Formerly the Acumen Fund, and now known simply as Acumen, this non profit investment fund specializes in empowering social enterprises that can create real change for those in poverty and on low incomes.
By investing in these kinds of targeted social enterprises, Acumen seeks to create real change in the world, starting with some of the poorest people in society. Over the past 15 years, Acumen has funded 113 valuable projects with philanthropic capital totalling around $115million.
The projects supported by Acumen are those that have the very best odds of tackling poverty directly or indirectly through the products and services they provide.
Acumen also provides education and development for entrepreneurs who want to help enact social change.
Through Acumen Academy’s fellowships and courses, people around the world can learn how to become part of the solution to global poverty problems. If Acumen sounds like the perfect combination of great business sense and a sound understanding of on-the-ground global poverty issues, that’s because it has an origin story that brings together these two elements in a fated way.
Founded by investment banking professional Jacqueline Novogratz in 2001, Acumen is the result of her trip to Central Africa while still working for Chase Bank. While there, Jacqueline observed the lack of access poor people had to banking services and loans, and therefore opportunities to better their lives.
Jacqueline moved to Rwanda and started a new career, creating her own micro-finance bank, Duterimbere, which specialized in loans to women for grassroots entrepreneurial projects.
Following the success of Duterimbere, Jacqueline expanded her ambitions and raised the money to found Acumen. Some of the enterprises funded by Acumen include:
- WaterHealth International, who supply clean water to the poorest people in rural India, Ghana and the Philippines.
- PEG Africa, who provide solar energy products to people in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal without access to the power grid
Acumen particularly favors agricultural, clean energy and healthcare projects, and champions the approach of investing in and empowering people through entrepreneurship as a way of tackling poverty.
Find out more at acumen.org.