livelihoods and dignity are at stake in a new economy that ruthlessly downsizes anyone who is dispensable. But he is also talking to people who feel comfortable in their good-enoughness. What’s provocative about the book is his message to those, myself included, who don’t need to become a linchpin in order to save our jobs, but rather to give a gift that we’ve been holding on to. This is the part of the book where I start to wish that “So You Think You Can Dance” wasn’t in between seasons. It’s so much easier to just watch.

The notion of overcoming the resistance, what Seth names that internal sabotage mechanism that keeps us from sharing our gifts with the world, sounds exhausting. And uncomfortable. It means risking failure. But once you see the pattern of your own self-sabotage, which Seth deftly captures as though he’s had a hidden camera trained on you for years, it’s hard to continue as before. I’ve decided that the best way to deal with this daunting set of ideas is to take it on reality-show-style, with a group of peers who share my hunger and curiosity, and are willing to challenge each other to new heights. I know that as more of us at Acumen Fund begin to read this book we’ll be able to create subtle shifts in our own culture - a shift towards more generosity and art, and less credit-seeking and prize winning. We’ll continue to hold ourselves to the highest standards of accountability, but with a new excitement that comes from being a community of linchpins. We may not be dancing, but we are artists in our own way, hoping to bring something new into the world and inspire others to bring their own gifts to the task of ending extreme poverty.

Acumen Fund Community members gather to discuss the Blue Sweater in Nairobi, Kenya.

Blair Miller manages the Fellows Program at Acumen Fund.

Over the course of the past few months, we completed the interview process for the 2011 Class of Acumen Fund Fellows. Through the process, we got to meet bankers, doctors, artists, investors, microfinance experts, brand managers, development workers, academics, and entrepreneurs, all of whom shared a vision of creating social change through market based solutions. In total, we have interviewed 56 candidates in 9 panel interviews across the world (Nairobi, Karachi, Mumbai, London, San Francisco, New York), and have leveraged the knowledge and expertise of over 40 advisors, entrepreneurs, Fellows alumni and partners to help us recruit this next class of Fellows.

Having been the only Acumen Fund team member to interview each of these final round candidates, my biggest takeaway is that leadership is not only critical, it is essential for the growth of the social enterprise sector.  We are at a moment in time where, the world’s biggest problems have real and tangible solutions. The missing middle that can bridge the gap between problems and solutions is the talent, the real leaders who have the financial and operational skills, the empathy and humility, and the influencing skills to create lasting change. This is the corps of social sector leaders that Acumen Fund has been building through our Fellows Program, and I’d like to give you a taste of the inspiring community we’ve been able to build to date.

What are we looking for? – Insight into a current Fellow:

During my recruiting trip, I also spent time with each Fellow at their current field placements. Let me give you an example:  Sarah Dimson, (a Ghanaian American) and Fellow in our current class, has positioned herself as a key part of the management team at AMC, one of our housing investments in Pakistan, run by former Fellow Jawad Aslam.  She is bringing her experience from low income housing in Los Angeles to Lahore and has a vision of returning to her roots in Ghana to continue her passion for low income housing development.   I have no doubt that when Sarah does start her own housing management company, this global perspective and connection will allow her to redefine housing for the poor in Africa.

What do they do after? - Insight into a Fellow Alumni

I also had the opportunity to spend time with many of our Fellow Alumni, all of whom are doing incredible things in the social sector.  For example I met up with Ram Hariharan, from the class of 2009.  Ram was trained as a financier in India and was placed in Kenya during his fellowship at a start up company called UHEAL, providing laser eye treatment for the poor in Nairobi, through a cross subsidy model. Post-fellowship, Ram has joined an enterprise called Bridge International Academies, which is providing affordable private education to slum dwellers in Kenya. They have 7 schools set up, which will grow to 25 in the next year and then 75 in the following year, with the goal of reaching 1 million children in the next 6 years.  Ram’s role is similar to a COO, building Bridge’s systems and processes.  Ram is doing what we had hoped the Fellows Program would lead him to: leveraging the experience and knowledge he gained at Acumen Fund to identify and realize promising opportunities to create positive change at the bottom of the pyramid.

The Ripple Effects of our Talent Investment:

However, Acumen Fund’s Fellowship is not just about the individual. It is about the collective community that is created, as a result of these individuals who have the moral imagination to show the world that the impossible, is in fact, possible.

Let me tell you what I mean.  I spent my last day in Kenya with Suraj Sudhakar, Fellow Alumni who worked at Ecotact during his fellowship, and is now working at PeePoople using innovative solutions to address the sanitation issue in the slums in Nairobi.  In addition to his work at PeePoople, Suraj has become close friends with, and mentor to a promising group of young men in Kibera who are now running TedX conferences in the slums and recently hosted a book club meeting for Jacqueline.  I attended the book club meeting along with around 150 other people, the majority coming from in and around Kibera.  We were also joined by Jocelyn Wyatt (Fellow Alumni, now working at IDEO on their social impact work), Catherine Casey (Fellow Alumni, now working as Innovations Manager at Acumen Fund, a role akin to Jacqueline’s Chief of Staff), and Gamuchirai Chituri (current Acumen Fund Fellow).  As we crowded into the hot and small conference facility in Kibera, surrounded by young people who believed change was possible, the significance of our work in the Fellows Program became so apparent. These were the very men and women who will go on to lead patient capital and social enterprise sectors one day, and I felt fortunate to be standing amongst them.

While Acumen Fund invests in social enterprises, our investment in individuals is equally invaluable to our goal of solving the problems of global poverty. Building a community of individuals with the empathy to see through the eyes of the poor, the boldness to imagine a new world, and the competence to execute with real business acumen, could perhaps be one of Acumen’s greatest legacies.

Stay tuned for the Class of 2011….

Brian Trelstad is Chief Investment Officer at Acumen Fund, where he runs the global portfolio team, coordinating our investment process and post-investment management support.

Every now and again we meet compelling entrepreneurs with nascent businesses that offer real breakthroughs in how to serve the poor.  Sometimes the meetings are pure happenstance, like meeting the PeePoo team at a dinner at the Skoll World Forum. Other times we find ourselves going to the pipeline: as a judge at the Global Social Venture Competition (where we first interacted with d.light, one of our current investments) or as a reviewer for Echoing Green (where we met Embrace).

As an investor who has defined our target investment size as $500,000 to $2,000,000, we are often frustrated that we can’t offer immediate assistance and a smaller investment, say $150,000, to these early stage ideas that need additional proof of concept, market feedback and a more complete team before they are ready for an Acumen Fund investment.

In most cases, we tell people to keep in touch and when they are raising their next round of capital to give us a call.  But for the few with the glint in their eye and unwillingness to take no for an answer, we listen to their pitch, we offer introductions, and we serve as a sounding board during the fits and starts of their early stage of their business’s development.  Ghonsla is one of those teams, whom we met at the Harvard Social Enterprise Business Plan competition in 2008.  They are a building materials company to provide affordable insulation made from renewable and waste materials to underserved markets in Pakistan and beyond.

From their pilot project they have learned that the idea of improving insulation to mitigate deforestation and reduce respiratory diseases stemming from indoor air pollution makes sense. Also the dreadful images coming from Haiti have reminded us that rebuilding places from scratch will happen again and again.  Developing cheap, local and green solutions to do so are as urgent as ever.

Recently, Ghonsla was selected as one of the finalist ventures for the Unreasonable Institute, a 10 week summer program designed to attract and unite 25 high impact social entrepreneurs from around the world, while incubating and accelerating their ventures through rigorous skill training and guidance from expert mentors. The institute also allows for entrepreneurs to connect with seed capital and offers a global network of support. Other finalists include a slew of impressive, early stage companies we’ve met lately – MILLEE, FrontlineSMS:Credit, Global Cycle Solutions and the Rickshaw Bank, to name a few.

So to the early stage entrepreneurs out there, some advice: keep plugging away, don’t take no for an answer and keep in touch.  We may never invest, but we might be able to provide more assistance than money.

As part of our investment in Husk Power Systems, Acumen Fund is glad to invite you to a Q&A Discussion hosted by Jay Barrymore, Portfolio Associate in our India Office. Jay will be hosting a real-time discussion on our Community Website tonight, 4^th March, from 10.30 to 11.30PM, Eastern Standard Time. Subsequently, he will be fielding questions for 2 weeks till 18^th March 2010. While certain information will be proprietary, Jay will share what he can.

To read more about Acumen Fund’s investment in Husk Power Systems, kindly refer to our previous blog post and Knowledge Center. The discussion is open to all Acumen Fund Community members. If you are not already a member, all you have to do is to sign up as a member of Acumen Fund’s Online Community – it only takes 1 minute! We look forward to speaking with you soon.

“Once you don’t have it – that’s when you realize the value”

David Kuria, founder and CEO of Ecotact

When I first journeyed to Kenya in 2004, celebrating the launch of a public toilet facility was one of the last ways I imagined spending a Monday morning – or any morning (or afternoon, or evening), for that matter. In fact, unless I had enjoyed an elephant’s dose of mango juice and was on a 5 hour safari across the Great Rift Valley, I might not have had reason to celebrate a toilet at all.

Six years later, however, armed with the realization that an estimated 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation and 2.2 million die each year from water and sanitation related diseases, I now have billions of reasons to attend toilet parties, an emerging trend in the Nairobi slums thanks to David Kuria and Ecotact. So when the Acumen team received the invite to attend the launch of Ecotact’s 17th Ikotoilet facility last Monday, I practically ran for my dancing shoes.

Sitting under a small tent adjacent to the about-to-be-launched Kawangware Ikotoilet, Rob Katz and I listened eagerly with the 200-plus gatherers inside and spilling out the edges of the makeshift party hall. The crowd – a mix of residents, officials and journalists – engulfed the architecturally distinct Ikotoilet structure. It was clear that Acumen wouldn’t be dancing alone at this party.

The Minister of Public Health and Sanitation and the Chief Public Health Officer also showed up for the celebration. Given the honour of Chief Guests, they both made remarks before cutting the ribbon: this day marks the launch of a noble public-private partnership initiative, as we bring necessary services closer to the people and are no longer dependent on flying toilets.

Part of the media frenzy at the Ikotact launch event

The Kawangware facility is part of Ecotact’s newly implemented slum outreach model; it is now the second Ikotoilet in the informal communities of Kenya. And according to Kuria and the Minister, there will be more Ikotoilets in Kawangware in the near future – extremely exciting news for Acumen as a BoP investor!

Ecotact is experimenting with a school model in the slums as well. After cutting the ribbon at Kawangware – and being mobbed by reporters as she toured the facilities – Minister of Public Health and Sanitation and Kawangware MP Beth Mugo led a delegation to the Dagoretti Secondary School, about 10 minutes away from the new Ikotoilet.

Darogetti students meet Ecotact CEO David Kuria

The school’s 150 students currently use pit latrines. But with funding from the Solid House Foundation, Dagoretti will soon inaugurate a free-for-use Ikotoilet on site. What’s more, a biodigester will generate valuable methane gas, pumped from the toilet to the school’s kitchen.

With facilities in Nairobi’s central business district, city parks, slums and schools, Ecotact is tackling the sanitation problem here in Kenya on many fronts. As an investor and partner with Ecotact, Acumen Fund is eager to continue the celebration with Kuria and his team, as they grow from 17 facilities to a target of more than double that within the next year.

Bio:

Benje is currently a Portfolio Intern in the Agriculture and Energy portfolios in Acumen’s East Africa office. Prior to Acumen, Benje was a management consultant at TecnoServe in Kenya and at PwC in New York. He is currently starting several SMEs in the Nairobi slums, and holds a BS in Business Administration from UC Berkeley.

In his book Tribes, Seth Godin discusses how change is best effected by a group of like-minded individuals united around a powerful idea. Acumen Fund was founded on such an idea: we believe that Patient Capital has the power to build a world beyond poverty. However, we need your help to realize this vision.

Introducing Acumen Fund’s Online Community – the place online to connect with people from all around the world who are excited about supporting Acumen Fund’s vision and mission. Started in October 2009, the Online Community is integral to Acumen Fund’s Community engagement efforts.

Here’re a few things you can do on with the Online Community:

Connect with over 2,688 members (and counting) from 108 countries, across dozens of interest groups who are passionate about the idea of Patient Capital.

Learn about Acumen Fund and social enterprise through multimedia and discussion forums with Acumen Fund staff.

Contribute to our cause by attending and organizing local events to raise awareness and donations for Acumen Fund.

The Online Community has something for you, regardless of your background:

Students: Learn how you can bring Patient Capital to your campus through our Campuses for Social Enterprise Group and Student Resources page.

Professionals: It doesn’t matter if you’re a banker, policy junkie, advertising guru, or activist. You and your peers can get involved with our work. Join an Official Chapter in New York or San Francisco, or one of our Seed Chapters in London, Dubai, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver, or Boston. You can search for other groups based on interest or geography here.

Blue Sweater Fans: The Blue Sweater is the inspiring memoir of Jacqueline Novogratz, Acumen Fund’s Founder & CEO. It chronicles her journey from Wall Street to the slums of Africa in an effort to understand global poverty, and tells the story of how Acumen Fund and “Patient Capital” came to be. Our Community site contains a wealth of resources about the book, including the Blue Sweater fan group, reader resources, information about how to help, and how to get the book.

Patient Capital Enthusiasts: If you have the passion & commitment to help support Acumen Fund’s work in some way or form, you can be sure that our staff will invest in supporting you.

Increasingly, we’re seeing the power of communities to contribute to our mission. Last July, the Young Professionals for Acumen New York Chapter (now New York for Acumen) raised $25,000 for Acumen Fund in a single night. This January, residents of local slums in Nairobi, Kenya, organized a “Super Book Club” reading of The Blue Sweater which attracted more than 90 individuals to meet Jacqueline Novogratz in person. All around the world, people are giving their time, money and effort to bring the power of Patient Capital to bear on poverty.

This is our invitation to you to help lead us. Be a part of our Community today.

Acumen Fund is pleased to announce a new investment in our Energy Portfolio. Husk Power Systems (HPS), based out of Bihar, India, will provide decentralized power generation to rural villages in India’s “Rice Belt” states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Orissa. The company will use novel biomass gasification technology to convert rice husks into combustible gases, which then drive a generator to produce electricity. Acumen Fund will invest US$375,000 in HPS, extending its commitment to investing in safe energy alternatives for the poor.

One of HPS's biomass systems in action in Bihar.

Acumen Fund’s investment in HPS recognizes the considerable potential for financial and social return in the renewable energy space. 350 million rural Indian households remain unelectrified, with at least 25,000 villages being declared “economically impossible” to reach via conventional means by the Indian government. In turn, many villagers use kerosene lanterns for household light and diesel generators for irrigation and commercial power, while fuel purchases require them to make lengthy trips on foot. HPS’s biomass system offers several potential benefits for villagers, including: lower cost of energy, improved household income, time & energy savings, and health benefits from cleaner power generation.

Our investment in HPS’s biomass technology is an exciting addition to Acumen Fund’s existing Energy Portfolio, which includes solar-lantern manufacturer D.Light Design, and micro-hydro turbine manufacturer SHREY. Collectively, these enterprises are helping to make clean and affordable electricity a reality to rural families around the world.

For more information on Acumen Fund’s investment, please refer to the Husk investment page and the official press release.

Jacqueline Novogratz is Founder & CEO of Acumen Fund. This article was first posted on The Huffington Post on February 25th, 2010.

Sitting on panels to interview candidates for Acumen Fund’s fellows program is always a highlight for me. Yesterday was no different as we met with five of 56 finalists from 600 candidates who applied from 65 countries for our one-year program. Each person at our New York City panel was engaged, alive and curious about the world. For some reason, the majority were from immigrant families — from Peru, China, India, Germany. Each told stories of struggle and all had grown up in families where hard work, discipline and a focus on giving back were core values. While all could be doing anything they wanted, coming from careers at Goldman Sachs, IBM and consulting, among others, they were hungry to serve. Throughout the day I thought about this next generation so willing to take risks, so eager to change the world; and I thought about the power of the immigrant experience in the U.S. Mostly, I felt blessed.

The day, however, was a long one, and by the time I left the group dinner in Brooklyn, I was feeling under the weather and thinking about my 4 a.m. wake-up for my early flight the next morning. I waited a long time for a taxi, and when a dilapidated yellow cab pulled up, I poured myself exhaustedly into the seat. The tall, wiry, dark-skinned African with enormous hands drove for a few hundred feet and then asked me if I minded if we drove a little out of our way so that he could pick up food he’d just ordered. I sighed and asked how far out of the way it was, and he said it would be just five minutes each way. That prospect didn’t thrill me and I asked if he was sure the food would be ready, and he told me not to worry because he’d drive back over the bridge to get his food after he’d dropped me off.

It was well past 10 and I liked the easy familiarity of the guy and so said, no, let’s go and get your food. He thanked me profusely and we sped across Brooklyn. Five or six minutes later, he pulled the car to the side of the street, and sprinted to a Halal Chinese food joint. Within a flash, he was back in the car and we were heading toward Manhattan.

The driver chatted happily as we drove through Brooklyn, telling me that he loved living in New York City, that in Congo he could never have worked his way up to buying a taxi, and that he was making money and sending it home and was now seen as a hero by his family. Everyone accepts him in New York, he said, even more than in his country where there is too much violence and mistrust. “I love the American dream”, he said, “and I am living it!” He added that he thought New York was different than other cities because everyone was accepted here, and he didn’t want to live anywhere else.

We arrived at my apartment, only 10 or so minutes later than we would have otherwise, and my fare was about $12. I handed him $20 and was about to tell him to keep it all because his spirit was so effusive, but he wouldn’t accept the bill. “Please,” he said, ” the fare is on me because I took you out of your way,” and I said, no, no, no. And he said, “OK, you can give me $5 but only $5 — that’s all I want.” And I laughed because something had made each of us want to be generous. So often, though, it is those with so much less who make the first move to offer something of themselves. This time I insisted and gave him the $20. The driver finally accepted and then insisted on getting out of the car to shake my hand.

At dinner, one of our partners had spoken about looking for light these days, and finding random acts of kindness every day in unexpected places. I thought of the hard life my taxi driver had left and his open, optimistic attitude toward the world and others. I was thankful that this man had managed to remind me that my time is not all that precious. So often when I am in Africa, people go way out of their way to help me, even if they’ve never met me before. We could use bringing some of that spirit to our fair city. It starts with taking just a moment to see one another, and it goes from there.

Jim Fruchterman is Founder and CEO of Benetech, a social enterprise that leverages technology for social applications. The following article argues for the transfer & application of medical technologies to the developing world. The challenge to adapt healthcare solutions to the BOP is being tackled by investees in Acumen Fund’s Health Portfolio, like A to Z Textile Mills and First Micro Insurance Agency. The article was originally posted on Benetech’s blog.

New ideas for Benetech projects come to us from interesting people all the time. The challenges that people bring are rarely technology problems: they are market problems. One repeating theme came to me during a recent and fascinating meeting with Professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum, the Director of Rice 360, the Institute for Global Health Technologies.

Rebecca was looking for help with a familiar problem. Her students at Rice University have been busy inventing new tools and equipment for global health. Many universities do similar things, but Rice goes a key step further. Their students actually go into the field, work with local medical professionals, and learn their real problems, their real pain points. They design solutions in response to these pain points, and bring them back into the field for real-world feedback.

So far, so good. But, what happens after doctors in Africa rave about how successful this or that invention are in their hospital? How do you go from ten or twenty prototype units to scale?

And that’s where things break down. The big vendors of medical gear that sell into the developed world have no practical interest in deploying products at a third, a fifth or a tenth of their current price points. The market isn’t that elastic. So, the established players rebuff such approaches as being impractical. And, through the lens of a successful company, that rebuff makes perfect financial sense.

But, Rebecca passionately explained that this means that people die in the developing world all of the time from lack of medical gear (and medicine) that we take for granted in the rich world. Or, they don’t have as successful medical outcomes that translate into poor health or disability.

I am convinced that there are many exciting social enterprises here. Ones that should make money in the long run, but may need a jump start. Clayton Christensen of Harvard in an article entitled Disruptive Innovation for Social Change has noted the need for disruptive innovations in health care. These “catalytic innovations” may not be quite as good as the status quo solutions, but are meeting an unmet need by virtue of being simpler and less costly.

There is a great deal of opportunity to help get more of these started. There are many brilliant people, both students and experienced professionals, who would love to do these kinds of products. The opportunity to transfer this kind of technology to enterprises in the developing world is also exciting, and one that I expect to see more and more. A Silicon Valley entrepreneur (or VC) can’t afford to look at a $5 million revenue opportunity, but that is probably much more attractive to a Kenya entrepreneur. We just have to marshal some capital and know-how to lower the barriers to creating and distributing these products.

I am not yet convinced that this is something Benetech should do, though. Although our social enterprise skills are strong, our specialty has been social applications of information technology. These have the benefits of being purely virtual products, without the need to have inventory or warehouses. But, seeing a gaping social need for social enterprises to bridge this gap is tempting. Someone needs to fill that gap and save a lot of lives.

Posted by Jim Fruchterman on Benetech’s blog, 15th February 2010.

Last month, Acumen Fund’s Wei-Wei Hsing, the Oliver Wyman Nonprofit Fellow, spoke with member’s of Preston High School’s National Honor Society about the work of Acumen Fund.  Emphasizing the importance of social justice and the efficacy of entrepreneurial approaches to poverty alleviation, Wei-Wei helped the students further understand the idea of patient capital and how it is changing the world.

Having read Acumen CEO Jacqueline Novogratz’s The Blue Sweater  in advance of the visit, the students welcomed Wei-Wei by perfoming a sketch they had written based on the book. Condensing Novogratz’s story into a series of key moments, the skit dramatized many of the book’s most touching and important events. Ending on a direct note, the sketch ends with the on-stage narrator saying:

“The blue sweater is a powerful symbol for the interconnectedness of all of us on the planet.
We believe that Jacqueline is a passionate change agent. By allowing those in poverty to find their own human dignity through playing an active role in their own success, breaks the cycle of poverty.”

Following the students’ performance, Wei-Wei spoke to them about patient capital, the path that led her to Acumen, and about other ways that they can continue to stay involved with Acumen Fund and the social enterprise sector.

Wei-Wei Speaks to Preston High School

As a follow-up to Wei-Wei’s visit, Preston’s religion department, as well as Compassion Connection, it’s service club, plan to begin using The Blue Sweater as part of their curricula.