Dear Ethan,
Who has words to describe 2020 that don't sound trite or overused? Yet, there is so much that still needs to be said. Everyone I speak to is beyond exhausted and doing their best to put one foot in front of the other as we crawl our way into a more hopeful 2021. For all of you who have suffered loss and hurt, know that I send love and strength in this time.
While this year has broken so much, it has also broken us open to create new possibilities. I hear in each of my conversations-from New York to Karachi to Lagos to Bogota-how people are moving from a sense of despair to finding purpose and determination through their actions, large and small.
I saw this profoundly in our work at Acumen this year. Within weeks of the first COVID-19 lockdowns around the world, Acumen's Board and Partners stepped up in extraordinary ways. Together, we created two emergency funding facilities of over $6.1 million dollars, which enabled our team to extend grants and concessionary debt to Acumen's companies and Fellows, protecting vital jobs and critical services to address the moment's urgency.
Millions were served by our community and we witnessed a starting burst of innovation to prepare for a new future. In Nairobi, one of Acumen's Fellows mobilized to drop off study packets to children living in the city's slums whose schools had shuttered. In Pakistan, Sehat Kahani restructured its telemedicine business model and partnered with local governments to provide health care to thousands. And in India, LabourNet repurposed its 100 trainers to distribute free food and sanitation products to more than 15,000 migrant workers.
In solar energy, a technology of critical importance to bringing clean electricity to the 776 million people who still lack electricity, Acumen continues to work with a group of twenty funders, including The Green Climate Fund, to launch a target $100M facility to provide emergency loans to off-grid solar companies that account for more than 370,000 jobs. Across our portfolios, changes made in this difficult year have been breathtaking.
Our community of moral leaders also rose to the challenge when it came to pivoting this year. Acumen Academy formally launched on May 5th with a new website and master class: The Path of Moral Leadership. On that day, we also released my new book Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: Practices to Build a Better World, and the team turned on a dime to tour the book virtually, enabling scores of powerful conversations about how to redefine success and what each of us can do to make change. It has been thrilling to see the book recognized as it signals a readiness in the world for a reimagination of our systems.
Our Fellows programs too transitioned to an online model. Against all odds, in early December we officially welcomed more than 170 new Fellows-from the tribal areas of northern Pakistan to the post-conflict areas in Colombia-into Acumen's family. Sailing into headwinds is barely possible alone. But in community, we become stronger.
Reflecting back on this year, my biggest takeaway is clear. What matters is our shared humanity. That we take care of the earth, that we find our way back to one another across lines of difference. Only together can we renew our tired world.
At the end of the year, I'm humbled by the enormity of the tasks in front of us and I'm hopeful for the resilience of a new generation that refuses to wait for someone else to solve their problems. We have the skills, will and moral imagination to take on the most critical issues of poverty. And a growing group is eager to give more to the world than they take.
Thank you for supporting Acumen entrepreneurs who are building a better world.
With gratitude and hard-edged hope,