Seth Godin on Acumen Fund

Marketing guru Seth Godin has been a supporter of Acumen Fund for a long time, but he doesn’t often explain why.

A few days ago in his blog, he unpacked the idea of “patient capital” that Acumen Fund employs in order to find help poor people in developing countries. Patient capital is a way of creating a middle ground between philanthropy and investment, and Godin described it in a way that many of us in tough economic times can identify with. 

The difference between being one penny behind and one penny ahead is profound.

If you’re one penny behind, then every day you fall further back. Every day, the emergencies get worse, the stress gets worse, your ability to survive (never mind thrive) gets worse.

If you’re one penny ahead, though, just a penny, then every day you build a reserve, every day you are able to invest in productivity or peace of mind, and soon you are two pennies or a dollar or five dollars a day ahead. And then you can send your daughter to college. And then you can buy something from the merchant next door. And then you can plant a better crop. And then you have a stake in the community, and then the world changes.

Acumen Fund’s approach, told by its founder in the book The Blue Sweater, is only one way to alleviate poverty, but it’s shown considerable promise.