Jacqueline Novogratz, Acumen Fund’s CEO, shares lessons in leadership from her work in venture philanthropy. This interview was conducted by Bill Javetski, an editor with the McKinsey Quarterly, in February 2009.  This video is about what it really means to be a leader today and our social responsibility.

Ms. Novogratz  talks about humility (“I had to learn to have the humility myself to really listen to their perspectives”) but it is her call to action that is the most powerful message.

Part of the journey that those of us who are privileged, which is pretty much everyone in this country, has to make is not being embarrassed by privilege or guilty for privilege or confused by privilege, but to start from that place of recognizing that your responsibility is to use that privilege in the best way you can to serve the world. And there are lots of ways of serving the world.

Here is the very last thing she says:

You should just start . . . I can’t imagine a more joyful way of living than a life where you are serving in the spirit of adventure as you are of change.

I have made a commitment to not only help sustainable change occur in organizations but also in our community.  This year, 2009, we have chosen to support and promote Kiva.org a non-profit micro-finance site that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in the developing world. You choose who to lend to – whether a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq – and as they repay the loan, you get your money back.

Check out the Sustaining Change lending team, and learn more about lending teams on Kiva in general.

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