Jacqueline Novogratz famous quotes

Your job is not to be perfect, your job is only to be human.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Jobs #Perfect #Thought Provoking

Sometimes the most important things that we do are things we cannot measure.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Important #Sometimes

I've learned that there is no currency like trust and no catalyst like hope. There is nothing worse for building relationships than pandering, on one hand, and preaching, on the other. And the most important quality we must all strengthen in ourselves is that of a deep human empathy, for that will provide the most hope of all and the foundation for our collective survival.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Hands #Empathy #Survival

When it comes to solving problems of poverty, impact investing can act as a catalyst, but it is not a silver bullet. Successful businesses serving the poor need more than investment capital. They also need infrastructure to enable effective distribution, strong regulatory systems, access to markets, technical assistance as they scale up, and more
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Strong #Successful #Impact

I think we so often equate leadership with being experts - the leader is supposed to come in and fix things. But in this interconnected world we live in now, it's almost impossible for just one person to do that.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thinking #Leader #Experts

Dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Important #Spirit

Poverty is not only about income levels, but for lack of freedom that comes from physical insecurity
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Insecurity #Income #Levels

When we deny the poor and the vulnerable their own human dignity and capacity for freedom and choice, it becomes self-denial. It becomes a denial of both our collective and individual dignity, at all levels of society.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Self #Choices #Denial

The only way we really create change is to enter any situation with the humility to listen and to recognize the world as it is, and then the audacity to dream what it could be.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Dream #Humility #Audacity

Why do some people stop growing at age 30, just going from work to the couch and television, when others stay vibrant, curious, almost childlike into their nineties?
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#People #Age #Television

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

#Dream #Thought Provoking #World

We need leaders, we ourselves need to lead from a place that has the audacity to believe that we ourselves can extend the fundamental assumption that all men are created equal to every, man woman and child on this planet. And we need the humility to recognize that we cannot do it alone.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Children #Believe #Humility

Being poor doesn't mean being ordinary.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Mean #Thought Provoking #Ordinary

There are probably no more market-oriented individuals on the planet, than low income people.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#People #Thought Provoking #Low Income

The time for us to begin innovating and looking for new solutions is now.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Provoking #Solutions

I was going to save the world, and I thought I would start with the African continent.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #World #Continents

When systems are broken, it's an opportunity for invention and innovation.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Opportunity #Broken #Thought Provoking

Every day we have a choice. We can take the easier road, the more cynical road, which is a road sometimes based on a dream of a past that never was, fear of each other, distancing and blame, or we can take the much more difficult path, the road of transformation, transcendence, compassion, and love, but also accountability and justice.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Dream #Past #Compassion

May each of you live lives of immersion. They won't necessarily be easy lives. But in the end, it is all that will sustain us.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Live Life #Thought Provoking #May

After all this atrocity, this is how human beings really pray.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Being Real #Atrocities

We are connected to each other not only as humans, but to every living thing on the planet.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Planets #Connected

The time for change is now.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Time For A Change #Provoking

What is the cost of not daring? What is the cost of not trying?
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Trying #Cost

Nothing important happens in life without a cost.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Important #Cost

Honour what is most beautiful about the past and build it into the promise of the future.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Beautiful #Past #Thought Provoking

I have also been touched by the dark side of power and leadership.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Dark #Thought Provoking #Sides

What we really yearn for as human beings is to be visible.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Provoking #Humans

Girls and women are most victimised in societies where boys and men are disempowered.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Girl #Boys #Men

Our lives are so short. And our time on this planet is so precious. All we have is each other.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Planets #Provoking

Very small investments can release the infinite potential that lies in all of us.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Lying #Thought Provoking #Infinite

Each of us can work to change a small portion of events. And it's in the total of all those acts that the history of this generation will be written.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Events #This Generation

We need moral leadership and courage in our world.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Our World #Thought Provoking #Needs

We don't see profit as a blind instrument.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Blind #Profit

A #‎ sustainable world means working together to create prosperity for all.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Mean #Working Together #World

What would the world look like if we asked ourselves the following more often; are our actions helping others find a way to feel more freer, more dignified and more beautiful?
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Beautiful #Helping Others #Looks

Dignity is more important than wealth.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Important #Dignity #Wealth

Just start Don't wait for perfection. Just start and let the work teach you.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Perfection #Waiting #Teach

Don't let people tell you to do it this way. You are on the verge of figuring out hybrid models -- with companies and nonprofits, markets, government, crowd-sourced philanthropy. The capitalist system as we know it is not working.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Government #People #Crowds

There is power in creating a small model, and then you can create an alliance of other small models.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Creating #Alliances #Models

To be part of building a movement, you have to keep moving.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Moving #Movement #Building

Our actions- and inaction- touch people every day, people we may never know and never meet.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#People #May #Our Actions

Monsters will always exist. There's one inside each of us. But an angel lives there, too. There is no more important agenda than figuring out how to slay one and nurture the other.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Angel #Important #Monsters

There are cases where government-to-government aid actually has worked. Look at the eradication of smallpox and the near eradication of polio. But these are really top down solutions that require government-to-government support and aid.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Government #Support #Looks

I wrote 'The Blue Sweater' to inspire more people to become engaged in working to solve the problems of global poverty.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Blue #Sweaters #People

I think I still have a great sense of adventure and trust, and am surprisingly idealistic given all the horrible things I've seen since I was 25. I think how I have changed is that I have a much deeper understanding of the dark forces in the world, of power.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Adventure #Dark #Thinking

I believe the government should ensure all children are provided with a good education.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Children #Believe #Government

People have to understand that unless social enterprise is experimental, it will not succeed in making a difference.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Differences #People #Making A Difference

Freedom is what beauty feels like when it can most express itself.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Feels

I have seen that traditional approaches to charity and aid don't solve problems of poverty. In fact, too often they create dependence.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Charity #Poverty #Facts

Human beings tend not to spend money on health preventionally. We tend to spend it on top treatment.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Treatment #Humans

For too much of history, we've viewed the world's precious resources - both environmental and human - as things to extract, to make the most of in order to maximize their potential.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Order #Environmental #World

Acumen Fund's patient capital investment in Western Seed is intended to enhance the food security and economic independence of Kenya's smallholder farmers.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Independence #Acumen #Kenya

As a young woman, I dreamed of changing the world. In my twenties, I went to Africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charity, and aid can produce...
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Trying #Twenties #World

Philanthropy is no longer about writing a check for $10,000 to the opera.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Writing #Opera #Philanthropy

People need to believe that they can participate fully in the decisions that affect their lives and have a stake in the societies in which they live
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Believe #People #Decision

Africa can stun you in an instant. It can throw floods and drought and disease at you, sometimes all at the same time. In the next moment, it will tease you with its magnificent beauty, so even if you don't forget, you can find a way to forgive. Ultimately, it keeps you coming back for more.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Forgiving #Disease #Way

Four billion people on Earth make less than four dollars a day.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#People #Thought Provoking #Dollars

The only way to end poverty, to make it history, is to build viable systems on the ground that deliver critical and affordable goods and services to the poor, in ways that are financially sustainable and scaleable. If we do that, we really can make poverty history.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Way #Poverty

We often don't realize what our action & our inaction do to people we think we will never see & never know.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thinking #People #Thought Provoking

All people deserve access to health at prices they can afford.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#People #Thought Provoking #Provoking

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

#Thought Provoking #Charity #Poverty

Human beings want to see each other. We want to be heard by each other.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Want #Heard

When people gain income, they gain choice, and that is fundamental to dignity.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#People #Thought Provoking #Choices

Listening is not only about waiting, but it's also learning how better to ask questions.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Waiting #Listening

Things are always harder than you think they're going to be.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thinking #Thought Provoking #Harder

What we call people so often distances us from them, and makes them little.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Distance #People #Thought Provoking

Failure can be an incredibly motivating force.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Force #Provoking

The poor also are willing to make, and do make, smart decisions, if you give them that opportunity.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Smart #Opportunity #Giving

People really don't want handouts, that they want to make their own decisions.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#People #Thought Provoking #Decision

I finally understood: In order to contribute to Africa, I would have to know myself better and be clearer about my goals. I would have to be ready to take Africa on its own terms, not mine, and to learn my limits and present myself not as a do-gooder with a big heart, but as someone with something to give and gain by being there. Compassion wasn't enough
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Heart #Compassion #Order

Africans didn't want saving, thank you very much, least of all not by me.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Saving #Want

It's about all of us, and the kind of world that we, together, want to live in and share.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Thought Provoking #Together #World

When we were walking through the narrow alleys [of the Mathare Valley slums], it was literally impossible not to step in the raw sewage and the garbage alongside the little homes. But at the same time it was also impossible not to see the human vitality, the aspiration and the ambition of the people who live there.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Home #Ambition #People

How you see where you are always depends on where you've been.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Where You Are

We have to remember that the girls and the women are most isolated and violated and victimized and made invisible in those very societies where our men and our boys feel disempowered, unable to provide.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Girl #Boys #Men

Poverty is too complex to be answered with a one-size-fits-all approach, and if there is any place that illustrates that complexity, as well as a better way forward, it is Rwanda.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Way #Poverty #Size

In today's world, the elites are growing even more comfortable with one another across national lines, yet at the same time, less comfortable with low-income people who share their nationality. How we create those bonds of community that are truly global as well as national is one of our generation's great challenges.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Our Generation #People #Community

We can send people to the Moon; we can see if there's life on Mars - why can't we get $5 [mosquito] nets to 500 million people?
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Moon #People #Mosquitoes

So many low income people have seen so many failed promises broken and seen so many quacks and sporadic medicines offered to them that building trust takes a lot of time, takes a lot of patience.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Medicine #People #Broken

I've heard it said that the most dangerous animal on the planet is the adolescent male.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Motivation #Inspiration #Animal

You should focus on being more interested than interesting.
-- Jacqueline Novogratz

#Interesting #Focus #Should