Open Architecture Network

Pauline Nguyen is a volunteer who recently participated in an Acumen Fund presentation in Dubai, where Blair Miller presented her experiences managing the Acumen Fund Fellows Program.

I will be the first one to confess that I was pessimistic for the turnout at Blair Miller’s presentation about the Acumen Fund Fellows Program.   The feeling had nothing to do with Blair herself (who is quite fabulous in real life) but rather the type of people and lifestyle that exist in Dubai.

Professionals come to Dubai to work tax-free, live in luxury housing, enjoy fancy brunches, and travel to exotic destinations on the weekend.  In my honest and ugly opinion, Dubai is not a place with a lot of community-minded individuals.

Therefore, it felt very surreal to sit in a theatre in the Mall of the Emirates (Dubai’s excessive mall with its own indoor ski lodge) listening to Blair Miller, Talent Manager at Acumen Fund, promote the Fellows Program to an audience of 45 young professionals.

It was a tall order but even I, comfortable in my own luxury high rise, was inspired by her presentation to think deeply about applying for the Fellows Program.  The key highlight of Blair’s presentation was the focus on Acumen’s past Fellows.  The stories about the Fellows were easy to relate to as they were of the same age and stage in life as most of the audience members. I will assume (by the number of suits and Blackberry devices) that we were an audience between our late 20s and mid 30s, composed mainly of bankers, consultants, and other frustrated people working for the “man”/government. Basically, we were an audience who could use a change and some inspiration in our lives. Blair was telling us more than a story about a Fellow’s work- she was offering an opportunity to change our lives, to be that Fellow that builds more LifeSpring hospitals to bring safe birthing facilities to Indian women. Most expatriates eventually leave Dubai, but the question is:  Where to next?  Acumen’s answer:  Be a Fellow and make a tangible contribution to combating poverty in the developing world!

Another captivating part of the Acumen Fund Fellows Program was the calibre of the chosen participants.  It seemed that every Fellow had at least an expensive MBA and years of outstanding experience on their resume.   While I was a little intimidated, I still understood the message:  Acumen Fund wants the best financial and business minds (i.e. fanatic modelers welcome) to be their representatives in the field.  The Fellows Program is not asking volunteers to go to Africa and hold or adopt babies (no offense to those who do).  Rather, Fellows develop business plans, complex financial models, and contribute their business skills to make a tangible difference in a local social enterprise. Amazing stuff to think about!  Personally, I think it is much cooler and self-rewarding to be able to say “Yeah, I totally modeled five scenarios on how to alleviate India’s water scarcity problem” instead of “Yeah, I modeled five scenarios of a debt equity ratio that would yield the highest IRR.”

I would like to thank the Dubai for Acumen Volunteer Group for reaching out and inspiring us towards a more rewarding lifestyle. The Acumen Fund Fellows presentation was the second event organized by the Dubai Chapter.  I am excited for the Chapter’s next event which will be Acumen Fund’s Inaugural Fundraising Event to be held on April 7th at Cuadro Art Gallery in DIFC (for more information please email DubaiforAcumen@acumenfund.org). The event will be an opportunity to learn more about Acumen Fund and will feature a musical performance, good food and drinks.

I am eager to meet more individuals interested in Acumen Fund’s work, and hope to see you there!

• 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.

Yasmina Zaidman is Director of Communications at Acumen Fund. She recently returned from vacation in the Dominican Republic, where she personally experienced the importance of access to emergency medical care.

The hospital in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, where Yasmina and her son were fortunate enough to receive treatment.

I try not to think too much about work when I’m on vacation, but when I found myself in the back of an ambulance in the Dominican Republic this past week, I couldn’t help but think about Acumen Fund’s work on improving access to emergency care. I was holding my 17-month old baby in my arms as he vomited into a bed pan, while two young medics stood ready to check his vitals. He had acquired an acute bacterial infection, we later learned, that was leading to mild dehydration. This is a problem with a very simple solution – rehydration, with the optional treatment of antibiotics. Yet this simple solution is often not available, and dehydration is the single greatest cause of infant mortality, leading to the preventable deaths of millions of children under 5 each year.

I know how very preventable these deaths are, in part because I just saw it averted for my son. At every step in the process of getting my son the help he needed I found myself asking: “what would we do if we had no money?” First, there would be no emergency transport to a hospital or clinic (though this was only needed in this case because his illness started while we were at an international airport in a foreign country). There would have been no emergency room to check into with the swipe of a credit card. There would have been no instant diagnostics to check his blood pressure, his heart rate, his white blood cell count, which told us that his infection was bacterial and not viral. And most of all, there would have been no treatment, no IV providing the perfect combination of salt and sugar to help his body absorb the fluids that would keep his 22 lb. body functioning properly.

You don’t need a vivid imagination to see how this situation could have played out differently, and my mind kept switching from my own circumstance, in a relatively clean room, with a nurse and blood test results in hand, to a very different one. I pictured a dirt-floored room in a crowded slum or temporary shelter, my sick child in my arms, a dirty rag to wipe his mouth, and futile attempts to provide water, perhaps itself contaminated, to a child who was not tolerating liquids. I would essentially have to watch and wait to see whether his own immune system’s ability to neutralize the infection and its symptoms would outpace the deadly effects of dehydration. And too often, children lose this battle, with the result, over and over again, of death. On the very island where we just spent our holiday, in a small country just across the border, there are 400,000 children displaced by Haiti’s earthquake. How many of them will face the same illness that my son had? How many of them will survive it?

I take the helplessness I felt as I watched my son getting stuck with needles and consider the situation of a parent who isn’t lucky enough to have access to this basic medical intervention and who can’t perform the basic duty of a parent to protect their child from a preventable catastrophe.

Today, my son is his normal bright and bounding self, picking up words here and there, and anything else he can get his hands on. I’ve never been happier to be home from a vacation in my life. Not only because of the comfort of familiarity after this experience, but also because what I come back to is this work we do at Acumen Fund. The work to bring basic, yet life-sustaining goods and services to people who can’t typically afford them. Whether it is access to emergency care from 1298 in Mumbai, or affordable maternal care in Hyderabad, or rural pharmacies in Kenya, or health insurance in Pakistan, basic healthcare for families should never be out of reach. No parent should have to watch helplessly while their child battles infection when a simple diagnosis and rehydration therapy is so simple and so effective. Getting to that point is not simple, but it is the work I come back to with great gratitude, both for my own circumstances, and for the privilege of doing my own small part to bring access to healthcare to other families.

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, 4th March, from 10.30 to 11.30PM, Eastern Standard Time. Subsequently, he will be fielding questions for 2 weeks till 18th 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.

Benje meets Ecotact CEO David Kuria

“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.

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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.

The San Francisco for Acumen Chapter recently organized a reading of The Blue Sweater at the beautiful University Club in downtown San Francisco.

The event attracted some 35 participants, who got to hear first-hand about how Acumen Fund’s use of patient capital supports social enterprises. The evening started with a casual mixer where participants mingled over drinks and light snacks. Acumen Fund’s very own Brad Presner, and Fellows Jocelyn Wyatt and David Lehr were then on hand to share their experiences. Brad spoke about his experiences traveling with Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz on behalf of Google.org, while Jocelyn and David spoke about their experiences working for Acumen Fund investees Advanced Bio-Extracts & Drishtee.

The group then broke out into more intimate discussion groups to discuss their reading of The Blue Sweater. Community members were able to discuss Acumen Fund’s model of patient capital and how it generates impact with its investees - overall, the sense of excitement was palpable and it was an excellent learning and networking opportunity for like-minded changemakers!

Moving forward, the San Francisco for Acumen Chapter will be organizing monthly events around patient capital and social entrepreneurship. They are looking for individuals who are passionate about patient capital and want to get involved in Acumen’s work - if that sounds like you, then please reach out to the Chapter Leaders at the Acumen Fund Community site.

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.

In a recent article for India’s Business Standard, former CEO of Proctor & Gamble India Gurcharan Das articulated a forceful critique of the corporate social resposibility (CSR) movement.  The following response from Acumen CIO Brian Trelstad takes issue with several of Das’s central premises, arguing that in fact CSR has the potential to benefit both the companies that practice it and the communities that it can positively impact.

Das’s article cites the foundational critique of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from Milton Friedman, but it also overlooks the potential for CSR to be strategic as a value driver for companies. It is true that many CSR efforts are not strategic, that they in fact represent a thin veneer of “green wash” or philanthropy, and are staffed by people with few resources and little authority to actually get things done.

These efforts waste the time and resources of the companies and the nonprofits who indulge them in thinking that they are going to get value from a “strategic partnership” (I have been involved in more than a few of those discussions in my tenure at Acumen Fund, but won’t name names). But even these largely shallow CSR efforts, ones that build brand and communicate a message to loyal customers or inspire employees to work harder, longer or smarter can have a real return for the company. (And Das somehow conflates corporate philanthropy with CSR, by citing the Ambani’s building hospital. We can debate whether philanthropy is an effective tactic for a CSR strategy). But many CSR initiatives nowadays, including those that are looking at “BOP markets” are about exploring new markets, new products and new strategies for business growth and will have a significant impact on a company’s value over time.

The challenge is figuring out the difference. Not too different than the old marketing saying: “The good news is that I know that half of our marketing spending is really effective. the bad news is that I don’t know which half.” The same could be said for R&D. So if everything a company has to do has a narrow linear link to near term shareholder value creation, you would see CSR and marketing and R&D budgets shrink. and even CEO compensation would be cut to the barest of bones (yes, there is no link between what a company pays its CEO and shareholder value, so I would love Gucharan Das’ perspective on that point as well).

So it is true, many CSR efforts might not actually be strategic, or they might be very poorly executed. But I think that the notion that companies shouldn’t indulge in anything noncore to the business is a fallacy. CSR is here to stay whether Das likes it or not.

Dear Friend of Acumen Fund -

In the first years of Acumen Fund’s existence, the two most challenging questions we faced were “Can this scale?” and “Will you ever exit?” As I wrote in my last letter to you, we’re seeing significant scale in our investments ranging from maternal health, to public toilets and solar energy. Of course, the more we find answers, the deeper our questions become. Regarding scale, we’re now doing more intense dives into understanding the trade-offs. On one hand, how do our investees avoid corruption in partnering with government; and on the other, how do they avoid being pushed to serve a wealthier clientele by more traditional investors focused more on profitability than on serving the poor?

Regarding exits, the news is good. Indeed, we exited two investments this quarter and hope to exit a third in the coming months. Most exciting is Jamii Bora, the affordable housing development outside Nairobi, Kenya, which has fully repaid its $250,000 loan! Three years ago, we lent this money so that Jamii Bora could build a housing development for low-income slum dwellers who had proven their ability to repay, but would never qualify for a traditional bank mortgage. I remember standing on the open land an hour outside Nairobi’s slums, listening to the inimitable Ingrid Munro, Jamii Bora’s founder, laying out her vision: the organization would build 2,000 houses, each equipped with an indoor kitchen and bathroom, a garden and a place for laundry; they would use solar energy, and create an efficient water system so that the water could be treated and recycled; and they would eventually see a town of 12,000 people flourishing.

Recently, I visited a development with 750 constructed houses along with thriving shops and a full-fledged school. More than 240 families - or about 1,300 individuals - have moved in, and many have painted the trim on their block houses, and planted gardens in backyards. Most thrilling to me was visiting Jane’s home, for I had spent time with her a year ago in her temporary dwelling in the Mathare Valley slum (here’s  my TED talk on her journey). Her house was beautiful: trimmed in orange and green with sunflowers touching the roofline, it seemed a palace compared to the shanty where Jane had spent her life.

The most extraordinary moment occurred as we stood in her new indoor bathroom which contained a toilet, sink and shower. “In Mathare,” she said, “the water is dirty and the children are always sick. The little ones especially are always suffering with diarrhea and it is too far to go to the toilets and too dirty and expensive as well. My only option was flying toilets, but the diarrhea could be so bad that the children would soil the floor. But now, the toilet is right here in your house.”

She then demonstrated the ease of using a toilet and flushing waste away. Nothing has ever reminded me of the indignity of defecating in bags and then throwing the waste on rooftops like the sight of Jane and her new toilet. More than 1.5 billion people have no access to good sanitation. It needn’t be that way.

Never before have I understood in a spiritual sense the potential of patient capital. Capital can be used to draw us close or to distance us from one another. Traditional societies that forbid usury want to ensure the group stays together and supports one another. The sub-prime debt phenomenon, on the other hand, is a powerful example of using capital in a way that distances. Wall Street investors had no stake in whether homeowners repaid their mortgages as they thought they were “safe” up to a certain default rate. Borrowers had no relationship with a traditional banker. The system was bankrupt of values and accountability.

In an increasingly interdependent world, we must think of ourselves as a single tribe. In a world with so much excess wealth on one hand and poverty on the other, we need a new asset class. Patient capital is money invested not for undue profit but to support opportunities for disadvantaged communities. Money earned is used to invest in others and not for personal gain; and investors provide management support for the sake of the others’ success. In return, the investee is accountable to repay as a member of that same community.

Patient capital can be a cornerstone of a new social contract and a more nuanced type of capitalism for our 21st century world. Acumen invested a quarter million dollars in an organization focused on slum dwellers to build an affordable housing development – an investment banks would not make. Today, a hopeful, diverse community exists. Jamii Bora has repaid Acumen, and we can now invest in other organizations focused on bringing life sustaining services to the poor. Finally, Jane’s joy in what she has herself accomplished is a joy shared by every Partner and team member of Acumen. She did it herself, of course, but it was the brilliant vision and execution of Jamii Bora and the patient capital financing from Acumen and others that enabled her to realize her dream.

The week in Kenya was one of the most extraordinary I’ve experienced: I’ve detailed it in a fairly long journal. Ecotact toilets now serve nearly 15,000 people a day; Insta is producing more than 15 million packets of protein-fortified porridge and is on its way to creating a retail market; and we are engaging in an exciting new agricultural investment focused on hybrid seed production and distribution.

Finally, on a personal level, thanks to Acumen Fellow Suraj Sudakhar, over 90 people in the Kenyan slums have joined seven self-organized book clubs to read The Blue Sweater, (which comes out in paperback today)! He and seven young men from the slums organized a gathering for nearly 100 people in Kibera to discuss the ideas in the book while I was there (an event I recount in the Huffington Post.) The quality of the questions was incredible. People asked about balancing family and leadership, about financing existing projects, and about what individuals there could do to help bridge the gap between rich and poor. It was truly one of the most moving evenings of my life and I thank every one of those young men for giving so much of themselves to make it happen.

It has taken me a few weeks to understand what happened that night. First, I was struck by the generosity and organizational efficiency of the young men who encouraged people to come from five different slums, some of them traveling more than 90 minutes on buses. Second, though everyone spoke about the corruption and challenges to those living in the slums, no one put themselves into the category of being “poor.” Rather, they hungered for what they could do to overcome challenges and help others as well. Ultimately, the individuals in that room seemed to transcend a feeling of Us and Them, and moved to a place of We. It is on this shared sense that I feel an ever-deepening commitment to this work and everything that it promises.

It will take each and every one of us, rich and poor alike, to build the world we dare to imagine. But that night in the Kibera slum, for one powerful moment, I got a glimpse of what is truly possible.

I wish all of you everything that the world has to offer,

Jacqueline

P.S. As I wrote above, the paperback version of The Blue Sweater comes out today! You can help get the word out by buying books for your friends, writing reviews on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, and checking www.thebluesweater.com for promotions and supplementary materials. I’m giving all profits to Acumen and other social issues and so appreciate your support.

• Investee VisionSpring will be honored with the CASE Award for Social Enterprise Innovation from Duke University.
• IDE India, the organization behind our drip irrigation investment GEWP, will be featured in an upcoming BBC World News series. More details on where/when to watch, but in the meantime, you can catch a preview here.
• If you’re in the New York area, Jacqueline Novogratz will be speaking at the New School on February 17. The event is open to the public; RSVPs are required.

• CEO Jacqueline Novogratz was interviewed recently for the NPR program Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett. Check out the show’s website for a podcast and lots of supplementary material.
• In a special section on business and food security, the Financial Times featured two Acumen Fund investments: drip irrigation company GEWP here and nutrition company Insta here. Similarly, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) includes an interview with Acumen Fund’s Ajay Nair in its latest newsletter.
• Talent Manager Blair Miller was recently interviewed on Dubai radio about the Fellows program.
• An Outlook Business article profiles GEWP, PVRI and other for-profit businesses serving our target market in India.
• There’s still time to order your Book Club in a Box! Get yours now and share The Blue Sweater with others.

Sangeeta Chowdhry is Acumen Fund’s Ripple Effect manager. The India phase of  Ripple Effect included pilot programs by 5 organizations, the Jal Bhagirathi Foundation among them.

The Ripple Effect project presented the Jal Bhagirathi Foundation (JBF) in the Thar desert of Rajasthan with quite a challenge: Improve access to safe drinking water in the area in just 8 weeks. Not only did they meet this challenge but they went a step further - and added an additional goal – to create livelihood opportunities for women in the process!

The story of JBF is an inspiring one — as can be seen in this recent coverage on Indian television. For a start, the challenges addressed are not small. The project began in a region with highly saline ground water, rainfall of no more than 10-50 cm per year and temperatures of over 50C (over 110 degrees Fahrenheit) in summer. A few years ago, in an attempt to bring high quality, affordable water to the community, they had launched one reverse osmosis plant in Pachpadra village. While the plant was successful in providing safe drinking water at reasonable prices to customers who came to the plant, those customers had to walk around 2km to do so. JBF struggled to make it a sustainable business that reached larger numbers of people who could not travel the distance.

With the help of a small grant of $15,000 and business coaching provided by the Ripple Effect team, JBF created a viable water distribution business model that addressed these challenges. They established water outlets in villages that are managed and owned by women from local self-help groups (SHG), and also increased water sales from the plant itself.

Critical to the long-term impact of the Ripple Effect project, work was also done to make these advances sustainable. Work was done with JBF to understand the unit economics of the operation.  Once it was understood how much water needed to be sold per day, it became a matter of developing a strategy that would lead to multiple sales channels – wholesale to tankers and retail to individuals from the plant in addition to sales to and from the local outlets. Pricing models were then created to support this business plan.

This planning was essential but JBF’s commitment and enthusiasm was what really took this Pilot on to achieve results. In a span of the 8 short weeks of the Ripple Effect Pilot Project, JBF trained SHG members in business management; established four water outlets managed by the women entrepreneurs; improved the infrastructure of the treatment plant to fill a water tanker in 15 minutes instead of the typical 2 hours; created business plans for the main plant and the outlets and executed aggressive awareness campaigns in the village of benefits of safe water.

This careful planning, passion and commitment has reaped results that can serve as a viable delivery model in rural parts of India.  The water sale from the plant increased from an average of 2000 liters per day to 16,000 liters per day and the distance walked to fetch the water was reduced from 2 km to under 500m. Most significant, however, is that women operating the outlets are earning a living from their micro-enterprises and that, compared to a few short months before, thousands more people now have safe drinking water available.

Jal Bhagirathi Foundation has now turned over the running of the plant and it’s operations to the local village body, and is now planning to replicate the success of Pachpadra in 13 more villages in Rajasthan.

See more on this remarkable project here on local TV news: