Jonathan Lewis
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- Info
I on Poverty
Jonathan C. Lewis is founder/CEO of the Opportunity Collaboration, a diverse
community of 300 social investors and entrepreneurs who annually attend a
strategic offsite on World Poverty Day to leverage resources, combine forces, share innovations and operate more effectively. He is also the founder of MicroCredit Enterprises which finances $20 million worth of microloans for impoverished entrepreneurs, mostly women, in 15 nations on 4 continents. Jonathan is a recipient of the Social Venture Network Innovation Award.
Mar 13, 2010
Victory takes many forms in the open marketplace of social change.
The other day I was browsing through an old conference brochure and came across a treasured quotation. “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity,” said the American educator Horace Mann. As social entrepreneurs, the victory is different for each of us. The disappointment, of course, is that oftentimes only leaders who run front-line organizations get credited with the honorific “social entrepreneur.” How narrow and silly is that? Victory takes many forms in the open marketplace of social change: Regina Starr Ridley and Eric Nee edit and produce the Stanford Social Innovation Review. It is unimaginable to think we could live without it. I read it with religious devotion. Jerry Hildebrand innovatively directs the Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship, School of International Studies, University of the Pacific. The students there are the diversity of our future and our aspirations for a world chock full of ventures built on conscience. Theresa Fay-Bustillos just launched IdealPhilanthropy which, leveraging off her years as CEO of the Levi-Strauss Foundation, is entrepreneurially and smartly identifying solid social change programs and high-impact grant-making strategies for clients. James A. Richardson and Mario Gutierrez of the nonprofit National Rural Funders Collaborative operate a virtual mini-conglomerate of philanthropic initiatives for families and communities in regions with persistent poverty, especially areas where concentrations of poverty and communities of color overlap. To read the NRFC website is to see “in action” the real world of social entrepreneurship. Sara Olsen and Melanie Moore Kubo of SVT Group and See Change, respectively, are about the business of keeping the methods employed by social entrepreneurs aligned with their missions. No small feat, but these two women (sometimes competitors, sometimes collaborators) are about the accountability we insist on from others and often neglect for ourselves. Kerry Olsen and Peter Laugharn run the Firelight Foundation which takes on the toughest problems in the toughest neighborhoods in the world. Defying the artificial metrics of scale and “efficient” leveraging, they provide high-touch, long-term and true neighborhood empowerment in Africa. I have a longer list, but you get the gist. Social entrepreneurs come in all sizes and shapes and do good for humanity under many legal formats. Hail to them all. Meet social entrepreneurs of all kinds next October at the Opportunity Collaboration, or just look around you. Even better, claim your own victory for humanity. It’s never too late until it is.
Mar 05, 2010
What is your dogma? What bias won’t you unbutton?
Poverty is a collaborative problem, all agree. Like climate change or global health, the collective action of many hands and many voices is essential. While the need to collaborate is abundantly obvious, what is less apparent is how to do it and how to it well. About the only certain truth about collaboration is: It starts among leaders of vision and shared trust. In the age-old phrase, we do business with people we trust. Ask any Delegate to the Opportunity Collaboration. A few months back, a fellow activist invited me to a fundraising luncheon at a private country club. This Club for the well-to-do features immaculate landscaping, state-of-the-art health facilities, horse stables, superb cuisine and quiet service. If you go, wear your polo shirt because this is Ralph Lauren country. The Club, like most in its ilk, has a peculiarly staid, even stifling, ambience. For one thing, from a walkabout I got the clear impression that diversity in The Club means horses of all colors and breeds are welcome. People? Not so much. That aside, what might anti-poverty activists learn from a rarified Club atmosphere? The Club is a trust environment. Sustained by the boring homogeneity of its membership, there is an implicit and shared value proposition among the herd. Indeed, the organizing mission is “we are the same” and “we belong”. A street gang for the rich and powerful. For anti-poverty activists, are we overlooking this fundamental human dynamic which binds families and villages, racial groups and nations, not to mention reinforces our common theory of social change? Are we too safe and sound in our self-satisfied Clubs -- unchallenged in our belief structures, complacent with our brand? Social investors -- secure and self-satisfied -- know market solutions for market failures certainly work, or do we? Are we unmeasured by results and unaccountable beyond our own ideology? “A person only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people,” noted Will Rogers. To step beyond our dogmas, social entrepreneurs need to engage with thinkers unlike themselves, people with different life experiences and with different perspectives, different beliefs and different dreams. To reduce the scourge of poverty, social entrepreneurs need the courage to open up The Club -- to think without diluting our convictions. We need the capacity to collaborate and the courage do it.
Feb 25, 2010
Are social entrepreneurs skating for the gold or on thin ice?
When I was younger, I used to watch the Winter Olympics end-to-end. “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” (thank you, ABC Sports), the camaraderie among nations (or so the sports anchors assure us) and – the real reason – every young male benefits from watching women’s figure skating. Then, one day it dawned on me. I was tuned in for no reason at all or perhaps cheering for the wrong reason. First, when the first and second place winners in a sport are less than a second apart, can we call that a tie? Does it really matter who is “best” in bobsledding when the “winning” female team hurtles down the chute in 53.01 seconds to establish a tenth of a second(!!!) lead over the second place team? Do we care? Second, a large number of the sports are boring or impossible to see clearly on television. The luge? Cross-country skiing? What precisely are we watching as the camera zooms in? Now, women’s figure skating…oh, sorry, my mind drifted. Third, as Opportunity Collaboration director Carol Erickson argues in a blog posting, our national obsession with the Olympics and the American gold medal count lacks proportion. In the end, mass spectator sports are entertainment and diversion. Might we consider a Global Good Olympics with countries and teams vying to do the most good and, how about this, to do it the most effectively? The Olympics are a ready case study for social entrepreneurs. Lesson one: Not all things worth doing are self-sustaining. Few call for defunding a costly, in-the-red social enterprise with a hazy mission statement. Instead, Olympic funding is vaguely justified for “bringing nations together” and “inspiring youth”. No one suggests that See Change do an evaluation-impact analysis, Congress does not hold hearings on “Olympic-size” cost overruns and editors defer coverage of Haiti to bring us curling. Lesson two: The human soul responds to more than pleas for justice. It must be entertained, nurtured, uplifted. Even hard-driving social entrepreneurs need to scale up a smile. The leadership and ethos of the anti-poverty movement, broadly considered, sometimes seems incapable of taking joy from its good works. In the face of injustice, pain and hurt, a somber face and politically correct demeanor are considered “appropriate”. Meanwhile the real face of poverty is a staggeringly impoverished woman or child, often smiling. My conclusion? Make your mission big and bold, be an Olympic change agent, have fun along the way. And, turn off the TV…well, except for women’s figure skating.
Feb 19, 2010
Is Social Edge blogger Sara Olsen to be admired or what?
Is Social Edge blogger Sara Olsen to be admired or what? Sara, I respect you for putting some tough life/work balance issues for social entrepreneurs in the public domain…and for writing from your heart. Read this terrific Social Edge Conversation led by Sara Olson! To Sara's key questions: A) In your experience, are social entrepreneurs single or divorced more than in the regular population? What do you make of this? From my life experience - spanning now government service, the private sector, nonprofit work and now social entrepreneurial work - is that hard-driven leaders and activists in all sectors suffer from the cliché absence of work/life balance. When I worked at the State Capitol, the phrase “legislative widow” was commonly in vogue. So, the issue is bigger and scary. B) Do social entrepreneurs tend to be more financially at-risk than their non-social entrepreneur peers? What should be done about this, if anything? To the extent most social entrepreneurs are essentially self-employed small businesspeople, I don’t think they suffer from any greater or lesser financial insecurity than the general class of entrepreneurs. Let’s not ignore the high failure rates of most small businesses in the USA, the shameful lack of wealth creation opportunity at the BoP in America and the very reason we have social safety nets, like MediCare and Social Security. These realities exist because in the land of market capitalism, capitalism can become what a European official once called “savage capitalism”. A Greek adage reminds us, “First secure an independent income, then practice virtue.” C) What is the nature of the “personal return” philanthropists obtain from giving? How should this be factored into the assessment of social value creation? This is a damn good question. Indeed, every nonprofit and for-profit development officer is trying to answer it. But it is a separate matter from assessing bottom lines and the true value of an enterprise. Perhaps, we might scold ourselves (quietly and gently) with the admonishment that social enterprises have missions and goals that should be larger than we are. We do not create a social enterprise for an ego boost, as a relationship substitute or as a self-aggrandizing resume enhancer. It is about the mission, first. Sara, you made me think hard about these tough issues. We all face them. You are a champion, the Diogenes we all need.
Feb 15, 2010
Is it feudal to attend conferences when there is so much work to be done?
As I jot down this blog, I am not wearing tights or a hat with a plumed feather. There is a difference between the Renaissance Faire and the Renaissance Weekend. At the Faire, one jousts guarded with amour. At the Weekend, one jousts with an open mind. The Renaissance Weekend is an eclectic gathering of accomplishment, celebrity, power, money and diversity of perspective. In its own words, it is “about the transforming power of ideas and relationships.” Unlike the typical conference filled with reverential voyeurism as luminaries take the stage, a muted mutual respect is the ambience at a Renaissance Weekend. Everyone important, everyone distinguished. At dinner last nite, a federal prosecutor, a foundation CEO, a retired astronaut, a corporate lobbyist…you get the idea. Indeed, I am here, one suspects, in error or perhaps to widen the diversity; after all, white males with beards who love hot dogs and tell bad puns are often overlooked by the U.S. Census. Renaissance Weekend fosters the serendipity of connection and collaboration. One learns an unsettling fact, gets a useful idea, is pushed outside one’s comfort zone. In short, this is the raw stuff of entrepreneurial refreshment. In my case, I am challenged to reframe my “elevator explanation” about MicroCredit Enterprises for exceptionally interested, well-educated, sophisticated people who still have not heard about microfinance-style poverty reduction. Answering “What do you do?” is exhausting work (I nap every afternoon). Even more telling, it is a humbling reminder that we social entrepreneurs and activists spend far too much time talking at each other, not with each other. Two poignant conversational snippets unexpectedly drive this point home: One mover and shaker in the social change space mentions that a few years ago her husband and soul mate died after a short bout with cancer. The void of loneliness opens up before me. At the food buffet, a superlawyer quietly recounts to me the single most scary moment of her life. Except for a hotel security guard who had learned the Heimlich Maneuver, she would be dead. Earlier in the day, she had gratefully thanked the aging Dr. Heimlich. So, your entrepreneurial lifespan is short, fragile and filled with the unknown. Love your mission. Love the people around you. Love yourself enough to not waste time. More than money, more than creativity and more than your good idea, time is your most precious resource.
Feb 08, 2010
Are you social entrepreneur or simply a compassionate person? Tell me about yourself.
Last week, I found myself answering questions before about 50 engaged students and faculty at the Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship (University of the Pacific). I was deeply moved by a student, let’s call her Emily, who asked, “Is it enough to sit alone in a room and be compassionate?” For me, the answer is NO. Recalling a human history replete with economic slavery, gulags, feudal serfs, indentured servants, sweatshops, exploited industrial workers, debt bondage, children’s labor and 3 billion people today still struggling on $2.00 per day, the sane among us surely recognize that free markets can allocate capital efficiently, if not always fairly. Undeniably, capital markets are powerful engines for economic development and opportunity. Indeed, it is the animating purpose of the social entrepreneur to make it so. Every businessperson, indeed every person of accomplishment, has a measure of ambition, vision, fire in the belly or “the edge” which is “irrational, irrepressible and elemental….it offers us opportunity to experience a self stronger, more vibrantly alive, more intensively focused than that of our everyday lives, self-armed to take on the darkest forces in our own, inner territory.”(Sara Hall, Opportunity Collaboration alumna, New Philanthropy Advisors blogger and author, Drawn to the Rhythm). Are you such a person? Do you have “the edge”? Social entrepreneurs must have compassion, the drive and the smarts to bend the tools of the marketplace in the service of economic justice. No abstract economic theory and no marketplace, whether functioning or failing, can change the reality that we each, alone and singularly, are blessed and burdened with a moral compass. Within every free market we are free to make ethical choices. “…of all the differences between man and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important,” wrote Charles Darwin. “It is the most noble of all the attributes of man.” He added, “A man who possessed no trace of such instincts would be an unnatural monster.” Get out of your room. Exercise your moral compass. Be what the world needs.
Feb 02, 2010
Are you raising capital to finance fee-for-service private sector parks?
My hotel room in Washington, DC overlooks a city park. The snow has blanketed the plaza. Every tree, bench and bush is austerely black, serene, still. A calming black and white photo. I am in Washington for a board meeting of Everyone Counts, a fascinating social venture. This company’s private entrepreneurs have stepped up to use technology to make democracy and the sacred responsibility of voting easier, faster and safer. In ancient Greece, the citizens voted with potshards, casting them into containers in the public square. The invention of the pencil, paper and postal delivery eventually supported absentee ballots, a democratic benefit for the busy citizen. Everyone Counts’ military grade security system of voting now allows for safe, secure voting by Internet. If we can buy almost anything online with a credit card and manage our bank accounts from anywhere in the world, why not vote from home as well? And, for people with disabilities, expats, soldiers and single moms, let’s make the franchise a pragmatic reality. If the internet is something of a new public square, surely we all still respect and celebrate the civic wisdom of the public officials, the public social entrepreneurs, who put a park outside my hotel window. A park for beauty, a park for clean air, a park for keeping a friendship, a park in which to stand and admire the private enterprise which surrounds it, a park to serve as a real time chat room for discussing the coming election. Is not this weary traveler equally embraced by the welcoming comfort of my hotel lobby and the lobby without walls outside my window? Is the public park, its grandeur serving the multitudes, an example of a scaled public amenity, democratically open to all? Is the hotel lobby with its chandeliers, plush sofas and marble flooring, all firmly guarded by a hotel bellman, any more -- or any less -- valuable for the fact it was privately financed while the park is governmentally on offer? Is there a social investor out there raising capital to finance fee-for-service private sector parks? From private parking garages to private people parks? Social entrepreneurs invariably self-describe themselves as founders and leaders of for-profit enterprises or NGOs. Why is all the leadership cache in the non-governmental sector? How about a few social entrepreneurs to build tomorrow’s parks?
Jan 22, 2010
New Emerging Leaders Combating Poverty Invited To Apply
The Opportunity Collaboration is a platform predicated on the powerful idea that out of fragmentation can come collaboration, from diversity can come unity and from cross-fertilization can come innovation. The power of collaboration does not presume a single outcome. Rather, it draws its power from the conviction that people of good will forge their own solutions, directions and alliances and uncover new ways to combine and leverage resources. During World Poverty Day this October, a group of entrepreneurial anti-poverty leaders will convene for a strategic offsite. The Opportunity Collaboration dates are October 15, 2010 to October 20, 2010, in Ixtapa, Mexico. The gathering is laser-focused on poverty reduction. Delegates are diversified and balanced among 300 foundation trustees and executives, social investors, innovative nonprofit leaders, policy thought leaders and social entrepreneurs. Too often, the silos of competition block creative, collaborative opportunities. The meeting conveners are agnostic about domestic vs. international poverty alleviation models, for-profit vs. nonprofit, policy vs. entrepreneurship, but we are fervent about wanting Delegates who are strong leaders with records of accomplishment, who appreciate leverage and sustainability, and who are unafraid to think outside traditional silos and their own operating models. Reviewed and selected by a distinguished panel of pro bono jurors, successful Fellowship applicants are high-impact, innovative, entrepreneurial for-profit and nonprofit organization executives with a demonstrated commitment to economic justice and poverty alleviation, either domestically or internationally and with a current leadership position in their organization. Like all Delegates, Fellows are catalytic leaders who by their actions and accomplishments evidence pragmatic vision, passionate tenacity, multi-sectoral thinking, adaptive leadership skills, non-ideological activism, and a strong ethical grounding. The hope and intent is to open doors, minds and networks for exceptional social entrepreneurs and nonprofit executives engaged in poverty alleviation and economic justice enterprises. Fellows participate fully in all aspects of the Opportunity Collaboration. In addition, Fellows may earn a certificate of completion for an on-site professional training symposium covering areas critical to the success of organizations and individuals creating social impact and combating poverty.
Jan 16, 2010
Where do you stand on the irreconcilable paradox of social entrepreneurism? Post your dogged comment.
Reporting on her childhood as a young white girl in apartheid South Africa, Marisa Handler (author, Loyal to the Sky) observes, “It felt normal. It was all I knew. Apartheid only became truly odd, wrong, twisted, once we’d left South Africa. If you are child born and bred in a segregated society, a rigidly stratified and censored society, it’s all you know….Every society assumes that its way is the norm, the natural way.” In today’s global society, poverty is our norm. We assume it and we accept it as a fixture of how we treat each other. Our global underclass is a market to be exploited, cheap labor to be employed, a terrorism breeding ground to be bombed. The irreconcilable paradox of social entrepreneurism is that -- to lift up the poor, to combat poverty and to create opportunity -- the poor are dehumanized into consumers, market segments, borrowers, clients, the chattel of commerce. Rarely is the apparent contradiction between our common humanity and our equally common commercial inhumanity mentioned in the polite society of policy conferences or political discourse. Most of us properly sneer when a pundit selfishly (I meant to write, patriotically) proclaims “America First.” More tolerable is crowing “American Social Investors First” which often is hidden in wordier chatter about securing good financial returns, assuring our dollars are efficiently used and creating exit strategies to realize our profits. No one reading this blog is an absolutist, and clearly every social entrepreneur cares passionately about ending poverty. Still, the incongruity exists. Balancing the interests of investors, customers and the larger societal good is not easy. A work gang of Jewish prisoners captured in 1940 is forced to labor outside a prison camp. In the eyes of the guards and even the occasional civilian passerby, the P.O.W.s, Jews and laborers are no longer human, no longer part of the human race. Then, a stray dog wanders by, tagging along with the work crew. “For the dog, there was no doubt we were men.” Does it take a dog to remind us that the poor and the social investor are indivisible?
Jan 09, 2010
Are we toying with foreign aid? Post your truth-teller’s comment.
The total U.S. tax burden is 27% of GDP, according to the respected and impartial Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD). Twenty-seven cents of every American dollar finances your government….roads, schools, cops, elections, parks, libraries, dams, clean air, restaurant health inspectors and lots of guns. Worldwide half of all the public tax money expended on weapons is spent by U.S. taxpayers. $711 billion, in case you are counting. By comparison, immunizing every single child in the developing world against measles, whooping cough, polio, tetanus, tuberculosis and diphtheria would cost less than one-tenth of one percent of U.S. military spending. Defense spending versus defensive medicine? The average tax burden for the 30 most industrialized nations hovers around 35%. At the high end, Denmark is at 48% of GDP and at the low end Mexico is at 21%. Again, America is at 27%. The next time you hear the lie that Americans are over-taxed, say something. With some of the money Americans do not pay in taxes, they spend nearly $23 billion a year on toys. With less than 4% of the world's kids, Americans buy 40% of the toys. (In fact, there are more Barbies than people in the U.S.). Total U.S. foreign aid is also about $23 billion annually. In case you are counting, less than 1% of the federal budget. The next time you hear the lie that Americans spend too much on foreign aid, say something. Musimbi R. A. Kanyoro (of the Packard Foundation; former head the World YWCA) reminds us, “More than a million children are left motherless every year. Newborns whose mothers die from preventable deaths are three to ten times more likely to die before the age of two than those whose mothers survive.” From Paul Collier’s plain-speaking book The Bottom Billion: “…aid needs to recognize that it is not there as a temporary stimulus to development. It is there to bring some minimal decency standards of living.” The next time you hear the lie that aid is unneeded, say something. Even if you can’t make a social investment to combat poverty, even if you can’t afford a donation, if your skills are non-entrepreneurial, if you don’t have time to volunteer, at least be a truth teller.
Jan 02, 2010
Imagine if 49 million Americans lacked “clothes security” and walked around naked part of the year. Post your risqué comment.
In 2002 49 million Americans lived in households without consistent access to food (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture), called “food insecurity”. Imagine if 49 million Americans lacked “clothes security” and walked around naked part of the year. This hunger number was up 13 million(!) over the previous year, a trend that the current recession is unlikely to have reversed. Globally, one billion people lack food security. In 2008 food prices were up 83% over 2005, according to Oxfam. In most developing countries the amount spent on food ranges from 50% to 60% of household income, so even a modest increase in food commodity prices means no school fees, ignored healthcare and daily hunger. By contrast, about 15% of U.S. income is spent on food. ( Food, Land, Population & The U.S. Economy, Pimentel and Giampietro, 1994). The causes? Depleted soil (thanks to over-farming with fertilizers and pesticides), less available water for irrigation (thanks to deforestation), global warming (a two-degree Fahrenheit increase causes a 10% drop in wheat, corn and rice yields), increased use of biofuels (thanks to high energy prices and bad public policy), so-called land grabbing (i.e., rich countries buying prime ag land in poor countries) and a focus on mass farming, not small scale farmers. Two things you can do immediately: Support small farmers: 400 million small farmers worldwide are the sustainable food banks local communities need. Sustainable Harvest International, an Opportunity Collaboration grad, has planted more than 2.6 million trees, converted more than 12,000 acres to sustainable land use and worked with 151 communities. If you can’t grab a shovel and hoe, grab your checkbook. Vote ‘no” on biofuels: “The amount of grain required to produce the ethanol needed to fill the tank of an SUV is enough to feed one person for an entire year,” reports Oxfam. Overall, 30% of the recent food price hikes have been driven by over-reliance on biofuels. Join Oxfam’s Act Fast campaign. Be a foodie with a fat commitment to food fairness!
Dec 26, 2009
Is the social marketplace a dead idea? Post a killer comment.
I love book titles that give away the ending. So efficient that way. By that standard, The Tyranny of Dead Ideas is a clear winner. Conventional wisdom for social entrepreneurs is the market will work, or at least can be made to work, to reduce poverty and perhaps solve other social and environmental problems. Microfinance is the reigning global case study, although the jury is still out on whether it can reduce poverty at the macro level when and where national economic policy has collapsed. Consider three thought challenges to the hopes and dreams of social entrepreneurs, not to mention to the poor for whom market solutions remain fairy tales: 1 - “In a market economy with imperfect and asymmetric information and incomplete markets – which is to say, every market economy – the reason that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is invisible is that it does not exist.”(Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz, former Chief Economist, World Bank) What is the social entrepreneur’s market solution for empowering one billion illiterate consumers? Free laptops? Ethical salespeople? 2 – Set against charmingly upbeat, albeit mostly anecdotal, stories about social entrepreneurial projects, the bottom of the pyramid has scaled up a robust $40 billion industry: slave-trafficking. In Haiti alone, 300,000 kids (some as young as 6 years old) work as house slaves.(Good magazine, Jan/Feb, 2009) What is the social entrepreneur’s market solution to child slavery? Cap and trade? 3 - Government bureaucracy and inefficiency are a favorite whipping boy for market advocates. Yet, thanks to government money, policy determination, humanitarian common sense and public-NGO partnerships, smallpox has been nearly eradicated. Polio and guinea worm disease will soon follow. In 2000, 550 million children (one-tenth of the world’s population; 85% of the world’s children) were inoculated against polio. Sometimes, the public sector gets it right. What is the social entrepreneur’s market solution for public health? Lower taxes? Less regulation? Just as social entrepreneurs and social investors are embracing the market as “the way” to economic justice, it is a dying, dying, dead idea?
Dec 19, 2009
Microfinance doesn’t clear land mines, save rain forests or stop global warming.
Does microfinance promote economic development? Does a poor person care? A short economic history of the world: The first 9,800 years were pretty much economically static. Then, the Industrial Revolution occurred. No one seems to know why then or why England. As a result, financial opportunity took off and the results rebound to this day. Today, many armchair economic development experts, trained economists and sideline pundits have started to wonder why microfinance is not the next Industrial Revolution. Since I usually agree with myself, I quote here from my speech to a domestic micro-enterprise conference: “Microfinance is about more than money. None of us in this room would accept living in a community with bad schools, little healthcare, no electricity, and filthy water – but with a great bank. Economic justice means the poor must have the power to speak up, speak out and speak for themselves.” For a seriously impoverished woman, empowerment is pretty simple. A little bling and, all of sudden, she is empowered to feed her kids, stand up to an abusive partner, thatch a roof or pay a medical bill. Ask any woman what financial independence means. The hoi polloi of funders, metric mavens, think tanks and policy wonks need to explain microfinance as quantifiable economic development because that is THEIR obsession with spread sheets and snazzy graphics. At the one-dollar-a-day subsistence level, microfinance is about giving a woman a choice and a chance, no more and no less. It is well and good to wish that millions of microloans might create a surge of GDP growth, but that is asking for an economic macro miracle in the countries where microfinance is most needed. “Poverty is much too complex to be cured by one intervention. We don’t ask if basic education alone ends poverty. We don’t ask if vaccinations alone end poverty. Why should microfinance be held to the standard of single-handedly reducing poverty?”, notes Sam Daley-Harris, head of the Global MicroCredit Summit and an Opportunity Collaboration alum. Do we really expect the microfinance mission statement to read “Redress 10,000 years of economic exploitation, gender discrimination, marketplace failures and social/economic injustice”? We owe it to the poor to be more pragmatic, more humble and more urgent.
Dec 16, 2009
ShoreBank Needs YOU. Pay back an act of kindness.
“One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind.” (Malayan proverb) Social entrepreneurs ask “Can social enterprises scale with integrity?” The answer is YES. Social entrepreneurs ask “Can social enterprises be sustainable and remain true to their communities and their mission?” The answer is YES. Study ShoreBank! In the worst neighborhoods of Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit, a venerated social enterprise has invested $4 billion to fund (a) 52,000 units of affordable housing, (b) nearly $700 million in conservation loans and (c) hundreds of small businesses that have created more than 10,000 jobs. In 1973, Opportunity Collaboration Achievement Award honoree Mary Houghton and three colleagues launched a community bank to fight redlining and build a community. Today, as everyone knows, American financial institutions are in disarray, serving neither shareholders nor communities. Wall Street banks and community banks alike upended. The shameful history of redlining is now the American national status quo. ShoreBank clients and customers have been hit with the triple reality of rising unemployment, declining property values and an almost complete lack of credit availability. Unemployment is the number one reason homeowners are delinquent on ShoreBank mortgage payments, an economic disaster exacerbated by a 20% to 50% decline in home prices in ShoreBank communities, mostly populated by people of color. As a result, ShoreBank instantly needs FDIC-insured deposits from people and institutions that want to see ShoreBank continue as a critical leader in the global economic development movement. This is truly a no-brainer. Make a financial deposit that is fully protected by the U.S. Government, that returns normal market returns and which will keep alive a bank whose credo is community first, foremost and forever. Open a saving account, buy a CD, move some of your funds. Economic justice is a web click away: www.sbk.com. Call yourself a social investor, a nonprofit organization, a philanthropist or a social activist, this is your moment. Pay back an act of kindness.
Dec 13, 2009
Dateline Opportunity Collaboration: Super-Charged Developing World Investments
Bringing together a distinguished array of organizations and leaders fighting poverty, the Opportunity Collaboration is, among other things, a “connective tissue” event. Innovations and ideas generate from everywhere and from everyone. Sarona Frontier Markets Fund - With over 56 years of private investment experience in the frontier markets of the world, the seasoned Sarona investment team is targeting a net 15% financial return to investors with smart social values. The portfolio will invest in companies anywhere in the world serving the base of the pyramid with a focus on strong growth and a solid environmental strategy. IGNIA - Managing Partner, Alvaro Rodriguez (chair of the very successful, albeit somewhat controversial, Mexican microfinance institution Compartamos), has launched a high-potential US$75 million venture capital investment firm to support the founding and expansion of high growth social enterprises that serve the base of the socio-economic pyramid in Latin America. With 360 million people in Latin America (65% of the total population) earning less than US$3,000 per year, the need for IGNIA is abundant. Developing World Markets - With $600 million of microfinance investment assets invested in over 100 microfinance institutions (MFIs) worldwide, Developing World Markets is now pioneering investments which specifically target so-called second-tier microfinance institutions (MFIs). With the trend line in microfinance investment moving towards larger, urban-based MFIs, some of whom are suffering mission drift, DWM is applauded for once again stepping up to create a commercial microfinance market where one is needed. Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference – Founded by OppColl Delegate John Rosser, this new and long overdue socially responsible investment conference focuses on the Caribbean, Latin American and Floridian markets. Join me and 135 speakers from 20 countries on March 17-19, 2010, in Miami for a break-thru event. Woody Allen once opined that “Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.” For financial reasons, make a little money. Do some good at the same time.
Dec 04, 2009
A must-read book for social entrepreneurs combating global poverty.
Put down Half the Sky by Kristof, skip the latest road-to-riches screed about serving the bottom of the pyramid and throw out your white papers from The World Bank. This weekend I finished and placed in my library a must-read book for EVERY social entrepreneur working on global poverty. Portfolios of the Poor is your new bible. Researched and well-written by Daryl Collins, Jonathan Murduch, Stuart Rutherford and Orlanda Ruthven, published this year and subtitled “How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day”. Replete with 80+ pages of charts, tables, notes and facts, this valuable piece of scholarship documents daily financial life in poor households. The findings and conclusions are not just important, they are essential for even the most casual anti-poverty worker. In this book, insights to perplexing bottom of the pyramid market challenges abound: - My organization’s solar cooker oven saves energy, increases a mother’s productivity and reduces injuries from burns. Why don’t the poor buy my product?
- Health is such an obvious need for the poor, so why are even low-cost insurance policies with high benefits for catastrophic healthcare not selling better?
- A 77-year old woman caring for 4 orphaned grandkids supports this 5-person household on just $120 per month, or 80 cents per mouth to feed per day. From this meager budget, she contributes 33%(!!!) to a savings club. What are you selling that is more pragmatically valuable than her savings, her $4.00 monthly church fees, her $10.00 loan monthly repayments, and so on?
This book is myth exploding. It is about the price points and market realities of the poor. If you don’t thoughtfully engage the issues raised by Portfolios of the Poor, you are slated to waste time, needlessly misspend money (charitable or investment, no matter) and, to boot, realize career burnout. Oscar Levant once quipped “I’ve given up reading books. I find it takes my mind off myself.” Take your mind off your program, products and services, and read up on your customers. Memorize Portfolios of the Poor.
Nov 27, 2009
Impoverished Women Have Less Money. Hungry Females Often Foodless. Poor Children Start Life of Poverty Earlier.
One can be forgiven for thinking that Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof’s bestseller Half the Sky has a cliché title (from the ancient Chinese proverb “women hold up half the sky”) and makes a very mundane point. For a long time now economic development and human rights advocates have known that, to reduce the human misery index, empowered, educated, healthy women are indispensable. To argue the opposite, namely, women and especially poor women should not have access to education, health services, political power, etc. is justifiably considered radical public policy and embarrassingly laughable. America is re-discovering that women are the face of poverty, take care of the kids, do a large amount of the manual work, get exploited in every imaginable way, are hatefully abused and even killed with impunity. Well, better late than never, as another saying goes. In the sixties, America discovered its own poor thanks to Michael Harrington’s The Other America which then-President Kennedy read and popularized. A few years ago, there was Inconvenient Truth on global warming. Now Half the Sky will hold our attention until the next cause célèbre. The feminization of poverty and the oppression of women and girls is now common lore in the salons of the thoughtful and well-informed. Common knowledge except where it matters, namely, in the halls of power. Instead of courageous and crusading celebrity journalists, women would be more sensibly served by a million thriving, average American women (and men too!) backing an Opportunity Collaboration alum like, here’s a non-cliché title, Women Thrive Worldwide. Why should a woman with a starving child or young girl exploited for sex have to wait for the next social investment idea when today we can all push Congress to be a congress of conscience? Your “inner social entrepreneur” may not like to admit it, but American trade and foreign aid policy dwarfs the impact of nonprofits, foundations and social ventures combined. A single sentence in a foreign aid bill can mean life or death, hope or exploitation, for women all over the world. Join Women Thrive Worldwide and hold up your part of the sky.
Nov 25, 2009
Value the social entrepreneurs who practice compassion. Value the nonprofit leaders who innovate.
Today is the Thanksgiving holiday in America. My friends Tom and Meg Stallard, civic activists extraordinaire, send a holiday message of giving from the American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson: “For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, For love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends.” Value the social entrepreneurs who practice compassion. Value the nonprofit leaders who innovate. Value most the family and friends who teach us how to live more thoughtful lives. From each according to our talents, Thanksgiving summons us to the cause of social and economic justice. Thanks to: · Shari Berenbach, CEO of Calvert Foundation, a constant collaborator for seasoned, smart social investing. · Gary Ford, CEO of MicroCredit Enterprises, and the 41 Guarantors who back microloans for hundreds of thousands of impoverished women in 15 nations -- all without a dime of donations or mission drift. · All Opportunity Collaboration Delegates who, in just four days, built a community, set aside smugness and killed complacency. · Ashwini Narayanan and the MicroPlace E-Bay team who are growing a superlative Internet space for individual microfinance investing. · Wondrous Oblivion, a movie about personal courage in the moment when it is most needed. · Sara Hall, Drawn to the Rhythm author, whose “courage to hear her truth, and face the truth” is an interior lesson for every social entrepreneur. · Mark Twain for deflating us with “To be good is noble, but to show others how to be good is nobler -- and no trouble”. · The anonymous microloan borrower, living high in the desolate Andes, who five years ago showed me her pride and self-determination. · The good fortune which capriciously placed me in a land of bounty on the day of my birth. Wherever you live, whatever your circumstance, whoever you may be, Happy Thanksgiving!
Nov 21, 2009
“All successful business stands on the foundation of morality.”
For social entrepreners and sushi chefs alike scale is a hot topic. Funders and social investors are fixated on taking social change programs “to scale”. Sushi chefs prudently prefer to remove scale. For social activists the impetus derives from the convergence of two strains of thought: One, with so many poor people to reach, the push to grow anti-poverty ventures is self-justifying. Two, both social entrepreneurs and venture capitalists embrace the go-go ideology of the investment marketplace. Seasoned social entrepreneurs know there is good scale and bad scale. For the thoughtful Delegates at the recent Opportunity Collaboration, big was not always better. In the microfinance sector, larger microfinance institutions have successfully and admirably penetrated mainstream capital markets. To reach scale and please investors, interest rates charged to impoverished borrowers have in some cases risen too high; mission drift is for the first time a serious concern. Unintended consequences of the drive to scale? International textile companies were once economic development darlings because factories around the world employed large numbers of local workers, many of whom were “saved” from chattel existences. In order to scale economically in competitive labor markets, and perhaps because no one knew any better at the time, sweat shops and exploitive labor practices ensued. The global fishing industry scaled so rapidly between 1950 to 1990 that many of our seas are at depletion points (Foreign Policy magazine, March/April, 2009). Today, the very popular Southern bluefin tuna (the very best in sushi!) is at the extinction point. The ONLY option is a 100% ban on eating bluefin tuna, hoping decades hence schools of tuna return to self-sustaining levels. Economic citizenship means voting with our wallets in a way that honors a simple truth: “All successful business stands on the foundation of morality” (as slavery abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher famously sermonized). Social entrepreneurs and investors need to tend the morality their investments and, just perhaps, pay less attention to the size of them. Social entrepreneurs: Sharpen your sushi knives.
Nov 15, 2009
Intellectual confusion in the face of withering stupidity in a public policy debate.
Whether or not healthcare reform will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions is a center stage controversy. Virtually unchallenged by either political party, the intellectual feebleness and unquestioning acceptance of the premise that taxpayer dollars should not pay for abortions is unchecked. For 33 years federal law has banned women from getting taxpayer-funded abortions. The legislative illogic goes that (a) abortion is murder and immoral, (b) some taxpayer-citizens vehemently oppose it on moral grounds, and (c) a subset of the taxpaying public shouldn’t be coerced into financing that which it opposes on moral grounds. Of course, this is an argument of convenience, not of conviction. If abortion foes had the courage of their convictions, they would put mothers who murder fetuses on death row, not disingenuously and dangerously manipulate the prospect for health insurance for all. Perhaps the no-taxes-for-abortion theory could be expanded. I, and many of my fellow taxpayers, oppose the death penalty on moral grounds. Many taxpayers also oppose war on moral grounds. For ethical reasons I oppose the use of public monies to subsidize corporate killers, like tobacco farmers. A corrosive and repugnant extension of the no-taxes-for-abortion line of reasoning is the federal Global Gag Rule which “prohibits US family planning assistance to foreign NGOs that provide abortion-related information or services, even if these services are legal in their own countries and are funded with their own money. The rule prevents NGOs from even participating in public debates…concerning abortion.” (Pathfinder International). Conservatives and Catholic clerics have imposed a fatwa on women. As noted by syndicated radio talk show host Bill Press, “Equally distressing for me, as a Catholic, is the fact that reproductive rights for women is the one issue on which male, celibate Catholic bishops feel compelled to get so politically involved. You would never see them storming the barricades of Congress over legislation dealing with poverty, war, torture, the death penalty, global warming, or any other moral issue.” Annually some 70,000 women around the world die from complications resulting from unsafe abortions. For the record, on moral grounds I oppose the use of my federal taxes to pay for reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule.
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