A World-Changing Sweater

Jacqueline Novogratz was driving down the street in Rwanda many years back and she saw a kid walking down the road wearing her sweater.

Not a sweater that she had lost, but one she had given away many years before through Goodwill.

She checked and her name was still on the tag!

So begins a thrilling story of how one women left Wall St. and the relative safety of corporate America and ended up starting the Acumen Fund, which takes a business-focused approach to helping the poor lift themselves up out of poverty.

It’s an inspiring series of tales, focused mainly in Africa, but shows how one person CAN change the world and how private enterprise exceeds the public sector in getting results (something I’ve long believed).

For those in the non-profit sector, for entrepreneurs, for “change the world” types….a great read.

One quote that stuck with me came from her meeting with a monk in Cambodia.

“If you move through the world only with your intellect, then you walk on only one leg…..

If you move through the world with only your compassion, then you walk on only one leg. But if you move through the world with both intellect and compassion, then you have wisdom.”