Geetika Agrawal is pursuing her MBA at the Stern School of Business at New York University, specializing in Finance and Social Impact & Innovation. She is currently a Summer Associate at the Acumen Fund India office, where her focus is on building out the Agriculture portfolio and consuming as many mangoes as possible. She holds a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University.

The agriculture industry employs 60 percent of the Indian labor force, according to the CIA World Factbook. The backbone of this sector is the small holder farmer, those living off less than five acres and earning on average about 160 INR per person per day (approx $3 USD). While the Green Revolution increased the productivity of the farming sector and helped alleviate some hunger issues in the country, it did little to increase the livelihoods of the farmers.

In fact, within the fruit and vegetable sector today, there is a post-harvest wastage of 20-40% due to many factors: a lack of storage facilities, poor transportation logistics, a complicated web of middlemen, a dearth of quality controls and other critical supply chain inefficiencies.  This means farmers are often unable to fully realize the value of their crops. These issues in the agriculture sector are further thrown into relief by the fact that while India is the second most productive country in the world when it comes to produce variety, quality, and quantity, its total fruit production represents 8% of the world market share and its vegetable production equals only 15%. Illustrating where the inefficiencies hurt India, the Netherlands imports mangoes from Chile, at half the price, despite the fact that Chile is twice as far away.

On the bright side, supply chain inefficiencies and a demand for innovation regarding sourcing are a cries for help - and for creative business models. With these motivations, the Acumen Fund India team has started to build out a strategy and pipeline for investments in the agriculture industry. As a Summer Associate, my first task is to build a detailed case for Acumen’s involvement in the fruit and vegetable market. After a week of office ramp-up (i.e., numerous hours of quality time with the computer), it was time to get on the ground and understand how the kilos of mangoes I’d be consuming since I arrived in India actually got from the small market to my plate.

I jumped into an autorickshaw and headed to Rythu Bazaar in Hyderabad, a government supported market that allows farmers to sell directly to the customer. These bazaars are still relatively new, created to cut through the complicated set of middle men who would eat away profits through commission and price gouging.

My trip to Rythu was a unique opportunity to converse with the farmers and understand better their daily activities. They were open and eager to share their different methods of getting their produce to market.  I was also incredibly humbled to see how hard each of them works. One farmer, selling a variety of greens, described how he starts his day at 4 AM, first harvesting and then bundling the 500 bunches of greens he brings into market. He then carries the large sacks of greens on the back of his motorcycle two to three hours to bring them from his farm to the mundi.

Other farmers bring their produce by local bus, or they rent autos. On a good day, the “greens” farmer – like many others – will have leftovers which either go to hotels or wholesalers at mass discounts or simply get dumped, due to lack of cold storage.  The fact that this food often just goes to waste is tragic considering the high rate of malnutrition in India - especially in many of the surrounding villages. Storage is limited to cheap tarps and large leaves, leaving a day or less before produce spoils in the heat and humidity of monsoon-season Hyderabad.

When pressed on whether they would prefer cold storage however, many of the farmers shook their heads and simply said “No, madam, who wants to sell old vegetables? That’s not how it’s done.” After reading report after report on how important cold storage was and then hearing their stories, this was a good reminder of the difference between understanding needs and wants.

After a little while in the mundi, I had accumulated a little entourage of young farmers who would take me from one friend’s stand to another.  I was handed samples of mangoes, posed for pictures and they answered my questions before I even asked, since they had memorized them.  Then the tables turned and I was grilled on my life in Hyderabad, what I thought of being here, and most importantly, more details on my iPhone, which I was using to take pictures. I left feeling re-energized and committed to helping these entrepreneurial, energetic people find a way to reap more of the fruits of their labor.

The field trip was also an important reminder of how important it is to reconnect with the client, and how much knowledge can be lost if you just spend time behind the desk. It is also clear to me that we have a long road ahead of us as we seek to make an impact in this space - but it is one that won’t be without its rewards.

Guest blogger Jake Samuelson is consultant at the Monitor Group, a global strategy consulting firm, and pro-bono consultant for the Robin Hood Foundation. Jake focuses on marketing, media, and technology strategy, helping clients reinvent how they interact with and relate to customers and communities. Jake’s current focus lies in helping high-impact organizations leverage social media for social change.  Jake holds a BA in Economics from Harvard and is a resident of New York City.

Last week, I was lucky enough to be involved in a conversation about where Acumen Fund might be in 20 years. We discussed the potential for Acumen to move into new geographies, including potentially investing in the United States. During this discussion, CEO Jacqueline Novogratz made a comment about how “parts of the developing world would look like the developed world and vice versa” in the future.

This comment sparked my memory, and I recalled the Measure of America project, which disaggregates the Human Development Index calculations for the US by state and Congressional district boundaries.  This is an amazing, interactive resource using detailed data and new technology to increase awareness and, in doing so, drive change. Measure of America’s mission “is to stimulate a fact-based public debate about and political attention to human development issues in the U.S. and to empower people to hold elected officials accountable for progress on issues we all care about: health, education, and income.”

The New York Times Economix bloggers covered the project under the title, “Rich Country Within a Poor One“. If you have time, check out some of the interactive maps; you will see the story we all know, but in a much more granular level and with a slick interface that helps you really make sense of the information. What emerges of course is nuance – the US is a “rich country” where so many are poor, so many don’t have access to health care or a quality education.

A colleague of mine purchased the project’s book and sent out this jarring stat about the sharpest social gradient among congressional districts in the U.S.:  “On average, a resident of the Fourteenth Congressional District (Upper East Side) earns two and a half times as much, lives four years longer, is more than seven times as likely to have a college degree, and is four times less likely to be in poverty than a resident of Sixteenth Congressional District (South Bronx)”

The more data we have, the more clearly we see the there are shades of grey, and the better we can target solutions towards those shades of grey using new tools in the development toolbox and not just our old (and often) blunt instruments.  This resonates clearly in the development debate. When Jeffrey Sachs turn his attention towards Bill Easterly and Dambisa Moyo in the Huffington Post he writes about the shades of grey in traditional aid efforts:

“…most Americans know little about the many crucially successful aid efforts, because Moyo, Easterly, and others lump all kinds of programs - the good and the bad - into one big undifferentiated mass, rather than helping people to understand what is working and how it can be expanded, and what is not working, and should therefore be cut back.”

With more data and new technology, we can tell stories in new ways to help people better understand these shades of grey and better target the world’s biggest problems. This, of course, is the game of Hans Rosling, the TED dynamo and Jacqueline’s fellow speaker at TED@State. Every time Hans gets in front of a crowd, he uses the Trendalyzer to dispel our common myths about the developing world. His famous narrative of course is that the third world is on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity as the West was, and a host of countries are moving a lot faster than the West did. In his latest TED talk on HIV/AIDS he said:

“…So, when we look at the pattern, one thing comes out very clearly: you see the blue bubbles and people say HIV is very high in Africa. I would say, HIV is very different in Africa. You’ll find the highest HIV rate in the world in African countries, and yet you’ll find Senegal, down here, the same rate as United States. And you’ll find Madagascar, and you’ll find a lot of African countries about as low as the rest of the world. It’s this terrible simplification that there’s one Africa and things go on in one way in Africa. We have to stop that. It’s not respectful, and it’s not very clever to think that way.“

Acumen Fund is doing it work to show how and when markets work for the poor, and when they don’t. It is showing when and where patient capital is an alternative to pure markets or philanthropic efforts. It is defining the standards of social performance for patient capital with Pulse. And how can we not forget Wold Metrics day! Acumen is working every day in a smarter way. Hans Rosling closes with this call to action and so will I:

“We hope that when we act on global problems in the future we will not only have the heart, we will not only have the money, but we will also use the brain.”

Acumen Fund is seeking a partner(s) to market, implement, and support the Pulse software system, a flexible social metrics tool built to integrate with the Impact and Investment Standards (IRIS) (www.iris-standards.org).  Pulse and IRIS are supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, B-Lab, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, Skoll Foundation, Salesforce.com Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Lodestar Foundation, and others.   The Pulse tool, originally developed in partnership with engineers from Google, has recently been re-built as a  Salesforce.com application that is being piloted by a select group of social investors and grant makers.  We anticipate a full launch of the application this Fall, and there are over 50 institutions that have seen and tested the system.    Acumen’s partner(s) will be in a unique position to be a first mover in the field of social and impact investing with the support of leading institutions and companies.

The ideal partner(s) will be equipped to build upon nearly three years of work by Acumen Fund to help bring Pulse to the next level of becoming a sustainable, evolving industry standard tool to measure and track social impact.

Please contact Brad Presner at bpresner@acumenfund.org for more information and to request a copy of the RFP.

This post was originally posted on the Ripple Effect blog by Acumen Fund’s Sangeeta Chowdry - Ripple Effect Project Manager.

Ripple Effect team presenting at the conference

The Ripple Effect team marked the end of the successful India phase of the project by attending and presenting at the recently concluded Water Summit 2009 conference held in New Delhi.

The summit had an excellent turnout with over 150 attendees and speakers representing multiple stakeholders from the water sector in India. These included senior representatives from the Government of India, NGOs, World Economic Forum, UNDP, USAID, SDC, private sector, as well as various State Water Boards and financial institutions.

An introduction to the Ripple Effect project was made by Acumen Fund and IDEO, followed by presentations from four of the organizations running the pilot projects – Jal Bhagirathi Foundation, Naandi Foundation, Piramal Foundation and Water Health India.

All the presentations were very well received by the attendees, who also provided valuable feedback to us. In particular, the technology based work of Piramal and Naandi was complimented by several members of the audience. It was mentioned that while similar ideas had been implemented elsewhere, (eg. by Mother Dairy in India), this approach had not been tested in the water sector until now. One audience member commented that successful projects like they had seen within the Ripple Effect, should be linked to the public sector through policy interventions, in order to reach even greater scale. Yet another, from an international NGO, suggested starting a Ripple Effect like project in sanitation.

Jal Bhagirathi water outlet

During the pilot presentations, Jal Bhagirathi spoke of the successes it had achieved through their public-private-community partnerships model. Their reverse osmosis plant was now selling water to newly established remote water outlets, owned and managed by the community members. The project resulted in improved availability of safe drinking water while providing opportunities for livelihood generation for the women in the village. As a result of this project, the volume of water sold from their reverse osmosis plant, had increased from an average 2000 liters a day to 12,000 liters per day. The location of the outlets had resulted in reducing the distance of access to water from 2 km to under 0.5 km for the community.

Jacqueline Novogratz, Acumen’s founder and CEO, will be speaking at The Paley Center for Media in New York City on July 8, 2009 to discuss the challenges of leveraging social media networks to transform how people think about—and act on—problems of poverty.  If you missed her speak with the Young Professionals of Acumen Fund a few weeks ago or will not be able to attend her appearance at 92YTrebeca on June 24th, this is a perfect opportunity to catch her in person.

In addition, this will be a wonderful opportunity to learn how Acumen Fund has been leveraging social media to share, promote and listen to our extended network of investments, donors and community members.  For more information, please follow us on Twitter, sign up for our newsletter, or join our Facebook group in advance of the talk.

Click for directions to the The Paley Center.

To reserve tickets for the event, please visit the Paley Center web site

And as a final reminder, Jacqueline will be speaking this Wednesday at the 92nd Street Y in conversation with Matthew Bishop of The Economist. Hope to see you there!

Jessica Lupo is a Master of Public Policy candidate at the University of Michigan, where she focuses on international economic development. Most recently, Jessica worked at The Associated Press as Special Projects Coordinator and Assistant Editor. Previously, she was a Media Development Manager for a venture capital network in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has also consulted with various nonprofits on strategic communications. Jessica received a BS in Communications Studies and Sociology from Northwestern University.

With diligence being done, deals being made, communities engaged and the problem of global poverty grappled with, every day in the New York office is exciting.

Knowledge & Communications, where I work, is a growing part of the organization. The department is working to build a community and share knowledge with the aim of extending Acumen Fund’s impact beyond that of its portfolio. Acumen Fund acknowledges that even if its goals are met—$100 million in investments, touching 50 million lives— 98% of the poor will be unaffected by its work. This makes Knowledge & Communications an essential part of the Acumen Fund goal: changing the way we think and talk about poverty.

In truth, however, I’m only part associate. I’m also part human sponge, trying to absorb every last piece of information about growing an enterprise that I can. My first week on the job, I slipped stealthily into conference calls and meetings, blending in best I could.

I found myself in an all-staff Norms meeting on my second day. I couldn’t imagine what could possibly be “normal” about this wonderfully abnormal office, where it seems half the staff is always away in far-off countries working with entrepreneurs and experienced investors choose to invest in companies serving a customer base whom both the governments and the typical private company have deemed too difficult to reach.

“Okay, let’s talk about the kitchen,” was Director of Talent Harry Dellane’s opening. I looked up to see large sheets of white paper covered in what seemed to be a laundry list of rules dictating office behavior.

A rousing conversation began about best practices and lessons learned. It was Refrigerator Management 101! “Wow, these people are really into a tidy kitchen,” was my first thought upon realizing how engaged and articulate everyone was on the subject.

“How do you feel about this norm?” Harry probed. As the conversation continued and the staff hotly debated the best way to keep the sink clean, I smiled and let a brief laugh escape. At my previous offices, there wasn’t a chance in corporate hell that this conversation would have occurred – and even if it did everyone knew just to smile and nod.

What I realized, as the meeting progressed from cell phone use to greening the office, was that this was innovation at its best. Building a truly innovative environment starts with the everyday. By encouraging staff to speak up and share information across departments, you help avoid the “yes, sir,” groupthink culture that can grow within any organization and prevent the best ideas from coming forth.

Innovation is simply a necessity in social enterprises, which seem to ignore the traditional business wisdom by incorporating social returns into their bottom lines. It is particularly important to build this environment in developing countries where entrepreneurship and innovation may be stunted by years of distortionary aid.

This pro-innovation environment is seen in all aspects of Acumen Fund, making working here all the more exciting.  Staffers are encouraged to share knowledge and resources, to develop new ideas and frameworks, to challenge each other and the traditional business wisdom. I didn’t expect to learn a business lesson when I walked into the Norms discussion, but I learned a great one: bottom-up approaches are as important to innovation as they are to poverty alleviation. At Acumen Fund, the culture begins and ends with innovation – from portfolio management to kitchen management.

This post was originally posted on the Ripple Effect blog by Acumen Fund’s Sangeeta Chowdry - Ripple Effect Project Manager.

At the edges of the Thar desert in Rajasthan, in the region of Marwar -The Land of Death- Jal Bhagirathi Foundation, a Ripple Effect pilot awardee, has been working to bring water security to village communities. This is no small challenge in a region where the average annual rainfall is a mere 100-500mm and the water table is declining at a rate of 1-2 meters a year. The focus of communities here is to get access to any water at all – let alone safe water. It is in this environment that JBF has, amongst other water harvesting initiatives, been running a reverse-osmosis treatment plant in Pachpadra, about 100 km from Jodhpur.

Ripple Effect and JBF have been working together to develop a sustainable business model to extend access to safe drinking water to households located at a distance from the RO plant. This model not only aims to meet the water needs of these communities but also to provide a source of empowerment through livelihood provision to the members of local self-help groups.

The model that is being operationalized has water from the reverse-osmosis plant delivered to several distribution outlets run by members of the local self-help group where it is then sold on to other households. By reaching both wholesale and retail users, the output of the plant is being tripled and local incomes increased. The careful and collaborative business planning that went into the model has enhanced its potential for viability and sustainability – costs of operations have been carefully determined; a break-even analysis has been performed; and a tiered pricing strategy implemented.

Planning can, however, only go so far. Critical to the success of this model is the buy-in of the community – water quality was not previously seen as a high priority – and a powerful awareness-raising and marketing campaign was essential. In this area JBF’s passionate work made all the difference. In a few short weeks multiple meetings and discussions were held with self-help groups; market surveys of hundreds of households were completed; individuals selected and trained to run outlets; many hours of physical labour dedicated to gearing the plant to handle the up-scaled operations; and multiple community awareness activities have been undertaken and will continue. It has been most heartening to watch the skeptical village Sarpanch, turn into the foremost champion of the project and lead a rally through the village to announce the work! The local media too has picked up on the work being done and has publicized this swaach (safe) water initiative.

It has been truly remarkable to have been on this journey with JBF and to see the synergies from effective public, private, community partnership. At the time of writing this, the demand of the water at the outlets has already reached twice the initial target!

For those who missed Jacqueline’s book reading of The Blue Sweater with the Young Professionals of Acumen Fund a few weeks ago, we are happy to share that Jacqueline will be making an appearance at 92YTrebeca, 92nd Street Y’s new arts and entertainment venue,  in New York City on June 24th.  She will be participating in 92YTribeca’s ongoing “The Business of Giving Series” where she will talk with Matthew Bishop of The Economist about the dramatic events in her book and how they changed her view of how best to help people in the world’s poorest countries

Matthew is the Chief Business Writer for The Economist and the author of Philanthrocapitalism. His series “The Business of Giving” in partnership with the 92nd Street Y has included onstage interviews with leading figures in the philanthropic world including President Clinton, Vartan Gregorian, Eli Broad and more.

92YTribeca is located at 200 Hudson Street at the corner of Canal and Hudson Streets in New York City.

To reserve tickets for the event, please visit the 92Y web site

World Watches in Shock and Awe

Mark your calendars: June 16 (tomorrow) is World Metrics Day! Our declaration of an official World Metrics Day (or WMD, as we’ve been calling it) is a little (well, actually, a lot) tongue in cheek, but Acumen Fund’s commitment to metrics is absolutely serious. Figuring out how to measure social impact has long been a challenge for philanthropists, social investors, practitioners and the development sector. Our focus has been on finding ways to collect, understand and use data to (1) best support the enterprises in which we invest, (2) improve how Acumen Fund works and (3) create common measures for the sector - in that order of importance. (We’ve blogged here before about metrics, on what we like to call cost effective cost effectiveness and our best available charitable option methodology.)

If you follow our work, you know that we’ve been developing a platform called Pulse, discussed in BusinessWeek and The New York Times when it was announced last fall at the Clinton Global Initiative. Pulse helps social investors track, measure, and evaluate operational data to understand whether different approaches to solving the problems of global poverty are working. Although originally designed as a tool to help us manage our own portfolio, we’ve been working with Salesforce.com to make it available for adoption by peer organizations and to share data across the sector. We have also been collaborating with the Rockefeller Foundation, B-Lab, Deloitte and PwC to develop standard definitions of social and environmental performance that can enable comparability across portfolios (for more on this, see www.iris-standards.org). About forty organizations are currently testing Pulse, which we expect to be widely available to nonprofits later this year.

We chose June 16 as World Metrics Day for three reasons. First, last year on June 16th we convened a number of our partners and leading thinkers on the topic at the Rockefeller Foundation to map out our current strategy, and we are simply taking stock of where we have come in the year. Second, it’s Bloomsday, a day notable for its devotees’ commitment (obsession?) to a singular topic, perhaps the least linear novel ever written (Joyce’s Ulysses). Finally, it happens to be my father’s birthday (happy birthday, Dad!). My father is a pathologist and the naming of Pulse was inspired by the autopsy metaphor. Most measurement and evaluation in the social sector is like an autopsy: intrusive, inconclusive and too late to help. We wanted to build a metrics practice that could take the “pulse” of our investments, with simple but meaningful measures that can help us make course corrections real time.

So we will be spending the day thinking about and talking about and, indeed, celebrating metrics. Celebrate with us — June 16 is the first annual World Metrics Day. Remember, count something. and make it count!

Updated 6/18/2009 - thanks to Sara Olsen of SVT Consulting for her great blog post over at Social Edge on World Metrics Day. Count what counts, Sara!

We wanted to share a notable and amusing article in today’s Wall Street Journal—“The Infomercial Comes to Life in India’s Remotest Villages.” In the article, reporter Eric Bellman captures the creative approaches that many major consumer products companies are using to reach the rural Indian consumer. He shadows one of the army of salesman that global advertising agencies are dispatching to promote products by staging dances, skits, music, demonstrations and game shows in remote villages of 100 houses or less. Bellman also aptly highlights that rural markets in India (and many other low income countries) have been relatively insulated from the global recession and that India’s rural consumer spending is actually increasing.

This article really captures the cardinal rule of understanding your customer. The methods include everything from recognizing the cultural context—first approaching the village elders for permission to perform—to using alternative media like live entertainment to grab the new customer. These lessons translate to social enterprises in obvious ways.

Some of our investees have already mastered these creative marketing strategies. Global Easy Water Products’ (GEWP) parent organization, International Development Enterprises – India (IDE-I), has produced a number of short Bollywood movies featuring their KB Drip irrigation products. KB Drip salesmen will arrive at a village market, set up their projector and let the crowd form. Here are two examples of these masterpieces (with English subtitles):

KB Drip video 1

KB Drip video 2

Of course, the devil’s advocate to this article might argue that this type of advertising could be exploitative and persuade poor families (who have limited access to information) to buy things that they do not actually need. Aneel Karnani, a professor at the University of Michigan, has accused our sector of “Romanticizing the Poor” and of exploiting the poor’s “bad choices”. But, it is food for thought on whether you believe a rural poor consumer in India deserves the freedom of choice and whether they are adequately informed to make appropriate consumer choices for themselves and their families.

Let me congratulate Acumen investee David Kuria, founder of Ecotact, for being named the African Social Entrepreneur of the Year for 2009 by the World Economic Forum! This is fantastic recognition for David and his team’s work on bringing affordable, high quality sanitation services to thousands of people every day. Currently, Ecotact serves more than 9,000 customers daily through 10 toilets operated throughout the city of Nairobi, Kenya and other nearby locations. The toilets cost 5 shillings per use, though individuals also can pay a bit more to take a shower in a clean environment – a real luxury for thousands who travel into the city from the slums and far-flung rural areas to work in offices after long, dusty bus ride. Ecotact is showing that public-private partnerships can work on behalf of all people and we are proud to be a part of this effort.

Change has been on the American agenda since President Obama took office and it was definitely in the air as the State Department opened its doors to innovators in foreign affairs at Ted@State last week. This was the inaugural event for the Global Partnership Initiative, established by Secretary Clinton in April to foster public-private partnerships between businesses, nongovernmental organizations, foundations, universities and faith communities in order to better achieve its diplomatic objectives.

TED began in 1984 as a conference to bring together leaders in Technology, Entertainment and Design. Since then, it has grown and become a forum for visionaries and innovators, thinkers and doers, to share “ideas worth spreading.” The challenge is to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes and the results have been nothing short of inspirational.

Speakers at the event included social-media analyst Clay Shirky; futurist Stewart Brand; economist Paul Collier; data visionary Hans Rosling; and our own Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO and Founder of Acumen Fund.

This is a thrilling moment for Acumen Fund and for all those working to support social enterprise. It means we are on the Administration’s radar and it means there is an acknowledgement that the traditional top-down approach to aid needs to be rethought.

Jacqueline argued that neither markets nor aid alone will bring an end to global poverty. Instead, she told of the successes created by patient capital and explained how it can provide dignity and hope to the world’s poorest.

“The idea of Patient Capital takes the best of the markets as well as philanthropy and aid. Patient Capital is money invested in entrepreneurs building companies and organizations that solve tough problems like healthcare, water, housing, alternative energy. Expectations for financial returns are lower than market rates. Expectations for social impact are very high.”

In a bold move, she proposed a Global Innovation Fund to invest in local entrepreneurs and civil society leaders. This may have been an outrageous proposal a few years ago. But as the aid debate shifts and as policy officials open their doors, change is in the air and this doesn’t seem so unrealistic.

She ended with a sense of urgency and of hope.

“Now is the moment for all of us to move forward with a spirit of faith, of generosity, of integrity, of perseverance. For it is these qualities for which men and women have always been honored and there is so much to gain.”

Stay tuned for a link to Jacqueline’s Ted@State Talk when made available. In fact, if you haven’t visited the site, do so now. You won’t regret it!