Reference:
“10 Things We’ve Learned About Tackling Global Poverty” (Acumen Fund) – published on Acumen Fund’s blog in December 2011
Key Ideas:
- Impact investing pioneer Acumen Fund celebrates its 10 year anniversary of leading a trend that started from just a handful social investment funds back in 2001 to almost 200 impact players in 2011. The eco-system of engaged donors and investors supporting innovative NGOs and social entrepreneurs worldwide continues to grow as we speak. As part of its reflection, Acumen Fund has included a “Top 10 learnings” list on its blog in its quest to fight global poverty.
- The list Acumen “has found to be true” is as follows:
- Dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth.
- Neither grants nor markets alone will solve the problems of poverty.
- Poverty is a description of someone’s economic situation,
it does not describe who someone is. - We won’t succeed in the long term without cultivating local leaders,
local money, and strong local communities. - Great people, every time, no exceptions.
- Great technology alone is not the answer.
- If failing is not an option, you’ve ruled out success as well.
- Governments rarely invent solutions, but they can scale what works.
- There is no currency like trust, and there are no shortcuts to earning it.
- Patient capital investing is built upon a system of values.
- Reading this reminded me of a fundamental but often neglected aspect in the business of “doing good” that we all had better be very clear about to remember why we do what we do, and not least also to save ourselves a lot of grief and “sinking heart” feeling later on. Hint: it’s got to do with people.
