I’ve been working at iDE for nearly 2 years, but the moment that changed my life—the moment when I truly experienced the impact of our work first-hand—was the day I met Anita Mwembe in Zambia…
Back in 2007, Anita and her family were living in a thatched roof hut on a small plot of land. She was making only $1-2 per day by selling packets of sugar and chickens outside the front of her hut. After becoming an iDE entrepreneur, she learned farming practices and invested in a drip irrigation system, which now allowed her to grow year round and sell crops for a better return.
Today, Anita is a full-scale entrepreneur. Not only has she quadrupled her income in only 5 years, but she’s also started a seed collective, purchased a car to get products to market more quickly, and even setup a women’s micro-lending network to support others in her community grow their businesses. But most important of all, is what this has provided…
Anita can now afford to send all of her children to school, she has built her family a new brick home, and she is even giving back to her community.
In short, through working with iDE, Anita’s entrepreneurial spirit has been unleashed. Her dreams are flourishing.
Since my trip to Zambia, I have traveled to Bangladesh and Cambodia also and I continue to be incredibly inspired and touched by the sparkle in the eyes of the people we work with – those who have invested in their future and with iDE’s partnership, brought themselves and their families out of poverty.
Please join me in spreading the word and help me reach my personal goal of $10,000 this holiday season. Our board is matching up to $50K dollar for dollar, so your investment is doubled.
It would be the greatest gift I’ve ever received if I reach my goal – which means we can help 500 individuals out of poverty.
This past week, the CEO of IDE (International Development Enterprises), Al Doerksen, asked the collection of VPs, Country Directors, and staff to bring a tangible ‘show and tell’ item to our first ‘home week’ meeting (4 weeks a year when everyone suspends travel to collaborate in Denver) as a symbol of IDE in our current experiences.
He asked our imaginations to run wild.. and so I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and imagined the most important thing to me and why I am working with this organization. For me, its about the LOVE. Love for my children, of course, but also Loving and caring enough about every person in the world to work our tails off trying to give people at the ‘bottom of the pyramid” the opportunity to make more income with simple, affordable irrigation technology, so they can make their own choices and solve their own problems. The words Pride and Dignity ring true. Unleashing the power of smallholder farmer’s entrepreneurial spirit. Enabling these hard working farmer families to dream.
And so, to the meeting, I brought a little toy race car.. and read the poem below to everyone in the room, breathing deep in between every stanza. Enjoy.
What will I show my children?
Fast cars, or dried tears of happiness
on the face of a farmer who can
finally provide for his or her family?
What will I show my children?
That I maximized shareholder profits, or
that I maximized smallholder profits?
What will I show my children?
A world that focuses on attacks and hate,
Or a world that provides
options and prosperity to
the developing world?
What will I show my children?
Expensive prep schools,
or that I helped millions
of girls go to school in
the developing world?
What will I show my children?
That we ignore the bottom of the pyramid..
where people are left out and can’t dream…
or that we – and them -
can be the change we want to see in the world?
-by Heidi Cuppari, written for her work with IDE – International Development Enterprises.
IDE, w1sd0m, Skoll World Forum, Oxford Jam, TedXVolcano..
WOW! I don’t know how it happened, but somehow life has conspired to effect collaboration on a global scale. Ride-sharing, couch-surfing, new communities and networks forming … its mind-boggling and unimaginably inspiring. Last week, Oxford UK became the nexus of global social entrepreneurialism – launching a phenomenon (with a little help from a volcano in Iceland) that feels as if it has irrevocably altered the landscape for social entrepreneurs, their projects, and the people they exist to serve.
I came to Oxford During the Skoll World Forum for Social Entrepreneurship on behalf of IDE – (International Development Enterprises), a 28 year old organization founded by Paul Polak. I was to meet the international board and discuss how IDE could achieve greater scale and impact by helping more people at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) sustainably increase their income . We stayed at Corpus Christi college and enjoyed gorgeous days and intensive discussions with great minds. I managed to make it to OxfordJam for a breakfast about online collaboration platforms for Impact Investing – I could only stay for an hour, yet even in that brief period met an incredible group of people open to innovation and collaboration on a scale I’ve never before experienced.
The volcano had already erupted, but nobody paid it any mind till the conferences were over and we realized that we were stuck. So back to London we all went..
… and so now, a new community is being born that is coming together in an even deeper way.
Saturday there was a great Kiva event where people shared Kiva trivia, their own business ideas, and trains and bus trips to the south of France and other places were arranged.
Here’s a little video clip of Matt Flannery, Kiva C0-Founder, and Premal Shah, President:
After this fun trivia contest, Matt & Premal asked if anyone had an emerging company and would like to talk about it. I stood up and introduced w1sd0m, an emerging network that I’m helping to build as core team, that helps social & sustainable enterprises like IDE (For which it’s already opened a lot of doors) find the intellectual, human, social & financial capital they need.
Sunday was the first ever “TedXVolcano” organized by Nathanial Whittemore, Evan Grant & June Cohen. In 36 hoursthese rockstars brought together TED, TEDxLondon, The Hub, Sandbox Network, Newspepper.com, & Robert Leslie along with Skoll World Forum Speakers and other great minds such as Matthew Bishop, Jim Hornthal, Gary Bolles, Peter Greenberg, Elizabeth Lindsey and musician Shesheela Raman.. Click here for the story of how they did it..
One of my favorite moments was when Jeff Skoll read his volcano poem:
This is an ode to the volcano
That sent our travel plans into the draino
I’m not really one to complaino
But this all hurts my little braino
Madrid, Casablanca, Amsterdam, Rejkavik on cruiseships
The trains will fail
All the escape routes that we planned
Are blocked by nature or by man
We heard the French trains may soon be striking
At this rate we’ll all be biking
With our luck we’ll all be struck by lightning!
This is all rather frightening
So better we all meet at TED
That is what I should have said
So thank you June and thank you all
Damn the volcano, let’s have a ball
Presented at TEDXVolcano, London, 4/19/2010
Monday afternoon, Suzanne Biegel, social venture investor and “catalyst at large” (i love her title!) and Dr. Audrey Selian of Rianta Capital organized some action-takers from the Friday OxfordJam breakfast who have built collaboration and connection platforms for impact investors and social entrepreneurs. Socential, Artha, ClearlySo, Nexii, Sasix, Gexsi along with w1sd0m were there to talk about ways to collaborate in an efficient way and eliminate waste of resources for entrepreneurs, and the networks themselves.
Another networking event after this meeting led to even more fascinating conversations over dinner with Jill Finlayson & Jason Clark of SocialEdge, Lora O’Connor of Citizenglobal.com, Cathy Clark who runs the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) program at Duke, Suzanne Biegel, Sean Holt, David Green (Solar World for All), and others.
Waking up this morning I’m slammed with all of the ideas, people, and inspiration swirling in my head. I don’t even need coffee!
As much as being ‘stranded’ in London would be viewed by many as disastrous, the remarkable thing about this exceptional group of people is that, when faced with no other options, they simply turned lemons into lemonade. For the past ten days, due in no small part to the intercession of the very earth so many are working to save, some of the most brilliant minds and open hearts in the world have come together to talk, to dance, to celebrate – and most importantly of all, to find new ways of working together (as the Buddhists would say) in service to all beings.
I’m grateful and honored and humbled to have been invited to engage with these people, at this time, in this way.
I’m working on the coolest project right now which completely aligns with my passion and mission in life: use my skills, passion, knowledge and networks to make the world a better place for our children.. and their children..
I was recently retained to help Touchpoint Trust Group find 75 Triple Bottom Line (TBL) deals to review by January 22. That means, these companies have put PEOPLE and PLANET on the same level of importance of PROFIT. I’m speaking to incredible human beings about their work EVERY DAY, and I can’t wipe the smile off my face.
The Innovative Lilith I4C Campaign is a partnership with Sarah McLaughlin and the Lilith Fair, and TouchPoint! Trust Group. The goal is to select 4-6 ‘social enterprises’ or ‘people, planet, profit’ businesses to receive an investment and major promotion around the Lilith Fair, in June. The selected companies will actually go ON TOUR with the Lilith Fair and the huge audience will learn about their business, and how they are changing lives.
When I visited my friend Chandra Reddy Metzler during her Fullbright appointment in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2000, I was first introduced to micro-finance, micro-health and NGOs. I was incredibly inspired by the model, and it made an impression for the future when I would get introduced to the work of Acumen Fund.
I was head of fundraising at Acumen Fund in 2004 and 2005 and was more immersed than ever in the idea of ‘social enterprise’ and ‘social entrepreneurship’. I had dreamed about business models which generated social change before, but to see this group of MBAs, who could have been making a fortune in banking, putting their heads together to solve the world’s social problems.
I had a very successful time at Acumen Fund, and have been interested in the ‘Triple Bottom Line” (TBL) space since then. To that end, in addition to this project, I recently joined the core team of w1sd0m, a network that connects entrepreneurs, investors and advisors in this industry.
You can do something too!
Please connect with the I4C Campaign on Twitter, and Facebook, and spread the word!!
I’ve been working at iDE for nearly 2 years, but the moment that changed my life—the moment when I truly experienced the impact of our work first-hand—was the day I met Anita Mwembe in Zambia…