Jacqueline Novogratz
In the case of maternal health care, you look at, well naturally, it's the mother who's the customer, who makes the decisions. But in truth, the mother in many areas, in certain parts of India, the mother has very little decision-making power at all. The real decision-maker is the mother-in-law.Collection: Health
When we deny the poor and the vulnerable their own human dignity and capacity for freedom and choice, it becomes self-denial. It becomes a denial of both our collective and individual dignity, at all levels of society.Collection: Freedom
Acumen Fund's patient capital investment in Western Seed is intended to enhance the food security and economic independence of Kenya's smallholder farmers.Collection: Independence
For too much of history, we've viewed the world's precious resources - both environmental and human - as things to extract, to make the most of in order to maximize their potential.Collection: Environmental
Many business leaders are seeing the relationship between long term success and sustainability, and that's very heartening.Collection: Relationship
I dream a world in no one feels the need for or fear of predatory behavior, in which each of us walks with the knowledge of how beautiful - and valuable - is each human life.Collection: Knowledge
I think we so often equate leadership with being experts - the leader is supposed to come in and fix things. But in this interconnected world we live in now, it's almost impossible for just one person to do that.Collection: Leadership
Your job is not to be perfect, your job is only to be human.Collection: Jobs
The only way we really create change is to enter any situation with the humility to listen and to recognize the world as it is, and then the audacity to dream what it could be.Collection: Dream
Sometimes the most important things that we do are things we cannot measure.Collection: Thought Provoking
I've learned that there is no currency like trust and no catalyst like hope. There is nothing worse for building relationships than pandering, on one hand, and preaching, on the other. And the most important quality we must all strengthen in ourselves is that of a deep human empathy, for that will provide the most hope of all and the foundation for our collective survival.Collection: Hands
Every day we have a choice. We can take the easier road, the more cynical road, which is a road sometimes based on a dream of a past that never was, fear of each other, distancing and blame, or we can take the much more difficult path, the road of transformation, transcendence, compassion, and love, but also accountability and justice.Collection: Dream
Just start Don't wait for perfection. Just start and let the work teach you.Collection: Perfection
To be part of building a movement, you have to keep moving.Collection: Moving
Our actions - and inaction - touch people every day, people we may never know and never meet.Collection: People
Being poor doesn't mean being ordinary.Collection: Mean
A sustainable world means working together to create prosperity for all.Collection: Mean
The only way we really create change is to enter any situation with the humility to listen and to recognize the world as it is, and then the audacity to dream what it could be, to have the patience to start and let the work teach you, to be willing to lead when you need to lead, and to listen. To have a sense of generosity and empathy, but not over-empathy, because accountability is so critical to building solutions that work.Collection: Dream
Dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth.Collection: Thought Provoking
Nothing important happens in life without a cost.Collection: Thought Provoking
Entrepreneurs are the seekers of solutions, and that they will go into these places where both market and traditional aid has failed or traditional charity has failed.Collection: Entrepreneur
My dream is to find individuals who take financial resources and convert them into changing the world in the most positive ways.Collection: Dream
How you see where you are always depends on where you've been.Collection: Where You Are
Monsters will always exist. There's one inside each of us. But an angel lives there, too. There is no more important agenda than figuring out how to slay one and nurture the other.Collection: Angel
We are connected to each other not only as humans, but to every living thing on the planet.Collection: Thought Provoking
Listening is not only about waiting, but it's also learning how better to ask questions.Collection: Thought Provoking
There is power in creating a small model, and then you can create an alliance of other small models.Collection: Creating
Girls and women are most victimised in societies where boys and men are disempowered.Collection: Girl
When it comes to solving problems of poverty, impact investing can act as a catalyst, but it is not a silver bullet. Successful businesses serving the poor need more than investment capital. They also need infrastructure to enable effective distribution, strong regulatory systems, access to markets, technical assistance as they scale up, and moreCollection: Strong
Why do some people stop growing at age 30, just going from work to the couch and television, when others stay vibrant, curious, almost childlike into their nineties?Collection: People
I believe the government should ensure all children are provided with a good education.Collection: Children
It's about all of us, and the kind of world that we, together, want to live in and share.Collection: Thought Provoking
We can send people to the Moon; we can see if there's life on Mars - why can't we get $5 [mosquito] nets to 500 million people?Collection: Moon
When we were walking through the narrow alleys [of the Mathare Valley slums], it was literally impossible not to step in the raw sewage and the garbage alongside the little homes. But at the same time it was also impossible not to see the human vitality, the aspiration and the ambition of the people who live there.Collection: Home
What we call people so often distances us from them, and makes them little.Collection: Distance
I've heard it said that the most dangerous animal on the planet is the adolescent male.Collection: Motivation
So many low income people have seen so many failed promises broken and seen so many quacks and sporadic medicines offered to them that building trust takes a lot of time, takes a lot of patience.Collection: Medicine
Freedom is what beauty feels like when it can most express itself.Collection: Feels
There are cases where government-to-government aid actually has worked. Look at the eradication of smallpox and the near eradication of polio. But these are really top down solutions that require government-to-government support and aid.Collection: Top Down
People have to understand that unless social enterprise is experimental, it will not succeed in making a difference.Collection: Differences
Freedom ultimately is dignity. And dignity, not income, is the opposite of poverty.Collection: Opposites
I think I still have a great sense of adventure and trust, and am surprisingly idealistic given all the horrible things I've seen since I was 25. I think how I have changed is that I have a much deeper understanding of the dark forces in the world, of power.Collection: Adventure
Philanthropy is no longer about writing a check for $10,000 to the opera.Collection: Writing
I wrote 'The Blue Sweater' to inspire more people to become engaged in working to solve the problems of global poverty.Collection: Blue
Dignity is more important than wealth.Collection: Important
I was going to save the world, and I thought I would start with the African continent.Collection: Thought Provoking
We don't see profit as a blind instrument.Collection: Thought Provoking
There are probably no more market-oriented individuals on the planet, than low income people.Collection: People
When systems are broken, it's an opportunity for invention and innovation.Collection: Opportunity
We need leaders, we ourselves need to lead from a place that has the audacity to believe that we ourselves can extend the fundamental assumption that all men are created equal to every, man woman and child on this planet. And we need the humility to recognize that we cannot do it alone.Collection: Children