Jacqueline Novogratz
Jacqueline Novogratz
Jacqueline Novogratz is an American entrepreneur and author. She is the founder and CEO of Acumen, a non-profit global venture capital fund whose goal is to use entrepreneurial approaches to address global poverty. Acumen has invested over $90 million of patient capital in 80 businesses that have impacted more than 125 million people in the past year. Any money returned to Acumen is reinvested in enterprises serving the poor. Currently, Acumen has offices in New York, Mumbai, Karachi, Nairobi, and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinesswoman
CountryUnited States of America
Jacqueline Novogratz quotes about
As a young woman, I dreamed of changing the world. In my twenties, I went to Africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charity, and aid can produce...
The time for us to begin innovating and looking for new solutions is now.
I was going to save the world, and I thought I would start with the African continent.
Africans didn't want saving, thank you very much, least of all not by me.
May each of you live lives of immersion. They won't necessarily be easy lives. But in the end, it is all that will sustain us.
Philanthropy is no longer about writing a check for $10,000 to the opera.
The poor also are willing to make, and do make, smart decisions, if you give them that opportunity.
Our actions- and inaction- touch people every day, people we may never know and never meet.
There are probably no more market-oriented individuals on the planet, than low income people.
Nothing important happens in life without a cost.
What is the cost of not daring? What is the cost of not trying?
There are cases where government-to-government aid actually has worked. Look at the eradication of smallpox and the near eradication of polio. But these are really top down solutions that require government-to-government support and aid.
I have seen that traditional approaches to charity and aid don't solve problems of poverty. In fact, too often they create dependence.
I wrote 'The Blue Sweater' to inspire more people to become engaged in working to solve the problems of global poverty.