Objective: To deliver clean water, health and housing to the poor.

Commitment: Cisco Systems, Inc. and the Sapling Foundation will match dollar for dollar contributions to Acumen Fund during the Clinton Global Initiative up to a total of $1 million. We support the Clinton Global Initiative on moving from talking to action and we believe it is essential to balance the desire to create new initiatives with the opportunity to invest in proven models of success.

Background: Acumen Fund is a proven model of success. The organization has worked for the past five years in Africa and South Asia building financially sustainable and scalable organizations that deliver clean water, health and housing to the poor. It turns $1 into $10 and invests equity and loans in both for-profits and nonprofits that hold the potential of delivering affordable goods and services to millions of customers, all of whom make less than $4 a day. Acumen Fund believes we will end poverty only when individuals have the tools, skills and resources to make their own decisions and solve their own problems.

More importantly, the Acumen Fund creates results. It has made seventeen investments in South Asia and Africa. Acumen Fund’s loan to a Tanzanian company created 1,700 jobs (mostly for women) and enabled the enterprise to scale to a throughput rate of nearly 2 million long-lasting insecticide treated malaria bed nets per year. The organization is leveraging $1.25 million in charitable funds to leverage forty times this amount by supporting the creation of a $50 million commercial mortgage for the poor in Pakistan. It has helped deliver life-saving water purification technologies in India that protect thousands. In less than five years, Acumen Fund has reached over a million people with products developed and sold to the Bottom of the Pyramid.

Partnership Opportunity: As a non-profit dedicated to fighting global poverty, The Acumen Fund is continuously looking to meet with individuals and organizations interested in its model for development, and has many opportunities for committed parties to get engaged in their work and to help them reach their goals of creating a private equity fund, building an energy portfolio, leveraging the capital markets and expanding geographic operations.

Update:
December 2005:
With matching grants from Cisco Systems, Inc. and the Sapling Foundation, the Acumen Fund successfully raised $1 million at the Clinton Global Initiative inaugural meeting to support its mission of fighting the problems of global poverty using entrepreneurial solutions.

January 2006:
More than 600 candidates from 52 countries applied for the Acumen Fund Fellows Program which supports our efforts to build an "entrepreneurial bench" of top talent with the skills, will and imagination to solve the problems of poverty. A final cohort of 10 Fellows to begin in September 2006.

February 2006:
New offices have been opened in India and Pakistan to expand the Acumen Fund’s local presence and relationships. These local offices will enable enhanced support capabilities for their investee enterprises, as well as provide opportunities for on-the-ground assessment of financial and social impact. The initial evaluation activities are planned around the launching of an innovative financing mechanism to support community-based water treatment enterprises in India. The Acumen Fund also strengthened its thought leadership and communications efforts through the launch of the Acumen Fund Blog.

March 2006:
Acumen Fund invested $1.6 million for a 25% equity stake of Drishtee Dot Com, a rural network organizer with 700+ kiosks currently operating in six states in India. Drishtee helps local entrepreneurs to set up rural kiosks that offer a variety of services, including health care, rural e-commerce and education services, to villagers.