- Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of Acumen, says she is wary of philanthropy entrepreneurs who think they can cure poverty using a Silicon Valley model. “The biggest point of failure when we’re looking at entrepreneurs … is they come in thinking they have this solution,” Novogratz said at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit in Riyadh. “That, for me, is a big red flag.” Acumen, has invested $260 million in 215 portfolio companies that provide affordable education, health care, clean water, energy, and sanitation.
It’s not just billionaires like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos who are giving away their wealth to those more in need. Entrepreneurs and wealthy Gen Zers are also getting in on the action—often from the comfort of their cushy abodes. For ex-Wall Street analyst-turned-social-impact-investing CEO Jacqueline Novogratz, that’s a big red flag.
“I think the biggest point of failure when we’re looking at entrepreneurs—and remember, these are entrepreneurs that are solving problems of poverty, with people who often have, not only have very little income, but very little confidence—is they come in thinking they have this solution,” Novogratz said at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit in Riyadh. She is the founder and CEO of Acumen. “That, for me, is a big red flag.”
“Particularly with young people, they think I really want to have purpose and build a business that’s going to make change and their role models are often Silicon Valley companies where you IPO in three years or even 18 months. Maybe if you’re selling lattes on the internet, not if you’re trying to do a distributed water for low-income people in rural areas,” she said.
“If you haven’t immersed, gotten close, and understood the problem from the perspective of the people that you are there to serve, game over.”
The 64-year-old American entrepreneur, author, and pioneering figure in social impact investing, added that young people who think “I really want to have purpose and build a business that’s going to make change,” but look to Silicon Valley for their models, is another cause for concern.
Under her leadership, the nonprofit capital venture, Acumen, has invested $260 million in 215 portfolio companies around the world. These companies have brought basic services like affordable education, health care, clean water, energy, and sanitation to more than 648 million people.
Privileged philanthropic Gen Z should ‘visit a village’
Novogratz said on stage that many privileged young people who’ve “never operated anything in their lives” ask her how they too can become impact investors.
“What I tell them is to go work in operating companies, we have 2000 of them across the world,” she advised. “They’re in rural areas. You’re not going to get paid anything.”
“What it means to work on the line, actually go into villages, to work in a place where you don’t speak the language, you might actually contribute to something. You’ll be forever changed.”
Novogratz’s work began in 1986 when she quit her analyst job at Chase Manhattan Bank on Wall Street to venture into the world of philanthropy.
She started out working across Africa as a consultant for the World Bank and UNICEF, where she helped found Rwanda’s first microfinance institution, Duterimbere, at just 25 years old.
“One of the greatest gifts of my life was getting to live in Africa when I was very young.”
Other highlights
- “Get the little things right,” Shamina Singh, founder and president of Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, also said on stage. “People tend to focus on maybe a big picture of a Silicon Valley company. But the thing is, also focus on the details.”
- “When people say no, I just say no to their no,” Emon Shakoor, founder and CEO of Blossom Accelerator, said. “There’s a saying in Arabic, which means between me and you is just time. When I first started out, people would say no, I was like, I am going to come back, you’re going to say yes, between me and you is this time. So I think it’s just having that grit.”
