administrative

With all the changes that are going on in the world – a financial meltdown on one hand, a new U.S. President brought to power on a wave of change from below on the other – we see tremendous opportunity. The time is ripe to create a step change in terms of awareness, excitement, and membership in Acumen Fund’s community of supporters and advocates – from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands…and someday millions of people who believe that markets and entrepreneurship have a central role to play in the global fight on poverty.

We need someone to help us make this happen, so we’re hiring for a Business Development Manager – Marketing. What does that mean? It means we’re looking for a storyteller, a translator, and a listener, who at the same time is ready to roll up their sleeves with data and numbers and analytics. You might be a great blogger or an old-school marketer with lots of new tricks up your sleeves. But either way you bring off-the-charts passion, energy, commitment, and humility to this role.

Put another way, you’re probably either a super-duper marketer who knows how to use online tools, or you’re world-class with online tools and also have got some great marketing ideas. If you’re neither of these things, this job (PDF) probably isn’t for you.

We’d like to see what you can do – details on how to apply are on this Squidoo lens.

We really hope it’s not too late. You may have already secured a great summer internship for 2009…if so, we’re happy for you. But if you’re waiting to hear back, or haven’t had the chance to apply as yet, then maybe you’re in luck. We are a little late in posting these (we’re sorry!) but are very happy to announce that we’re hiring a slew of Summer Associates to work in our New York, India and Pakistan offices.

All the details - position descriptions, duration, supervisor info, compensation, application instructions - can be found on the Work with Acumen page of our (now-resuscitated) web site.

Applications will be accepted only until February 20, so please apply today and help us spread the word to friends, colleagues, and others who might be interested.

Last year’s Summer Associates were a great bunch. I’m sure 2009’s crop will be just as fantastic…

UPDATE: The Acumen Fund web site is back up! Thanks again for all your e-mails and, most of all, for your patience. (January 30, 2009)

To: Acumen Fund friends, Partners, community members and website visitors

From: Acumen Fund staff

Re: Unscheduled, unplanned website maintenance

Memo: Thank you! Our website went down this morning (New York time) for some “unscheduled, unplanned maintenance,” as we’re calling it. Basically, our server had a big hiccup and we’re in the process of restoring our data, backing everything up, and re-starting the whole shebang. Almost as soon as it happened, we started getting e-mails from you - our friends, colleagues, partners, Partners, community members, fans - to let us know what was up. As much as we don’t like to get caught with our servers down, it is totally refreshing and reassuring to know that there are so many of you out there who care enough to write. So seriously, thanks.

We’re working as hard as we can to get this fixed. In the meantime, might we suggest a visit to our YouTube channel? How about our Fellows blog? Or NextBillion.net, which Acumen Fund co-owns? There’s also the Facebook cause, the LinkedIn group - you get the idea.

We hope you’ll bear with us as we make these fixes. Thanks again to everyone who wrote - we’ll post again here on the blog when life is back to normal.

Gratefully,

Acumen Fund

Acumen Fund believes that talent is one of the key needs in the social enterprise sector—individuals with the skill and will to effect change in developing markets. If you are interested in job opportunities at Acumen Fund, we just announced three new positions that are now in active recruitment. A fourth is also listed on the Work with Acumen page of our website.

The new positions are:

Senior Portfolio Fellow

Capital Markets Manager

Pakistan Portfolio Manager

Please see the job descriptions (links to the PDF are above) for details and information on how to apply.

The Acumen Fund blog is taking a short break - we won’t post again until early 2009. Thanks for everyone’s comments, suggestions and feedback during the course of the past year. It’s been a year like no other - in good and bad ways - but I think I speak for everyone at Acumen Fund when I say that we have real hope for 2009 and beyond.

In case you’re not subscribed to the Acumen Fund web site’s RSS feed (yes, there is one), a quick update: we’re hiring an Agriculture Portfolio Associate/Manager.

Full details are available on the Work with Acumen page, including a PDF job description.

The Agriculture Portfolio Associate/Manager will, among other things, coordinate activities related to agriculture in East Africa and the development of our investments in the sector in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania. S/he will also be expected to play a significant role globally, helping to build agricultural expertise in the organization. Based on qualifications and experience, the position will be created as an Associate or a Manager position.

Specific responsibilities include:
- Identify new investments, carry out due diligence and investment activities on potential investments, with a strong focus on the water sector;
- Prepare, present and maintain detailed investment documentation for Acumen Fund Senior Management, Acumen’s Investment Committee, and the Acumen Fund Board of Directors;
- Help manage relationships with upcoming agriculture investments in the region;
- Provide management support to agriculture investees.

If you or someone you know is interested in the position, please visit the site to learn more.

It has been a busy summer here at the Acumen Fund New York office, where we’ve been working hard to implement website and blog changes that make it easier for our community to access data on and insights from our work.

On the website, it’s now possible to view metrics reported by many of our investees. These investment metrics are fed directly from our Portfolio Data Management System. We are not able to share all the available data, and some of our new investments are still in the process of collecting data, but we are committed to sharing as much information as we can, as often as we can – and this is a step in that direction.