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My Generosity Experiment
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Monthly Archives: August 2011
The screwdriver
Last week, while on vacation in the South (a few days before hurricane Irene upended our plans), I’d managed to pull down a venetian blind in the house we were renting and I needed a Phillips head screw to fix … Continue reading
Fast Company Interview
I was excited to be profiled by Lydia Dishman in her Innovation Agents column in Fast Company. Here’s the full copy of the piece. Innovation Agents – Sasha Dichter, Director of Business Development, Acumen Fund BY Lydia Dishman Fri Aug … Continue reading
Posted in Acumen Fund
Tagged Acumen Fund, Fast Company, impact investing, Lydia Dishman, patient capital
4 Comments
Time to be a little pushier
A friend of mine who’s a media executive described a recent meeting thus: “At the end of the meeting, their CEO agrees we’ll have a decision by Friday. Then she said, ‘…and you may need to bug me a lot … Continue reading
Gifto reducto ad infinitum
A donor with $50,000 to give faces a surprising conundrum: she knows, intellectually (and perhaps in her gut) that $50,000 is itself not enough to make lasting, large-scale change. However, we can all agree that $50,000 is an awful lot … Continue reading
Whence solidarity?
Here’s a simple idea on what to do about taxes for the wealthiest Americans: For those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess … Continue reading
FastCompany thinks social impact investing is a crock (with a long aside on cellphones)
In case you missed it (thanks @beckystraw for sharing it), Anya Kamenetz at FastCompany recently wrote a piece titled “Why Social Investing is a Crock.” It’s a pity that in the effort to grab attention, Ms. Kamenetz crossed the line … Continue reading
Posted in Impact investing
Tagged Anya Kamenetz, Dean Karlan, FastCompany, impact investing
7 Comments
Missing deadlines
There are two things that happen when you miss deadlines, the first obvious, the second insidious. The direct impact is that you don’t ship your product. Revenues come in later. Business partners are disappointed. Your team is let down. The … Continue reading
If investing = sexy…
If investing = sexy, and if sexy = better = innovative = how we’re going to solve all the world’s problems…well then, Houston, we have a problem. There’s huge momentum around using investing capital to solve social problems. The question … Continue reading
Posted in philanthropy
Tagged Acumen Fund, impact investing, patient capital, philanthropy
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Potshotters
POTSHOTTER noun \pot-ˈsho-tər\ 1 : someone who primarily or exclusively provides criticism 2: a person who critiques, tears down, weakens What could be easier than sitting back and describing how something could be better? “If I were in charge, … Continue reading
