Jacqueline Novogratz, the CEO and founder of the nonprofit Acumen Fund, spoke at the Cabot Intercultural Center on Friday about her philosophy on social change through entrepreneurship and microfinance-related investments. The Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) and the IGL's Empower Program sponsored her visit.
Acumen Fund aims to alleviate poverty by investing in the poor, acting similarly to a venture capital fund.
Novogratz's new book, "The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World," was published last month.
The Daily sat down with Novogratz on Friday to discuss her work with the Acumen Fund and her thoughts on global poverty. A partial transcript of that interview follows; visit TuftsDaily.com for a full transcript.
Leslie Ogden: Where did you get the idea to start the Acumen Fund?
Jacqueline Novogratz: It was going back to 2001. The idea was that the markets alone weren't solving problems of poverty, and neither was traditional aid or charity.
On the one side, the markets were weeding people out entirely, and traditional charity was too often creating dependence. And one of the biggest lessons I've learned in my life is dignity is more important to the spirit than wealth. ...
The main idea about Acumen Fund is that of patient capital -- the idea that in the traditional marketplace, we invest in companies and we want to get our money back really fast and it's all about quarterly reports and the bottom line. ... The idea of patient capital is [that] you treat poor people like clients, like customers -- I would say like full human beings -- and you build solutions from their perspective. Then you can invest money in them, leave it for a long period of time and support it with a lot of management help, [and] over time you actually see results. ... You also learn where the market isn't enough to reach really poor people. ...
Eight years later, to see hundreds of thousands of customers buying water or bed nets or drip irrigation systems -- it's been amazing.
LO: In my studies, we've been looking at different ways to work towards peace [and] justice [and] to ameliorate people's lives and just how many avenues there are to do that -- through public policy, [through] sustainable agriculture, through microfinancing. Which would you say is the most effective solution, or would you say it is a combination of all of them? Which one do you believe is the best?
JN: I think [the] language of "if it's the best" isn't productive for us ... because it is the different pieces that need to come together. ...
I think when we look at peace, what we're talking about is a world ... in which individuals can have true freedom to access the goods and services that they need to make their own decisions and choices. It's at that point where the population feels the freedom to choose -- that's where humanity really starts.
But it means that we need enterprises, we need human-rights work, we absolutely need to focus on stronger and better systems of law and justice, and there are some global issues that can't be solved locally -- whether it's the eradication of AIDS disease or potentially even massive health care on some level.
LO: For young women and men who are graduating from college, making ... choices between trying to find financial security ... and pursuing their calling, what advice would you give them? What really pushed you and motivated you to follow your instincts?
JN: I almost felt like I didn't have a choice. When I thought about "Who do I want to be?," "Who are my role models?," they were never the really successful bankers. ... I wanted a life that was lived fully out loud ...
First of all, I think your generation is the most remarkable generation that has come around maybe ever. You guys are smart and caring and more pragmatic, idealistic, ready to give. You guys are extraordinary, and you're connected to each other like we've never seen in history. ...
Some of the feedback I got [in response to] the book that your generation is so expected to be perfect, expected to know the answers, expected to be on this track, and I think that's really scary for you guys because that's not how life works. ...
The book is filled with so many stories of falling down, making mistakes, flat-out failures. But the key to life is perseverance -- it's to focus on being interested rather than interesting -- which is what my mentor used to tell me all the time -- and not going after title and security because all that stuff doesn't really exist anyway.
You can have the most secure life, and suddenly, you could get fired or get cancer, but the deepest level of security and joy comes from building the things inside of you that nobody can take away from you ... That, I think, is the piece that most often gets missed when sometimes people look at people working in fields of poverty and change, and they think, "Oh, there's a do-gooder" or "Oh, isn't that so wonderful" when in fact [that] is the life of challenge and innovation and adventure.
It's hard, and honestly, in my life, I could not imagine a more interesting life because it's the whole human journey from finance to anthropology to culture to sciences. You have to figure out how to integrate them all in a way which is respectful and thoughtful.
LO: What would be the most important issue ... we need to work on to change?
JN: It's human interconnectedness. The biggest issues, the biggest thing that we need to recognize as a world, is that we are one world -- that our action and inaction affects people all around the world every single day, that the gap between rich and poor is unsustainable, [and] it also denies the world this extraordinary human talent that is linked. ...
If we actually did think about extending that fundamental principle that all men are created equal to every human being on the planet, and we started building our systems and solutions from that perspective, then we would really start finding our path.
