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2008 Summer Progress Report
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 Summer Progress Report |
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| Dear Friend, |
Volume 2, Issue 4 July 2008 |
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We'd like to share with you some of our recent developments. Have a happy Fourth of July weekend. -The Agora Team Agora Partners With Pochi To Bring Water To The Base Of The Pyramid
Last month, Agora Partnerships added Fábrica Pochi to our portfolio of entrepreneurs. Pochi sells purified and carbonated water, juice, and ice cream in the city of Managua. Yasmín González founded Fábrica Pochi after an accident at her old job left her at risk of becoming deaf, requiring her to quit her job. With her husband away working in Costa Rica and children to support, Yasmín saved up enough money to purchase a used bottling machine and turned the production of 10 bolis, a popsicle-like drink, into a company that now produces an average of thirty thousand beverages a day. Yasmín credits Agora with providing invaluable consulting. "The Agora consultants, from the beginning, bothered me a little [by asking so many questions]. They wanted to know everything... But based on the results I obtained, I came to understand that all of their questions were important... The consultants help to see things from a different angle," she says. (Urrutia, Arnulfo; Nuevo Diario, Managua, Nicaragua - Domingo 22 de Junio de 2008 - Edición 10) Though Pochi is a relatively small company-only 8 employees-Yasmin and her family have already started to think big in terms of their impact. As Pochi grows, she hopes to offer more employment opportunites to young people, creating a stable environment in a sometimes dangerous neighborhood. Pochi is also planning to launch its own recycling program, an effort that will bring them together with their distributors and sellers to collect plastic bag waste generated by their beverages. By collecting discarded waste and defective bags, Pochi hopes to bto help keep the community clean by returning the plastic to the companies that produce it for recycling. Read more about Pochi in the news(Spanish only) or on our website. Agora Works With Industry Leaders To Pilot Common Standards This spring, Agora worked with the Rockefeller Foundation, Dalberg Global Development Advisors, B Corporation, Columbia Business School, and INCAE Business School to modify the B Ratings System (BRS) to be used in the context of developing countries. BRS is a comprehensive impact assessment tool that evaluates companies' social and environmental impact on their stakeholders: investors, employees, customers, and future generations. The project focused on refining the tool and making it applicable to developing countries. The revised standards were then tested with a focus group of Agora entrepreneurs, and their feedback will serve as a basis for further development of the BRS. The initial findings were recently presented at the Rockefeller Impact Investors Collaboration conference in Italy. We would like to thank the student consultants from Columbia and INCAE for their important contribution - they are just one example of the power of committed, highly professional students to make a difference. Agora Staff Doubles For The Summer
Agora welcomes its newest set of summer associates and interns, a group of outstanding and passionate graduate and undergraduate students. The summer associates are working on a variety of initiatives, from deal structuring, impact assessment, and consulting with local entrepreneurs, to strategic planning, business development, marketing and communications, and institutional capacity building. The DC summer associates attended the Aspen Network for Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) summer associate training in NYC, co-hosted with Acumen Fund, E+Co, and Root Capital, and had the opportunity to meet other associates and share ideas about the field. Look for Agora Associates posts on Nextbillion.net in the coming weeks.
2008 Summer Associates, DC:
Ross George – Cornell University, Johnson School of Management
Victoria Ravin – University of Michigan, Ross School of Business Katherine Samuels – University of Texas, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
2008 Summer Associates, Nicaragua:
Roque Echaniz – NYU, Stern School of Business
Jenny Everett – NYU, Stern School of Business
Sarah Gale – Columbia Business School
Camila Lecaros – Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs
Lilliana Valle – Duke University, Fuqua School of Business
Undergraduate Interns, DC:
Noor Iqbal – Harvard University
Alex Simmons – Haverford College
Agora Welcomes New Board Members Recently, Agora welcomed two new members to the Board of Directors: Eric Sillman, General Partner at Aperture Venture Partners, and Sam Sussman, Senior Hedge Fund Analyst at Cadogan Management. We are pleased to add their expertise, leadership, and vision to Agora's Board at a pivotal time for the organization. We look forward to their guidance as we continue to grow. For more information, visit Agora's website. Thank You to Our Supporters; Help Us Sustain the Momentum
We are grateful to all of you who contributed during our 2007-2008 fiscal year. Private contributions – many of them at the grassroots level – are vital to our operations. They enable us to leverage millions of dollars' worth of consulting, investment, and development assistance for socially responsible small businesses in Nicaragua – and soon, we hope, in the rest of Central America. If you would like to help entrepreneurs like Yasmín González make a difference in their communities and help us to broaden our impact, please take action and make a donation.
Agora Partnerships is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to attacking poverty and building wealth in developing countries through socially responsible entrepreneurship. Agora Partnerships provides talented entrepreneurs in emerging markets with the tools, networks, and financing necessary to launch successful, socially responsible businesses - the kind that can create decent long-term jobs. We seek to create opportunities for talent to flourish in environments normally characterized by closed social networks and inefficient markets. Agora has launched its program in Nicaragua and aims to achieve rapid scale and replicate worldwide. Our mission is to identify the leadership talent of the developing world and unleash it. |
In This Issue • Agora Works With Industry Leaders to Pilot Common Standards • Agora Welcomes New Board Members • Thank You to Our Supporters! Quick Links Join Our Community In The News |
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Children of the staff of Bambucasa, an Agora supported small business.