Tag Archives: social entrepreneurship

The Blue Sweater a book by Acumen Fund founder Jacqueline Novogratz

Posted on May 11, 2009 | 2 comments

I had gotten a copy of Acumen Fund founder, Jacqueline Novogratz’s, book “The Blue Sweater” a couple of months ago and had kept promising myself that I would read it. Finally as I was leaving on a short trip to India, I threw it in my bag hoping to get to it during my visit. As the long 15 plus hour trip from Newark to Bombay stretched before me, I settled myself in as best as I could and opened the book expecting to read a few pages and then sleep as much as possible for the rest of the flight.

Once I started reading I was hooked. Before I knew it I had plowed through the entire volume. This is an extraordinary and powerful book. My personal interest in social entrepreneurship, particularly in solving issues in the developing world, had led me to peruse many books in the field – from the seminal one by David Bornstein to Jeff Sachs and Prof. Yunus. Each provided a perspective on development with solutions and suggestions. Yet somehow this book was different. Continue reading →

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Posted in BOP, bottom of the pyramid, Health, Information Technology, international development, Investment, micro-finance, Philanthropy, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, sustainable development, venture philanthropy

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Jacqueline Novogratz – Legatum Lecture at MIT

Posted on April 22, 2009 | Leave a comment

We are a connected world said Jacqueline as she described the story of her blue sweater, also the title of her recently published book. Once discarded by her at Goodwill, it turned up 25 years later in Rwanda where she found it on a boy in the countryside.

Speaking at the Legatum Center’s Lecture series at MIT, she described the innovative work of Acumen fund and how it helps build social solutions through its venture philanthropy.

She prefaced her talk by some of her observations from her work helping to build enterprises around the world that she undertook since her time in Rwanda.

  • Dignity is more important than wealth for the human spirit.
  • Traditional models of charity won’t solve problems of poverty.
  • Markets can’t solve poverty. 100 Million people went back into poverty last year and that is what happens when you only rely on market forces to solve these problems.
  • What is needed is patient capital that will address these problems

Continue reading →

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Posted in Health, India, international development, Investment, Micro-enterprises, micro-finance, Poverty, Sanitation, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, venture philanthropy, Water

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Cover the basics – what to do when raising capital

Posted on April 8, 2009 | Leave a comment

Following up on the level headed advice that Chuck Lacy gave prospective social entrepreneurs, I came across a recent post on one of VC blogs that is equally relevant. Here are some excerpts, you can see the entire article at

Cover the basics before you raise capital

… We all know that coming up with market sizing and revenue forecasts for a startup is as accurate as the weatherman predicting the weather.  That being said, VCs want to understand the logic behind the numbers as much as the numbers themselves. Continue reading →

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Posted in Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, Venture Capital, venture philanthropy

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Chuck Lacy speaks about Raising Venture Capital for Socially Responsible Businesses

Posted on April 5, 2009 | 1 comment

Earlier last month, I was fortunate to attend a lecture by Chuck Lacy former President of Ben & Jerry’s and currently President of Barred Rock Fund. He was a guest of the Legatum Center at MIT and spoke about raising funds as a social business.  It was interesting hearing him speak since he really did not focus on the fund raising part as much as some basic precepts that most entrepreneurs should keep in mind – whether you are growing a socially responsible business or a plain old fashioned technology startup.

I thought I would try to distill the essence of what he said as I think it is very relevant especially in these tougher economic times.

  • Don’t raise money. Sounds counterintuitive but it makes sense. You should run as long as you can on your own money. You should think about working part time and keeping 100% of your company instead of working 100% and giving up 50% of the company to raise cash. Raising money means you are giving your company away. There are many ways to raise money without diluting your stake in the company – Grants, state funds, PRI funds. Continue reading →

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Posted in Investment, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, Venture Capital

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Interview on Social Entrepreneurship

Posted on April 3, 2009 | Leave a comment

I was recently interviewed by New England’s largest e-magazine for South Asians, lokvani.com about my views on social entrepreneurship. You can find the full interview at their site here.

“The passage of the Edward Kennedy Serve America Act this week marks the coming of age of Social Entrepreneurship (SE)” says Raj Melville, who is one of the co-founders of the TIE-SE SIG. He talked to Lokvani about this concept which combines for-profit and non-profit work by entrepreneurs to address a social issue in a sustainable and scalable manner. It has now become the new buzz word. (from Lokvani.com)

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Posted in Micro-enterprises, micro-finance, microfinance, Philanthropy, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, sustainable development, venture philanthropy

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