On Monday, I will post my detailed breakdown of the new Venture Philanthropy model. However, one of the key elements is the importance of focusing your initial efforts very focused, small scale initiatives. Make the difference in a single (or couple of) person’s life and scale from there.
Anthony Kennedy, Assoc Justice of the Supreme Court, sent a letter into the New York Times. In it, he wrote:
“Think of the people around the world, and particularly in Africa, who have no clean water. Women in Africa — and the job falls to women– must spend six, eight hours a day just in trying to bring clean water to their children.
Eight billion hours a year of human effort are spent just in bringing water. And when I heard that statistic, sitting like you are in an audience, I thought, ‘Well, he must have said 8 million.’ Then I thought, ‘Maybe it’s 80 million.” It’s eight billion hours a year of wasted effort because the water is often contaminated when it gets there. This isn’t roclet science. You can fix this.”
As you may recall, my wife, kids and I paid for a well in a village in Ghana. It is a small amount (couple of thousand), but impacts an entire village. It allows girls, currently carrying water, to go to school which reduces both the number of kids and age of motherhood for them.
Think small, focus and go from there!