Dignity with Poverty

The Opposite of Poverty

At the end of the famous Rivonia trial that would result in his sentence to life in prison, Nelson Mandela spoke these powerful words:

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Each time I read this, I ask myself for what am I prepared to live, if not to die. The work of the past 15 years with Acumen reminds me almost daily. At the heart of the work of fighting poverty is something deeper. It comes with the understanding that the opposite of poverty is not income. If the problem were simply the case of income, we could fix it by giving the poor some extra money and be done with it.

The opposite of poverty is dignity.

Dignity is freedom. It is choice. It is having control over decisions in our lives.

Dignity is the most fundamental of our yearnings — to be seen, to be counted, to be free. It is this indomitable spirit that binds us as human beings, that is most fundamental to our humanity. Defining our success not by the income we amass but by the dignity we cultivate — in ourselves and others — thus presents the greatest hope for the future of our species and our planet.



We have to change the narrative around poverty. Too many want to measure success as simply the number of jobs created or income gained. Both help, of course, and both are insufficient. My grandparents immigrated from Austria to a small town in Pennsylvania with little education and few skills. To support their six children, my grandfather hauled cement and my grandmother worked as a seamstress in a factory. By most accounts, they were poor.

But they didn’t see things that way, for they also had a safety net around them. They felt secure in knowing their children could attend schools for free at the local public school or at the low-cost Catholic school in the neighborhood. They had access to health care and no security issues in their neighborhood. They feared no harm due to their race or religion. They voted freely for the politicians who would represent their interests as their local and national leaders. Their income certainly helped stave off the edges of poverty. But their many other political freedoms — of religion, of movement, of speech — gave them a sense of hope that their lives and the lives of their children could be better. For all of this, they lived with a richness not available to them in their birthplaces. For all of this, they were not poor.They lived with the dignity afforded people who have opportunity and the ability to make their own decisions.

They were able to see their son, my father, study at West Point and serve in the military. He and my mother provided for their seven children, who also attended mostly free schools, received free health care through the Army and grew up without fear of persecution. Today, my siblings and their children live with an ease and sense of almost unlimited possibility, the likes of which just two generations ago, my grandparents could not have imagined.

Today, despite our global success at lifting 300 million of the world’s poorest out of poverty — a success to be fully celebrated — at least half of us are effectively shut out of the opportunities and possibilities of the global economy. Too many are living in societies with limited opportunities for “people like them,” whether due to economic or political exclusion, and feel a dearth of hope that life will improve for themselves or their children. Increasingly, this includes the situation for the poor in the United States. This isn’t good for anyone — not the poor, not the rich.



To break the manacles of the poverty of injustice, we must invest not in profits alone but in dignity. Investing in ways to ensure all children have a quality education is investing in dignity. So is investing in companies that give voice to smallholder farmers, including profit- or premium-sharing options. Imagine if more entrepreneurs focused on solving the problems of poverty. Imagine if more investors saw capital as a means and not solely an end in itself.

One of the efforts that most excites me on this front is Acumen’s work on Lean Data. Because of the ubiquity of cellphones, we can now reach out to thousands of low-income customers at a time, asking them for feedback on services provided, ultimately getting a much more precise picture of what they want as customers.

For instance, an agricultural credit company we invest in used Lean Data to listen in new and direct ways to those they serve, texting them questions about the services provided and what they could do to improve. These low-income farmers responded with an array of practical, powerful insights and suggestions. The company came to understand that they would be repaid with a higher degree of certainty if they structured loan payments that took into consideration months in which available cash is lowest — when school fees are due or just before the harvest, for instance. By working with customers to understand more precisely those weeks or months when it is difficult to repay, the company was able not only to generate loyalty, but to also establish a near-perfect repayment record.



The more we focus on others and help them to be counted, the more we have the chance to feel our own capabilities shine, the more we see ourselves in the effects of our actions. In this paradox may lie the secret to ending poverty and also to enabling human flourishing.

Changing the narrative around poverty means focusing on human dignity. It means building inclusive systems that recognize the benefits and costs of our actions on other human beings and on the planet as well. And recognizing we will not truly have dignity until all of us do.

That is an idea worth living for.