🌟 Margo Alexander作为Acumen最早的资助者之一，在近二十年的时间里一直担任其董事会成员，展现了对其使命的长期承诺和信任。
🤝 她最初被Acumen吸引，是因为其独特的商业模式——将慈善资金用于资助为贫困人口提供商品和服务的商业，并将商业原则应用于投资，以及进行影响力衡量。
📈 她见证了Acumen的成长和演变，对其在规模和范围上的令人印象深刻的增长感到自豪，这影响了数百万人的生活，并资助了为资金不足的社区、国家和整个大陆提供变革性产品、服务和机会的公司。
💖 她选择长期参与，因为她相信这项工作，并为成为带来真正改变的一些最难以触及、最不受支持社区团队的成员而感到自豪。
👍 她认为，为单一组织长期提供资金是很重要的，特别是当该组织的宗旨与您的目标一致，并且其领导力和愿景足够动态，足以保持这种一致性和未来的增长时。
🛡️ 她相信Acumen的领导力和文化，并希望将其遗产留给未来，继续支持人类福祉，特别是在像USAID这样的组织关闭后。
🤝 她鼓励其他考虑写Acumen vào他们的遗嘱的人，相信Acumen的领导力、文化和愿景，将帮助人们实现他们的希望和梦想。
Margo Alexander is one of Acumen’s earliest funders and has served on our board for more than two decades. We caught up with her to explore the longevity of her support and how planned giving can help cement a philanthropic legacy.
Nearing retirement from my career on Wall Street, I began looking for board roles at one or more non-profit organizations. I did not have a specific issue in mind but sought a place where my experience would be useful supporting their work and where I could be actively engaged.
In college, studying economics and business, I came to believe that corporations could and should include various social issues in their mission beyond shareholder profits, specifically training and promotion of women and people of color. Later, while working, I expanded my list of issues relevant to corporate attention: the environment, product safety, and community impact.
The day I discovered Acumen, I knew I had found the organization I was seeking. The idea of raising philanthropic dollars to fund businesses providing goods and services to the poor, applying business principles to investing, and impact measurement appealed to me based on my experience.
More importantly, I was uplifted and inspired by Jacqueline. Beyond my investment experience, I thought hiring people was a special personal strength of importance in my career. Jacqueline scored on every front: energy, intellect, connection, inspiration. Impossible to foresee then, my life took a giant step forward that day.
Watching Acumen’s impressive growth – in scope and scale – has been a genuine source of pride and amazement. It has impacted hundreds of millions of lives and funded companies that have delivered game-changing products, services, and opportunities to under-funded communities, countries, even whole continents. In the process, Jacqueline has proven to be an extraordinary leader with deep personal commitment to the organization, its staff, the mission, and the humans Acumen seeks to serve. Acumen has a culture of smart, talented people who grow, strengthen, and change with new programs, new organizational developments, and geographical expansion while remaining true to the mission, values, and culture. It is a demanding workplace requiring long hours, challenging work, and of course less compensation than these talented people could earn in most for-profit organizations.
I stayed involved because I believe in the work and am proud to be a part of the team bringing real change to some of the hardest to reach, least supported communities on Earth. Along the way, I met people in these communities and discovered their robust intelligence, love of life, and the shared humanity that connects us all. I learned that their goals and wishes are, in essence, the same as mine. I learned that opportunity is a defining element of one’s life, yet highly dependent on the total randomness of one’s birth. I know that Acumen brings life-changing goods, services, and opportunities to millions of those people.
Some people like to help start up a philanthropy, help get it on its feet, and then move on. Some people’s interests and concerns change. There’s nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, if you find an organization whose purpose aligns with yours and whose leadership and vision is dynamic enough to maintain that alignment and growth into the future, it is hugely rewarding to stay committed over time. For me, Acumen is the organization I know that best pursues the goals I share with strategies and processes I believe are creative, successful, and brave.
Legacy giving requires confidence that management will provide guardrails and excellent succession planning to continue pursuing the mission you believe in. Despite Acumen’s success to date and the ever greater impact I anticipate in coming years, I believe there will always be humans in need of helping hands. At this moment I am deeply saddened by the closing of USAID. We need an organization like Acumen that will always work to find ways to support human well-being.
I hope to leave minor traces of my life ranging from memories held by people I touched to the work of institutions I supported and, perhaps, a few surviving loose ends not yet identified. Planned giving to Acumen is one way to continue sharing my hopes for the well-being of others and helping sustain commitments to standing with the poor. I believe that the transformative leadership of Acumen will prevail, shepherding my hopes into the future.
Yes, include Acumen. The need for ethical leadership and supporting underserved communities will last a long time. Whenever and wherever poverty comes into view, I trust Acumen’s leadership, culture, and vision to pursue solutions that help people with limited opportunities fulfill their hopes and dreams.
Acumen board member Cristina Ljungberg discusses her philanthropic journey and the rise of philanthropy in Sweden.
The post Enduring impact: How a long-term donor builds a lasting legacy appeared first on Acumen.
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