TIME Magazine
Voices of the Volunteers
Four volunteers, and the founder of Teach for America, talk about what motivates them, and what they have learned
Making a Difference at Home
Inspired by their work abroad, Peace Corps volunteers return to the U.S. as teachers, bringing the lessons they learned to the kids who need them most
How Others Serve
Abroad, civilian service ranges from diplomacy to firefighting
Teach for America
Top college graduates spend two years teaching at the worst American schools through Teach For America. Here's a look at other groups and organizations that were inspired by TFA
Harlem Children's Zone Project
Harlem Children's Zone Project links social-service programs together tightly to prevent at-risk children from falling through the cracks. Here's a look at other organizations inspired by this program
Ashoka
Ashoka developed the concept of "social entrepreneurship" or investing in social change like a business and demanding measurable results. Here's a look at organizations inspired by Ashoka
VolunteerMatch
VolunteerMatch has made more than 3 million referrals to socially responsible Web surfers. Some 52,000 nonprofit organizations recruit help through the site. Here's a look at organizations inspired by VolunteerMatch
Saving One Life At a Time
Six million children—and even more adults—die unnecessarily every year. Good people all over the world are doing their best to save them. You can too
In Case of Emergency...
While his New Orleans emergency room took on water, a doctor set up a refuge elsewhere for about 50 critically ill Katrina patients
The Voice of Compassion
Offstage, opera legend Placido Domingo is a one-man charity band
A Shoe That Fits So Many Souls
For each pair of Toms sold, the company gives one away to a child in need
Certain Charity
Former lawyer Cameron Gray gets food to the poor and personally documents delivery for the donors
The Good Samaritans
Melinda Gates, Bono and Bill Gates: three people on a global mission to end poverty, disease—and indifference
Dynamic Duo
United in outrage, Bob Geldof and Richard Curtis organized the Live 8 concerts to get the world to heed their calls for action on African poverty
Here's What You Do
Four leaders whose communities were devastated by natural disasters share their experiences and counsel with their counterparts on the Gulf Coast
Exceptional Healing
Pediatrician Leena Kaartinen has made a career of helping people in dangerous locales
Secret Sharers
A duty-free-shopping mogul gave away more than $2 billion to educational and human-rights causes over almost two decades—all of it anonymously
Learning the Art of Giving
How a Bangalore-based social activist and journalist became a self-taught philanthropist, building two foundations from the ground up
It's Raining Pencils
A rookie teacher in New York City has created an online charity that allows donors to search teacher requests and fund the projects they like best
Run for their lives
Serge and nicole roetheli traveled around the world enduring snakebites and toothache — all for charity
Givers Who Mean Business
It's being called "private equity for the poor" and "a market-based approach to giving"—the Acumen Fund is a nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs in developing countries build businesses
To the Rescue
A businessman turned professional samaritan risks his life to save victims of terror and tragedy
Givers Who Mean Business
By BARBARA KIVIAT
Posted Feb. 27, 2005 The ninth-floor offices of the Acumen Fund, a nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs in developing countries build businesses, overlook Trinity Church in New York City's Financial District. Consider it a case of Wall Street crossing Hope Road. "It's a good metaphor," says Jacqueline Novogratz, Acumen's founder. Some call it venture philanthropy, but Novogratz prefers the phrase "private equity for the poor." What that means is that a small company in India gets a $185,000 loan to make and sell affordable water filters. And that a Pakistani firm receives more than $260,000 in grants and loans to develop housing for urban squatters. All told, since its start in 2001, Acumen has raised more than $24 million from private donors and corporations and has invested in 16 projects in India, Pakistan, Kenya, Egypt and Tanzania.
The work is part of a newer, more businesslike style of philanthropy: "A market-based approach to giving," says Julie Juergens, director of Stanford University's Center for Social Innovation. Acumen works with local companies on business plans, then helps them make, distribute and market products and services for the poor, from drip-irrigation kits in India to generic-drug shops in Kenya. The underlying idea is that if you help build financially stable companies that sell things poor people need--clean water, housing, health care--then self-sufficiency and a better standard of living follow.
Not all projects work out. Acumen lent money to an Indian entrepreneur who designed a $42 hearing aid but wasn't able to move it to market. Yet even in that case there was a lesson to be learned, says Novogratz, a former banker. "We want to understand how to build companies that effectively deliver critical goods and services," she says. "The more we can understand how to do that, the more effective we think we'll be in bringing forward a blueprint for change to the world."
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