Jacqueline Novogratz Quotes

We spend billions on international aid annually, but we don't find ways to connect people to dignified work. I realized that if we don't think about ways to harness private capital to solve problems, we're leaving large amounts of money on the table and doing ourselves a disservice.

Traditional charity and aid are never going to solve the problems of poverty.

Finding creative and effective ways to simultaneously give back and economically empower people is something that is increasingly important. Not everyone can open a business and directly create jobs in the way that we have at Red Rooster Harlem.

Impact investing can be a powerful instrument of change.

Grameen Bank was formed as an institution owned by its borrower members, who are poor women. Through its unique decision-making process, Grameen Bank has given millions of women the means to emerge from the shadows in a male-dominated society and to make something of themselves.

My financial service business is the absolute best thing I have done to empower the poor. I run many charities and fight many political causes, but my financial service company is the greatest gift I've given.

I believe the returns on investment in the poor are just as exciting as successes achieved in the business arena, and they are even more meaningful!

I'm the founder and CEO of Sama Group, a family of social enterprises - Samasource, Samahope and SamaUSA - that are working to alleviate poverty by connecting the global community to opportunity in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean and here in the U.S.

All over the world, social innovation is tackling some of the most pressing problems facing society today - from fair trade, distance learning, hospices, urban farming and waste reduction to restorative justice and zero-carbon housing. But most of these are growing despite, not because of, help from governments.

Infrastructure alone won't end poverty. The World Bank had to learn this lesson, too. While we believed too much in bricks and mortar in our early days, we now understand that bringing together funding, technical expertise, and tested knowledge goes much further.

There's a lot of work being done through the innovation arm of the World Bank, at the World Bank Institute. There's a lot of work that we at the Rockefeller Foundation are doing and funding towards that end, and increasingly, the U.S. government is getting engaged.

Impact sourcing, a new initiative piloted by the Rockefeller Foundation and several key partners, including my company Samasource, promises to connect poor and marginalized people to digital jobs on a massive scale.

Humanitarian help will never solve any problems. It is necessary to help us create some kind of economic infrastructure.

Maximum Feasible Participation of the Poor

A generation of entrepreneurs will mop up poverty at a rate that no government ever could.

Information, education, skills, healthcare, livelihood, financial inclusion, small and village enterprises, opportunities for women, conservation of natural resources, distributed clean energy - entirely new possibilities have emerged to change the development model.

We've learned a huge amount from organisations like Seva Mandir and Pratham, for example. In my personal experience, these organisations work on a very large scale with very poor people.

Africa's economies are gaining ground and can develop their full potential with the right partner. Siemens wants to support their sustainable development - with solutions and projects in Africa, for Africa.

The Federal Reserve seeks to support MDIs in a number of ways, including our Partnership for Progress, our program for outreach and technical assistance to MDIs.

This is not charity. This is business: business with a social objective, which is to help people get out of poverty.

Business is about problem-solving, but it does not always have to be about maximizing profit. When I went into business, my interest was to figure out how to solve problems I see in front of me. That's why I looked at the poverty issue. I got involved in lots of things to address it, and one of them was money lending with loans and credits and savings accounts, and in the process I created Grameen Bank. So you can also have social objectives. Ask yourself these questions: Who are you? What kind of world do you want?

Microfinance recognizes that poor people are remarkable reservoirs of energy and knowledge

My dream is to find individuals who take financial resources and convert them into changing the world in the most positive ways.

Looking at these issues as a businessman, I believe that investing in the world's poorest people is the smartest way that our government spends money.

When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding the solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences.