Jacqueline Novogratz Quotations

President Kennedy said that those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable. I would say that the converse is true.

Acumen Fund is my prayer in response to genocide and what happened in Rwanda.

Despite the hundreds of non-governmental organizations and the continued outpouring of foreign aid, East Africa remains as a region overwhelmed by extreme poverty.

A #‎ sustainable world means working together to create prosperity for all.

Standing with the poor means walking away from unethical leaders, even when their companies are 'succeeding.'

Monsters will always exist. There's one inside each of us. But an angel lives there, too. There is no more important agenda than figuring out how to slay one and nurture the other.

When we deny the poor and the vulnerable their own human dignity and capacity for freedom and choice, it becomes self-denial. It becomes a denial of both our collective and individual dignity, at all levels of society.

Grief releases love and it also instills a profound sense of connection.

The poor don't live in functional market economies as the rest of us do, but in political economies where corruption and broken systems extend from local government to moneylenders.

In India, we now see many highly qualified professionals ready to work in the rural hinterland and in their own towns and cities to tackle development issues directly without depending much on the government.

I believe the government should ensure all children are provided with a good education.

I studied international relations and economics at the University of Virginia. I paid my way by working as a bartender in the summer and at three part-time jobs during the year.

I think I still have a great sense of adventure and trust, and am surprisingly idealistic given all the horrible things I've seen since I was 25. I think how I have changed is that I have a much deeper understanding of the dark forces in the world, of power.

Many business leaders are seeing the relationship between long term success and sustainability, and that's very heartening.

You have to learn to ask questions in a way that will elicit more nuanced answers, rather than the answers you would like to get.

Sometimes very small investments can release enormous, infinite potential that exists in all of us.

Our actions - and inaction - touch people we may never know and never meet across the globe.

Malaria is a disease that kills one to three million people a year. 300 to 500 million cases are reported. It's estimated that Africa loses about 13 billion dollars a year to the disease. Five dollars can save a life. We can send people to the moon; we can see if there's life on Mars - why can't we get five-dollar nets to 500 million people?

I'm feeling optimistic about rural Pakistan. Farmers are making good money.

I dream a world in no one feels the need for or fear of predatory behavior, in which each of us walks with the knowledge of how beautiful - and valuable - is each human life.

As a 25-year-old banker, I decided to leave my career and change the world. This sounds like a move that a 25-year-old banker might make today - to escape the chaos.

Companies like Husk Power Systems are working to impact positively not only the environment, but to ensure that someday everyone, including the poorest of the poor in rural India, will have access to clean and affordable electricity.

In the case of maternal health care, you look at, well naturally, it's the mother who's the customer, who makes the decisions. But in truth, the mother in many areas, in certain parts of India, the mother has very little decision-making power at all. The real decision-maker is the mother-in-law.

I think we so often equate leadership with being experts - the leader is supposed to come in and fix things. But in this interconnected world we live in now, it's almost impossible for just one person to do that.

I was an accidental banker. To please my parents, I went for an interview with Chase Manhattan Bank in 1983. They promised to send me into their offices in more than 40 countries and essentially audit the practices. It was an extraordinary job.

Where micro-finance focuses on small loans to individual, low-income women, think of Acumen Fund more like a venture capital fund.

Wealth today has been created by a world view dominated by fast-moving networks, open information, bottom-up entrepreneurialism.

We live in a world in which we're seeing an increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Leaders can get stuck in groupthink because they're really not listening, or they're listening only to what they want to listen to, or they actually think they're so right that they're not interested in listening. And that leads to a lot of suboptimal solutions in the world.

On a macro level, four billion people on Earth make less than four dollars a day.

Money earned by men would not always reach to their wives and children.

Philanthropy is no longer about writing a check for $10,000 to the opera.

What we yearn for as human beings is to be visible to each other.

People across the world are yearning to be connected to stories of hope.

Rockefeller viewed his philanthropy through the lens of his business, and it really mirrored the Industrial Revolution. It was highly centralized, it was top down, it was based on experts, and it was big-picture.

Sproxil will help combat the multi-billion dollar counterfeit drug market, empower customers, and give them the resources to make informed pharmaceutical purchasing decisions.

I would like philanthropists to take more risks and invest more in risk capital.

When Jeff Sachs says every poor person should receive a free bed net, I agree - but in reality, many end up not receiving one. And I don't live in a world of shoulds.

When I see people that are my age and reaching 50, the ones that are really sparkly and full of joy are the ones that are committed to something bigger than themselves.

We see very, very high rates of C-sections, Cesarean sections, in India. Lots of reasons for it, high levels of malnutrition have meant that women have very small pelvic areas often, so if they have larger babies, it's very hard to deliver.

Through the Fellows Program, Acumen Fund prepares future global leaders with the tools necessary to drive significant social change.

What farmers gain most of all from the increase in agricultural productivity, of course, is choice.

As both developed and developing nations search for alternative sources of energy in response to the growing energy crisis, we at Acumen Fund believe that investing in entrepreneurs who provide innovative energy solutions is an increasingly critical part of the solution.

There's a real moral imperative in being an organization that takes the time to sit and listen to the customers and the people they're serving.

Even when early innovations start to succeed, it is not uncommon to see growing businesses sabotaged for threatening the status quo.

Not surprisingly, most people feel most beautiful when they are involved in an act of service, or are doing something that makes them feel generous, connected, or seen by others.

I've been working on issues of poverty for more than 20 years, and so it's ironic that the problem that and question that I most grapple with is how you actually define poverty. What does it mean?

Impact investing has become a broad umbrella that includes all investing with a focus on both financial return and social impact, but in its best form, impact investing prioritizes impact over returns and achieves outcomes that traditional investing cannot.

By helping a woman, you help a family.

I am an insomniac. Most of my nights include a moment of wakening. Often I will make my way to the kitchen to make tea and read for awhile.

Africans didn't want saving, thank you very much, least of all not by me.

When people gain income, they gain choice, and that is fundamental to dignity.

We can send people to the Moon; we can see if there's life on Mars - why can't we get $5 [mosquito] nets to 500 million people?

I've heard it said that the most dangerous animal on the planet is the adolescent male.

So many low income people have seen so many failed promises broken and seen so many quacks and sporadic medicines offered to them that building trust takes a lot of time, takes a lot of patience.

You should focus on being more interested than interesting.

Poverty is too complex to be answered with a one-size-fits-all approach, and if there is any place that illustrates that complexity, as well as a better way forward, it is Rwanda.

We have to remember that the girls and the women are most isolated and violated and victimized and made invisible in those very societies where our men and our boys feel disempowered, unable to provide.

How you see where you are always depends on where you've been.

I finally understood: In order to contribute to Africa, I would have to know myself better and be clearer about my goals. I would have to be ready to take Africa on its own terms, not mine, and to learn my limits and present myself not as a do-gooder with a big heart, but as someone with something to give and gain by being there. Compassion wasn't enough

The human spirit is extraordinary. If we give the 3 billion people who live in poverty the opportunity to change their lives, they will. For too long, we've looked at needing to "save" these people - with an emphasis on "these people" - rather than removing the constraints keeping them from solving their own problems.

Africa can stun you in an instant. It can throw floods and drought and disease at you, sometimes all at the same time. In the next moment, it will tease you with its magnificent beauty, so even if you don't forget, you can find a way to forgive. Ultimately, it keeps you coming back for more.

It's about all of us, and the kind of world that we, together, want to live in and share.

People really don't want handouts, that they want to make their own decisions.

The poor also are willing to make, and do make, smart decisions, if you give them that opportunity.

Failure can be an incredibly motivating force.

What we call people so often distances us from them, and makes them little.

If there's one value that is immutable, it's integrity or respect, for others and for yourself.

Things are always harder than you think they're going to be.

Listening is not only about waiting, but it's also learning how better to ask questions.

Human beings want to see each other. We want to be heard by each other.

The best change that comes to the world is when all parties are seeing each other as equal, and all parties have the opportunity to be transformed. That really goes back to the idea of dignity.

Traditional charity and aid are never going to solve the problems of poverty.

All people deserve access to health at prices they can afford.

We often don't realize what our action & our inaction do to people we think we will never see & never know.

The only way to end poverty, to make it history, is to build viable systems on the ground that deliver critical and affordable goods and services to the poor, in ways that are financially sustainable and scaleable. If we do that, we really can make poverty history.

Four billion people on Earth make less than four dollars a day.

People need to believe that they can participate fully in the decisions that affect their lives and have a stake in the societies in which they live

What would the world look like if we asked ourselves the following more often; are our actions helping others find a way to feel more freer, more dignified and more beautiful?

There is power in creating a small model, and then you can create an alliance of other small models.

One of the first things that surprised me in a positive, wonderfully positive way, is that this works - patient capital works.

Philanthropy is no longer about writing a check for $10,000 to the opera.

Acumen Fund's patient capital investment in Western Seed is intended to enhance the food security and economic independence of Kenya's smallholder farmers.

For too much of history, we've viewed the world's precious resources - both environmental and human - as things to extract, to make the most of in order to maximize their potential.

By going from the bottom-up again, we see where successes work, and you can also see where the status quo can be the biggest obstacle or roadblock to success. The kind of entrepreneurs in whom we need to invest are the kind who are willing to fight that status quo, bureaucracy, complacency, and corruption.

Human beings tend not to spend money on health preventionally. We tend to spend it on top treatment.

I have seen that traditional approaches to charity and aid don't solve problems of poverty. In fact, too often they create dependence.

Freedom is what beauty feels like when it can most express itself.

If you're looking at distributing alternative energy in Nigeria, for instance, what gets in your way is not people's ability to pay, not people's desire for a clean solar lamps or biomass opportunities. But there is a strong status quo that really depends on selling diesel.

People have to understand that unless social enterprise is experimental, it will not succeed in making a difference.

There are 60 million generators in Nigeria. The generator owners and distributors have a strong incentive to not encourage the distribution of solar and other alternative energies, even though it's better for the country, it's better for people. As a world, we've got to get more serious about confronting those obstacles. This knows no culture, no race, no ethnicity.

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.

Freedom ultimately is dignity. And dignity, not income, is the opposite of poverty.

Our actions- and inaction- touch people every day, people we may never know and never meet.

The older I get, the more determined I feel to do whatever I can to help release that human potential somehow. Not in a fluffy way nor in a hardcore way. But in that middle ground, that marriage of love and power. I'm not afraid of either.

Dignity is more important than wealth.

Don't let people tell you to do it this way. You are on the verge of figuring out hybrid models -- with companies and nonprofits, markets, government, crowd-sourced philanthropy. The capitalist system as we know it is not working.

To be part of building a movement, you have to keep moving.

Girls and women are most victimised in societies where boys and men are disempowered.

We need moral leadership and courage in our world.