The Blue Sweater

Jacqueline Novogratz — founder of the Acumen Fund, a non-profit that aims to reduce poverty — once spotted a boy in Rwanda wearing a blue sweater she had donated to Goodwill as a teen in Virginia. It’s a neat little anecdote about inter-connectivity, but it pales next to stories about her philanthropic investing (the attempt to establish a successful bakery with a group of battered Rwandan mothers is especially heartrending). The Blue Sweater occasionally gets bogged down once Novogratz begins describing the nuts and bolts of the Acumen Fund. But flip to the chapter that knits together the tales of Rwandan genocide survivors, and you just might be inspired to start your own charity — or at least to open your wallet. B