acumen fund

amazing founder (and author of the blue sweater) – Jacqueline Novogratz

Our mission is to create a world beyond poverty by investing in social enterprises, emerging leaders, and breakthrough ideas.

Our vision is that one day every human being will have access to the critical goods and services they need – including affordable health, water, housing, energy, agricultural inputs and services – so that they can make decisions and choices for themselves and unleash their full human potential. This iswhere dignity starts – not just for the poor but for everyone on earth.

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Global Fellows Class of 2014

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manifesto

It starts by standing with the poor, listening to voices
unheard, and recognizing potential where others see
despair.

It demands investing as a means, not an end, daring to go
where markets have failed and aid has fallen short. It makes
capital work for us, not control us.

It thrives on moral imagination: the humility to see the world
as it is, and the audacity to imagine the world as it could be.
It’s having the ambition to learn at the edge, the wisdom to
admit failure, and the courage to start again.

It requires patience and kindness, resilience and grit: a
hard-edged hope. It’s leadership that rejects complacency,
breaks through bureaucracy, and challenges corruption.
Doing what’s right, not what’s easy.

Acumen: it’s the radical idea of creating hope in a cynical
world. Changing the way the world tackles poverty and
building a world based on dignity.

To reflect that we started Acumen to change the way the world tackles poverty and not simply to invest, we are also changing our name from Acumen Fund to Acumen. Our investment portfolio will continue to be the crucible of our work, generating impact on the ground and providing insights that drive our work in leadership and the spread of ideas. “Acumen” can hold all of this work together and give us the flexibility to drive change in different ways.

Finally, we’ve refreshed our identity to mark this new chapter. Core to this is an “unfinished A,” to communicate that our work is never finished, that we don’t have all the answers, and that we can’t do this work alone.

love the unfinished A

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Jacqueline – directing us to Dan Pallota‘s 2013 TED on the way we think about charity:

people are weary of being asked to do the least they can do