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the development of more inclusive and sustainable business models but these are the early days of exploring the potential for collaboration between corporations and social enterprises we know there are systems and drivers and institutions that make the kind of radical change we want to see happen much harder but my time at indiana university served as a great reminder that if we want to create change we can neither dismiss what is broken as the way things are nor can we blame it as though we are powerless to change it i am excited that acumen is choosing to engage in the debate about the role of corporations in helping to build a more inclusive model of business and more dignified and equitable model i believe we will discover a whole new set of solutions by engaging in this discussion from a position of openness and respect even as we hold ourselves accountable to the people and not the systems with which we stand originally posted in acumen blog at http acumen org blog 1 comment filed under partnerships social impact sustainability uncategorized tagged as corporate partnership csr danone emmanuel faber inclusive business indiana university sustainability video the ta initiative summit this past may acumen and dow chemical partnered to hold the first summit of corporations and acumen social enterprises in nairobi kenya this short video shares the highlights and some of the key lessons learned about how corporations can work with social enterprises to better serve low income markets and identify new business opportunities this event was groundbreaking for acumen and i was proud to be able to spearhead it with my counterparts at dow i look forward to seeing the lasting impact of the technical assistance support that will come out of this and to expanding on this initiative with additional corporate partners leave a comment august 27 2013 2 42 pm may 28 2013 11 25 am there s a first time for everything the ta initiative summit nairobi kenya veronica mahiga of unilever and charles oboth of gulu agricultural development co on may 14 16 acumen held its first summit of social enterprises and global corporations to explore opportunities for collaboration aimed at expanding access to critical goods and services for poor communities in east and west africa the event was the formal kick off of the technical assistance ta initiative a partnership between acumen and dow launched as a commitment to action at the clinton global initiative the event in fact represented many firsts the first time acumen had launched a formal effort to provide technical assistance grants to social enterprises the first time acumen had partnered with a network of corporations on technical assistance opportunities the first time we brought together leading corporations and pioneering social enterprises to identify common ground and complementary strengths in the development of more inclusive and sustainable markets godfrey mwindaare of acumen dorcas onyango of the coca cola africa foundation and yulanda chung of standard chartered ross mclean of dow chemical at site visit with acumen investee sanergy though the ta initiative summit ended on may 16 it has left us with great momentum and some valuable insights the summit was truly in the acumen spirit an experiment a chance to learn by doing it required a leap of faith from the attendees from the ten social enterprises that joined from across east and west africa and the corporate participants who joined from michigan johannesburg dubai and london the corporate participants came for a chance to learn and identify new opportunities for collaboration between corporations and social enterprises and left filled with ideas for working together the enterprises were given an opportunity to network with potential corporate partners and apply for technical assistance grants earmarked for this group what became evident during the summit was the desire of the 40 or so participants to make the most of the time together it was palpable during the active break out discussions the buzz in the room during breaks and the follow up from many of the participants since though the most important indicator for success will be what happens after the summit we have already heard great feedback from participants that the opportunity to explore partnership opportunities across the social enterprise and corporate worlds was a unique and valuable one dozens of commitments to follow up were created at the summit and we will be going through them and following up with participants in the days and weeks to come alden zecha of sproxil adding a new follow up idea to the wall our tremendous thanks go to all who joined who took a chance to explore a critical new frontier in the spread of solutions to global challenges and especially to dow chemical our partner in the technical assistance initiative for taking this journey with us eric martin of cambridge leadership associates the author and bo miller of dow chemical yasmina zaidman is acumen s director of communications and strategic partnerships this blog first appeared on the acumen blog 1 comment filed under innovation partnerships patient capital social impact sustainability tagged as acumen fund bop corporations csr east africa kenya partnership social enterprise social innovation sustainability may 4 2013 9 46 pm how to optimize your impact this is a talk i gave at my 10 year stanford gsb reunion today i ve been thinking a lot lately about what a privilege it is to have gone to stanford and all the gifts that being an alum of the graduate school of business continues to give us and also about what we are all doing to honor that gift i want to talk to you about what we re all doing here and i don t mean just sitting here in this room i mean here we are we went to stanford 10 years ago and now we re together and we re having a conversation about changing lives changing organizations changing the world the stanford gsb tagline that showed up after we had all graduated but when i first heard that phrase it really inspired me and resonated with what i experienced at stanford if you were at stanford in 2003 you couldn t escape the endless ways to do something positive for the world maybe you graduated with a pmp certificate in hand or with fond memories of your smif or board fellows experience maybe you raised money for a great cause or volunteered or came up with the idea for a new kind of business that would improve the lives of the poor like matt scott did with ignite i look around and i see colleen james who is helping to make knoll furniture more sustainable and carl palmer and robert keith who are using innovative financing models to protect and restore wild areas with beartooth capital i see friends who went into corporate social responsibility global health or international development school reform or social enterprise we ve given in ways visible and invisible when we were asked and when there was a need that we couldn t ignore whatever our experience here or where it led us we always knew that our development as leaders and professionals would be inextricably linked to how we contributed to the world around us but now it s ten years since we graduated we re all somewhere on that journey but are we doing enough have we just met the standard for giving back or have we gone further to find our own unique capacity to make a difference in the world in ways that might be difficult or impossible to achieve for someone else are we working on what we think is most urgent or on what is most convenient how can you know if you re doing enough since everyone s path is different and we are now men and women of a certain age building lives outside of our careers juggling the demands of work relationships sometimes young children and for those of us lucky enough to be part of the sandwich generation aging parents is this really the right time to be worrying about whether we re doing enough for the rest of the world maybe this is an uncomfortable conversation wouldn t it be better if we could all just pat ourselves on the back for everything we ve already done but i believe that even though we are at a moment in our lives when things aren t nearly as simple and straightforward as they were ten years ago that these questions are as important now as they were ten years ago and what i want to ask each of you to do since someone was foolish enough to give me this platform is just to ask yourself the tough questions about how you are impacting the world around you how you are as carl and robert say on their quite awesome website leaving the world better than you found it as rilke said live the questions now perhaps then someday far in the future you will gradually without even noticing it live your way into the answer everyone s journey is their own and there is no one way to have an impact but here we are and i see who is in this room and think about what the world needs and i think it is a powerful combination i don t have the answer for how to optimize your impact because it depends on who you are and what you are best able to contribute but i think the answer for each of us has two parts the first comes from asking ourselves these tough questions and the second i ll get to in a moment 2 years ago i learned something that sort of blew my mind i ve worked for no fewer than 5 stanford mbas i guess it s like a rule i have you can t supervise me if you didn t get an mba from this place but two years ago i learned that the three most important of these were actually in the same class the class of 1991 jacqueline novogratz who i work for now started acumen to change how the world tackles poverty and has actually succeeded in changing the face of philanthropy derek brown the former senior vice president of ashoka is now the executive director of peace appeal which develops peace processes in some of the most violent and conflict ridden parts of the world and charles mcglashan charles took a big bet on me when i was just a few years out of college putting me on a plane to mexico two weeks after he hired me with a binder and a pep talk all set to train the managers of an auto plant outside mexico city on environmental management systems he taught me about waste management economics and about holding my head high when we were mocked by plant managers in detroit for believing in a greener world charles personally advocated for me when i applied for my dream jobs at ashoka and acumen and what i didn t know was that he was reaching out to two classmates encouraging them to take the same big bet that he had charles changed my life a few times over and changed the world around him in profound ways a bicycle path in marin county was just named for charles who raised 2 million to improve it and served on the board of supervisors there for six years as a champion for sustainable transportation they also named this path for charles because he recently passed away charles died of a heart attack two years ago at the age of 49 it was a tremendous loss for his friends and family and for the world but charles gave everything he had and helped others like me on their own path his life was far far too short but his legacy of impact is undeniable i think of him derek and jacqueline one class and i think about what we will do class of 2003 maybe asking these hard questions is daunting when we think that we re in this alone but this is the second piece of how we will optimize we re impact by realizing that we are not alone we ve had each other s backs from the beginning giving each other advice encouragement and just the knowledge that what we re doing and why we re doing it is bigger than ourselves let s not be afraid to ask if we can do more but imagine if this question was not just about we each do but about the legacy we create together by supporting each other on this journey and let s never underestimate the impact we have on those that come after us who are just starting to ask themselves those same hard questions and who look to us whatever changing lives changing organizations changing the world means to each of you i m just so proud that these are questions that we can come together as a class to ask ourselves 2 comments filed under uncategorized tagged as impact social change work life balance mba reunion stanford gsb december 31 2012 1 33 pm blog rescues woman stumbling through challenging year everyone keeps saying how tough 2012 was and my thought is always c mon it wasn t that bad but truth be told it was that bad and for many destructive and tragic and violent and if it wasn t that bad for me it s because i am ridiculously fortunate for many reasons but among them because of the support and love with which i am blessed and in some small way because when i look back on this year i can see not only the horrors that took place around the world but also the victories the lives saved the discoveries the commitments made to make things even better for everyone and personally i can see not only where i fell short but also where i grew where i learned who i learned from and where i shared my own voice on issues close to my heart this blog is a testament to that part of 2012 so before closing out the year i thought i d look back on my year of blogging and thank all of you for being a part of it on january 3 rd of this year i made a commitment on this blog to helping to celebrate the creative choices that people make to live a whole life and over the course of the year had a chance to write about 3 amazing women who inspire me there are seven more on their way later i pledged to honor my brother and all that he has taught me by loving more freely and building a legacy of love that i m afraid is still very much a work in progress i had my fist piece in the huffington post on the power of choice in childbirth and the need to go beyond just survival in how we think about health among the poor shortly after that i shared lessons here from the op ed project where i was given serious encouragement in my efforts to refine and share my voice and ideas with others and i had a chance to put those lessons into effect when i did my first tedx talk in san francisco on the same themes as my huffington post blog i have written here about partnerships about sustainable coffee and about cause marketing and i have imagined dozens of posts that i never wrote but wanted to and perhaps will so much is missing the stories of other whole lifers who inspire me and who will find their way here eventually the story of hurricane sandy and the amazing woman who took me and my children in when our apartment became unlivable the stories of my children and my endless revelations about how amazing these tiny developing human beings are and yet how easily they get ill and how frequently i am standing directly in front of them when they throw up stories of individuals who showed me what is possible in times of crisis and times of change and times ...