My early years taught me that we each yearn for freedom and for choice. We yearn to be seen. In other words, we yearn for dignity.
Jacqueline Novogratz is the Founder and CEO of Acumen and a recognised leader in the social impact space. She is the author of two award-winning books including Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: Practices to Build a Better World (2020). Jacqueline is a member of The B Team and serves on numerous boards.
When I was ten years old, my uncle gave me a blue sweater. In the front, two zebras walked past a snowcapped mountain. I loved that sweater and wore it everywhere until the day a boy in high school commented about it, rudely and loudly. Humiliated, I donated the sweater to charity.
Fast forward 15 years to 1986, I had quit my Wall Street banking job and gone to Rwanda to help set up the nation’s first microfinance bank. Jogging along the city’s hills, I saw a little boy of about ten years old wearing the same sweater. I ran up to him and tried speaking, but he spoke only Kinyarwanda. I turned the collar of his sweater and, sure enough, my name was written on the tag. The story has always reminded me that our actions and inactions – impact people we may never know across the globe. My early years in Rwanda also taught me that we each yearn for freedom and for choice. We yearn to be seen. In other words, we yearn for dignity.
Every human being deserves dignity. The idea of human dignity was always familiar to me.
I grew up in the US, the eldest of seven kids in a big, catholic, immigrant, military family. Even as a young child a major part of my identity was as a worker. I did a paper round. I babysat. I made Christmas ornaments and sold them door-to-door. Work – and the income I earned – gave me a sense of agency, of possibility. I saw early how my mother earned extra income selling antiques, and how money was simply a means to other things – to freedom, to security.
This is the power of patient capital. It can help people discover their own agency and build dignified work under a new business model that reimagines capitalism and puts our humanity, and the planet, at the centre.
The biggest question of my life – and the idea for which I live – is how to extend dignity to every human being on the planet. Through an early start in banking, I saw the power of markets create jobs and provide opportunities, but I also saw markets overlook and sometimes exploit the poor. My time in Rwanda, taught me the potential of government or charity, but also the peril of creating dependency – which is the opposite of dignity.
In 2001, I created Acumen with the purpose of investing in enterprises focused on solving problems of poverty and building a world of dignity. We invest philanthropic-based patient capital for 10-15 years in entrepreneurs who go where markets and government have failed. We accompany the entrepreneurs, extending our social capital – our access to resources, people, and funds. We measure what matters and re-invest financial returns in innovation for the poor.
To date, our companies have impacted more than 500 million low-income people. Patient capital works.
In 2007, 1.5 billion people around the world had no access to electricity. We invested in a company called d.light. Their initial design needed modification based on the preferences of customers, and the company listened. Today, d.light has expanded across 63 countries and has brought light and electricity to more than 160 million low-income people.
In doing so, d.light helped spark an off-grid solar revolution. Today our dream is to bring affordable solar light and electricity to those considered the “hardest to reach” on the journey to achieving universal electrification.
Our future role models will be on a more moral path that puts others before themselves. Together, we can solve our biggest problems and build a world of dignity.
Sanergy, a sanitation company in Nairobi, was founded 13 years ago in response to the finding that one in three people has no access to a toilet. Women would initially take on loans to purchase toilets and charge a small amount of money per use. Sanergy would pick up the waste daily, providing jobs, and then breed black soldier flies on the compost to convert it into fertiliser, and later animal feed. Today, Sanergy oversees more than 6,000 toilets, moves 200 tons of waste daily and is one of the nation’s largest animal feed companies.
Esther, who bought a toilet 12 years ago and now has three, is seen as a leader in her community. She has created a prosperous, purposeful life for herself, brought dignity to her community, and transformed the fortunes of the next generation. She has two daughters, 26 and 31 years old. Patricia oversees 3000 toilets. Florence has moved across the country to launch the business in Kisumu on Lake Victoria. They are now providing thousands of jobs. Social entrepreneurship unlocks not just jobs but human potential.
This is the power of patient capital. It can help people discover their own agency and build dignified work under a new business model that reimagines capitalism and puts our humanity, and the planet, at the centre; not the individual and not just profit. Our future role models will be on a more moral path that puts others before themselves. Together, we can solve our biggest problems and build a world of dignity.
