What is Acumen?
A New York-based impact investor and a non-profit global venture fund, Acumen was launched in 2001 by Jacqueline Novogratz, with the intent to invest in companies and change makers. Since then Acumen has invested in 108 companies across Africa, Latin America, South Asia and the United States. These enterprises have supported jobs and have brought basic facilities like education, healthcare, clean water, energy, and sanitation to more than 200 million people.
What can you tell us about the Acumen Fellowship Program?
The Acumen Fellowship is an intensive leadership development program for individuals who are building the solutions to tackle the toughest problems of our time. It is intended to equip extraordinary leaders with the capacity to positively transform society.
What is unique about Acumen’s approach to poverty?
The 21st century requires leaders who can navigate the unknown in an ever-changing world. Acumen exists because poverty remains the most urgent problem of our time. Our goal is to change the way the world tackles it. We approach this by investing in change makers and leaders with character, competence and moral leadership. We seek them out and help them become the best versions of themselves so that they and the community around them can thrive.
What is moral leadership?
Moral leadership is a very different kind of leadership. Rather than aspiring to being followed, moral leaders aim to serve. Instead of showcasing their own skills, moral leaders tend to develop the capacity of others.
Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder and CEO of Acumen, talks about moral leaders leading from a place of moral imagination: a combination of empathy, immersion, understanding and action.
How is the Acumen Fellows Program different from other programs?
What separates Acumens Fellows from most other leadership programs is the wide-ranging diversity of individuals in the cohort and the program’s emphasis on values, and not simply on professional or academic merit.
Some Fellows arrive with graduate degrees from the world’s top universities; whereas others, schooled entirely by life itself, grew up in far-flung communities, such as the tribal areas of India or rural Nigeria. What binds these Fellows is shared values, which includes a common commitment to a world beyond poverty, as well as a pledge to accompany one another. Not only do they help one another but also hold each other to account.
Can you tell us a bit about Acumen Academy in Bangladesh and what you are planning to do?
We have launched the Acumen Academy in Bangladesh with the Acumen Fellows program. Over the years, we will slowly experiment with other offerings based on understanding the needs and aspirations of social impact leaders in Bangladesh.
At its core, the Acumen Fellows Program is developing an individual’s capacity to take on longstanding problems of poverty. So, at Acumen Academy Bangladesh, first and foremost, our work is to develop a local community of emerging leaders with the knowledge, skills and determination to create a more inclusive society. It is focused on building the leadership capabilities of those engaged in entrepreneurship, public service, and community building.
Who will be eligible for the program?
Fellows will be selected from diverse cultural, geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds and must be committed to ending poverty and injustice in their community through their work. They can be from the civil service, for-profit or non-profit sectors. Entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, community builders, journalists, artists, environmentalists, researchers, health care providers, lawyers, and all others working to provide critical goods and services to the underserved are encouraged to apply.
We, at Acumen Academy intend to accompany the Fellows as they build a world without poverty. Applications are open until August 10, 2019, at https://acumen.org/fellowships/Bangladesh/.
Could you tell us a bit about the past Fellows around the world and the impact they have had in their areas of interest?
Acumen Fellow Vimal Kumar was born into India’s lowest caste, sometimes referred to as “The Untouchables” because his family made a living cleaning out toilet pits. He is now on his way to getting his PhD at one of India’s top social science schools and, with the support of the Fellowship, is mobilizing a movement to bring basic human rights to his community.
Acumen Fellow Teresa Njoroge is the cofounder and CEO of Clean Start Kenya. She was pursuing her childhood dream, a career in banking, when she was falsely accused of a fraudulent transaction. Sentenced to imprisonment, Teresa was forced to bring her three-month-old baby with her to prison. After her sentence being cleared, with the support of the Fellows community, she was led to her purpose in life, advocating for Kenyan women trapped in a cycle of poverty, survival, petty crimes and life behind bars, and equipping them with entrepreneurial skills, jobs and formal education. Today her organization is a beacon of hope to thousands of women.
Acumen Fellow Rabia Qadir was the Captain of the Pakistan Women’s Hockey team. She understands how sports can empower girls especially in rural parts of Pakistan. Rabia is Founder of Galaxy Sports Academy, which encourages girls to apply the confidence and
values they learn through sports education to their practical life challenges.
We have countless stories of social change agents across the world committed to the path of moral leadership, one in which they see their work in service of a greater purpose.