Endeavor – Sasha Dichter's Blog

I presented today to an amazing group of 30+ summer interns and new hires who are about to start working for Acumen Fund, E+Co, Root Capital, Agora, IGNIA and Endeavor – all organizations that are supporting entrepreneurship in the developing world to promote economic development and poverty alleviation. The training was organized by the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE), run by Randall Kempner.

I’ve spoken on enough 3-person panels that I’ve come to realize that the best gift I can give the audience is to leave them with one concrete, meaty thought they can take away and chew on.

So here it is, with the world’s simplest ven diagram in support of my big question:

How much overlap do you (future leaders in this sector) think there is between these two circles?

Ven A

It’s such a simple question to ask, and the group is smart enough to know how they’re supposed to answer: there’s a good deal of overlap.

But push yourself a little. Is it what’s above (A), or is it (B) or (C)?

Ven B

Ven C

So we know the “right” answer to the question is definitely not (B), possibly (A) but maybe it’s (C).

But what we know isn’t necessarily how we act. How can you suss out what’s really going on in your organization? Here’s a list of questions to get you started:

How much senior management time is spent on strategies for raising capital?
What percentage of her time does your CEO spend fundraising? (<10% / 30% / 50%+)
How much Board time is spent on this?
Do you have a Board Development Committee (yes/no/sort of)? How much does it raise?
How much integration is there between the people who raise capital and the “program” folks? (None/Some/A little/A lot)
Is there an obvious difference in the quality of staff you can recruit for capital raising functions vs. everything else in the organization? (Yes / No)
Is there an obvious difference in the prestige of the different roles within the organization? (Yes / No)
Is it possible to be a star performer in your organization if you haven’t proven you can raise money? (Yes / No)

(Please, take this set of questions, develop them further, and use them to shake things up in your organization or at a nonprofit you love).

My take: there’s a huge amount of white space between how we analyze this question and how we act as a sector.

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