Total Page : 320
Publisher : Rodale Books
Publication Date : 2010 02 16
>> a memoir a call to action
Jacqueline Novogratz was jogging along a street in Kigali Rwanda and saw on a young boy walking along the road the cherished blue sweater that she had given to charity 25 years before it was a unique sweater and had her name imprinted on the tag at the neck She checked Yes her name Her sweater A coincidence Or a lesson in the inter connectivity of the world we live in Novogratz saw it as the latter and that encounter helped shape the rest of her life
Novogratz began her career as an international banker and was in Rwanda to help the African people but she soon learned that they didn t want or need the kind of help she was there to provide And so began her real education a journey among the poor an exploration of how capital and power are unevenly distributed an exploration of how and why traditional aid so often fails
The Blue Sweater is a narrative a memoir a beautifully crafted polemic on how those with power and capital and control of the markets create wealth and how the power of capital and markets can be used to improve the lives of the poor Novogratz may have started out as a starry eyed American blind to the privileges conveyed by the accident of her birth but she quickly learned that if she wanted to change the world she needed to better understand the needs and desires of the people she hoped to help
Novogratz makes plenty of mistakes and takes some side trips along the way but this story of her journey from young idealist to wizened professional is compelling poetic and true She divulges just enough detail of her life to keep you interested and explores and explains what she has learned with the right amount of detail so that you better understand why she makes the decisions about her future that she does Eventually the lessons she learned in pre genocide Rwanda and at Stanford Business School collide into the creation of the Acumen Fund a brilliant mix of philanthropic capital and business acumen working to solve the problems of global poverty
The Blue Sweater Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World is more than a memoir it is a call to action It is also an excellent history of life in Rwanda before the genocide and a hopeful description of how Rwanda has moved through and beyond that dark slice of its past to a future that is not simply hopeful but seeded with sparks of brilliance
from Dangerous Books Blog
>> The Ultimate Linchpin Case Study
Amazing story Amazing Journey Life changing lessons
After reading Linchpin by Seth Godin if you want to see a real life case study of someone who is indispensable a linchpin read The Blue Sweater and meet Jacqueline Novogratz
>> How granting microloans to poor women doughnut bakers can break the cycle of poverty
This personal story of an entrepreneur s journey from working as a credit analyst on Wall Street to lending microloans to the poorest women bakers in Rwanda should force everyone to ask themselves what they are doing to make this world a better place
You feel transported to Africa and can almost smell the fried doughnuts that the bakers sell door to door to bring in the 3 a day that is a fortune in Kigali The pride of making an honest day s wage is universal and it s uplifting to see the free markets working when the right model of entrepreneurship provides opportunity to people normally viewed as outcasts
Yet we also hear firsthand accounts of the Rwanda genocide that shatters the peace and prosperity and also serves as a crushing reminder of the evil that lurks within some of us What s even more saddening is that one of Ms Novogratz s early partners turns out to become an inciter of violence and a war criminal
Instead I choose to remember the inspirational stories of businesses providing social good on top of viable economic business models of hospitals providing eye surgery for free to the poor while charging for those who can afford it of weavers who manufacture nets laced with chemical insect propellants that prevent malaria of irrigation equipment providers helping farmers improve the yield of their land of real estate developers in Pakistan that provide the poor an opportunity to purchase and own their houses with simple and affordable mortgages no subprime securitizations or negative amortization time bombs or CDOs
As a result of reading this book I ve promised to myself to attend the NY chapter of Ms Novogratz s Acumen Fund group to see how I can get involved I ve also just made a modest donation to the Acumen Fund and I hope to continue giving in the future
Read this book I hope it motivates and moves you as much as it did me
