Start and let the work teach you

Jacqueline Novogratz, the founder and president of Acumen Fund, an international nonprofit investment group aimed at helping people lift themselves out of poverty, and author of the New York Times best seller The Blue Sweater, spoke to Boston College students about how to create “a world beyond poverty.” She talked about her own experience seeing poverty firsthand as a college student and learning that people do not want to be pitied; rather, they want to make their own way out of poverty but sometimes need assistance. This insight led to her starting a microfinance firm in Rwanda and the eventual start of Acumen after a brief stint on Wall Street. She pointed out that a top-down version of charity often falls short and that to truly lift people out of poverty you must invest in their ideas and work with them, which will inspire good people in poverty to help themselves and their communities. Novogratz shared her seven principles on how to combat poverty: 1) Dream Big but Start Small, 2) Stand with the Poor, 3) Have Moral Imagination, 4) Have the Courage to Fail, 5) Accompany Each Other, 6) Be Kind, and 7) Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable. These principles, she said, have kept her on her path to building the Acumen Fund and are the things you need to keep in mind when being a champion for the poor. Her final words of advice were that Boston College students have a unique opportunity to effect change as men and women for others and to remember to “let the work teach you where to go.”

Curt Allen '20, Winston Ambassador

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