Acumen Fund Young Professionals Event
The Nuru Project gang and I stopped by the first Young Professionals for Acumen Fund event last night. The theme of the event was “Wines from Around the World”, but the focus was on learning more about Acumen Fund’s mission and meeting others interested in social venture capital. It was a great event and very well attended.
Nuru has been working with Acumen for the past six months. Our proceeds are put to work through distribution to non-profit partners, and we’ve spent substantial time looking at a variety of philanthropic models. Social venture capital is by far the most appealing and Acumen is leading the way in this space.
In this New York Times article, Thomas Freidman writes about what he calls “patient capital” much more eloquently than I ever could. Acumen summarizes the concept in describing their approach:
We believe that pioneering entrepreneurs will ultimately find the solutions to poverty. The entrepreneurs Acumen Fund supports are focused on offering critical services - water, health, housing, and energy – at affordable prices to people earning less than four dollars a day.
The key is patient capital. We use philanthropic capital to make disciplined investments – loans or equity, not grants – that yield both financial and social returns. Any financial returns we receive are recycled into new investments.
Social venture capital gets at the root of many issues at the base of the pyramid. Empowering individuals to grow businesses creates jobs and real wages, while demanding ROI ensures responsible, sustainable use of capital. The fact that these returns can then be put to use helping other developing entrepreneurs is icing on the cake.
The challenges of global poverty are huge and incredibly daunting, and it would be shortsighted to think that social venture capital is a panacea. I do believe that we are going to see real progress in my lifetime, and I think that innovative approaches that go beyond simply “giving aid” will drive this change.