鈥溾�業t all started with the blue sweater,鈥欌�� said Assistant Dean Ethan Sullivan, quoting from a familiar book. He then looked up at about 400 undergrads. 鈥淭hese are the first words you all read as Carroll School students.鈥�
That鈥檚 because that line opens The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World. Each summer, incoming Carroll School freshmen are required to read that New York Times bestseller, which they then discuss in their Portico class. The book 鈥渋llustrates the ideals we would want students at a Catholic, Jesuit business school to explore,鈥� continued Sullivan. 鈥淚t chronicles [the author鈥檚] quest to understand a problem and it challenges readers to grant dignity to the poor and to rethink their engagement with the world.鈥�
That author, Jacqueline Novogratz, was there in Robsham Theater that November evening, invited by the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics. Novogratz is the founder and CEO of Acumen, a nonprofit venture fund that invests patient capital into startups focused on delivering affordable health care, water, housing, and energy to the poor. She is 鈥渁n example of the type of thinkers and problem-solvers we hope you all become,鈥� Sullivan said.
The Sweater
In 1987, a 25-year-old Novogratz was out on a jog in Kigali, Rwanda, where she was helping to run a microfinance bank, when she spotted a boy wearing a distinctive blue sweater just like one that she had donated to Goodwill a decade earlier in Virginia. She approached the boy and asked to see the label. Sure enough, her name was still handwritten on it. Ever since, that incident has served as a reminder of how we鈥檙e all connected, Novogratz wrote in her book. 鈥淥ur actions鈥攁nd inaction鈥攖ouch people we may never know and never meet across the globe.鈥�
But in her talk at Robsham, titled 鈥淐reating a World Beyond Poverty,鈥� Novogratz began her story earlier, when she was a student at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. The speaker vividly evoked her undergrad days, when she was in the same position as the students in the seats that November evening, pondering their own questions about their career and life goals.
She recalled one Christmas season at UVA, when she had the 鈥済reat idea鈥� to deliver gifts and food to a family she鈥檇 heard about who needed help. The morning after a party, she and her friends, 鈥渁 little hungover,鈥� piled into a car and sought out the home, located 鈥渙n the wrong side of the tracks,鈥� Novogratz said, in rural Albemarle County. Novogratz was not well off鈥攕he was putting herself through college鈥攂ut this was another world altogether.
鈥淚t was so shocking,鈥� she admitted. 鈥淲e were asking for directions, and we couldn鈥檛 understand what people were saying, even though they were speaking English. They kept saying, 鈥楾hey live right behind Earl鈥檚 woodshed.鈥� And when we found Earl鈥檚 woodshed, we saw this little shanty house.
鈥淪uddenly, I didn鈥檛 feel good and full of the holiday spirit. And I told my friends, 鈥楲ook, I just want to drop the stuff off and let them find it. They don鈥檛 need to see these sunny-faced co-eds happily hand them their gifts.鈥欌��
鈥淥ur actions鈥攁nd inaction鈥攖ouch people we may never know and never meet across the globe.鈥�
That was when Novogratz understood that 鈥渘one of us want to just stand there taking charity,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e want to have more agency in our lives.鈥�
Still determined to help the poor somehow, the newly minted economics and foreign affairs graduate reluctantly went to a job interview at Chase Manhattan to mollify her nervous parents. The first question, from 鈥渁 cute guy, just a couple years older than me,鈥� she recalled, threw her for a loop: 鈥淲hy do you want to be a banker?鈥�
鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to be a banker,鈥� she confessed. 鈥淚 want to change the world. My parents wanted me to do this interview. I鈥檓 so sorry.鈥�
鈥淭hat鈥檚 too bad,鈥� the interviewer responded. 鈥淏ecause with this job, you鈥檇 be traveling the world, to 40 countries in three years.鈥�
And that鈥檚 how Novogratz launched her career. Landing the job despite that rocky start, she traveled to Latin America. 鈥淚 learned how to understand numbers, how they tell a story; how to put money into a business and see how it translates into jobs and opportunity. What I didn鈥檛 love was seeing how the poor are excluded from that system.鈥�
The experience gave Novogratz the hard nose and the horse sense she needed a few years later when, working for UNICEF, she assessed the loan applications and business plans of Rwandan women who were barely scraping by selling baked goods and baskets. As co-founder of Duterimbere, a microfinance lender, she was determined to forge a new kind of philanthropy: rather than doling out aid, she worked with underserved women so that they could stand up on their own two feet. To do otherwise, she feels, is demeaning to the poor.
鈥淧overty is simply a definition of one鈥檚 economic situation,鈥� she told the Boston College crowd. 鈥淚t tells you nothing about a person鈥檚 character.鈥� Nor do riches, she noted: 鈥淢oney is not an end in itself. Money is just a means to an end, and if the end is human dignity, then we鈥檝e got to rethink investing.鈥�
75 Companies, 100 Million People
Novogratz carried that principle, along with lessons from Rwanda, into her signature endeavor, Acumen, which she founded in 2001 with a mission to invest in opportunities in the developing world. 鈥淵ou have to start with a moral premise,鈥� she said. Instead of focusing on rewarding shareholders, 鈥渟tart by defining your success by how the poor are treated, how the vulnerable are treated.鈥�
A decade and a half later, Acumen has empowered 75 companies to create 58,000 jobs and bring basic services to 100 million people across South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Novogratz outlined a few of these success stories for the Robsham audience, such as Solarnow. Based in Uganda鈥攚here 85 percent of the population lacks electricity鈥擲olarnow sells rural customers solar systems on a pay-as-you-go basis, providing them with a power source more affordable and sustainable than the kerosene many have relied on.
In Mumbai, India, in 2007, Acumen invested in Ziqitza, an ambulance company seeking to disrupt an entrenched, corrupt industry, where ambulances more often than not simply shuttled the dead to the morgue. Skeptics said the industry couldn鈥檛 be changed, but 鈥渆ntrepreneurs love the word 鈥榠mpossible,鈥欌�� Novogratz said. Today, almost a thousand Ziqitza ambulances speed healthcare professionals to emergency sites across the country and even conduct free health checkups.聽
Uncommon Cacao, a new company in the Acumen portfolio, boosts pay to smallholder cacao farmers in Latin America by cutting out the middlemen in the chocolate supply chain and linking the farmers with the more lucrative specialty chocolate market. 鈥淚t鈥檚 exciting to see entrepreneurs not much older than you are who are changing the world,鈥� Novogratz said.
The key has been patient capital. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been willing to take the risk on early-stage investments with these intrepid entrepreneurs,鈥� Novogratz said, 鈥渁nd we accompany them, connect them to networks, and we give them time to fail and to try again.鈥�
Indeed, Novogratz herself has failed鈥斺�渙ver and over and over,鈥� she said鈥攁nd tried and tried again before finding success. 鈥淚n many ways, that鈥檚 my message to you tonight,鈥� she said. 鈥淗ave the courage to fail. It sounds easy, but you actually gain courage by practicing courage. Very few of us are born courageous.鈥�
Another takeaway from the talk: 鈥淎ccompany one another,鈥� Novogratz said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a very Jesuit idea. None of us make change by ourselves. Support one another.鈥�
鈥淣one of us make change by ourselves. Support one another.鈥�
Just start
When it was time for Novogratz to take student questions, 30 long and silent seconds passed before a young woman in the Jenks Leadership Program approached a waiting microphone.
鈥淎t what point in your college career did you know what you wanted to do?鈥�
Before answering, Novogratz thanked the student for braving the silence to ask that first question. 鈥淪peaking of practicing courage!鈥�
Rather than devising a concrete plan in college, Novogratz said, she followed her 鈥渘orth star,鈥� the desire to tackle global poverty. The particulars came together as she learned more about the world through her early career and travels. 鈥淕o to where in the world you鈥檙e most needed,鈥� she counseled, as鈥攖he floodgates now open鈥攕treams of students approached the two microphones set up on the theater鈥檚 landing. 鈥淏ut don鈥檛 wait around to find your purpose, and don鈥檛 get panicked about it. Just start. Make a commitment to something, and in that commitment you鈥檒l find freedom. And it will lead to the next thing.鈥�
One of the evening鈥檚 most memorable exchanges came when a mop-haired young man in a Ringo Starr 鈥淧eace & Love鈥� T-shirt prefaced his query by explaining that he, too, wants to travel. In fact, he said, 鈥淚 took a trip across the U.S. this summer, just to see what America鈥檚 about.鈥�
Before the student could proceed to his question, Novogratz jumped in with her own interrogatory: 鈥淎nd can you teach us?鈥� she wanted to know. What did he learn about America?
鈥淯m, well, it鈥檚 definitely a lot bigger than you think,鈥� came the reply. 鈥淚 was traveling on the train and for hours, it鈥檚 just corn. Like, never-ending corn.鈥�
As insights go, it might not sound like much, but as Novogratz found in her life and as she stressed in her talk, when it comes to understanding and tackling the world鈥檚 problems, you have to start somewhere.
Patrick L. Kennedy, Morrissey College 鈥�99, is a writer in Boston and the co-author of Bricklayer Bill: The Untold Story of the Workingman鈥檚 Boston Marathon.