Tom Friedman calls Endeavor's model “the best anti-poverty program of all”

Tuesday, 24 July 2007 -

In an updated and expanded paperback edition of The World Is Flat, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman calls Endeavor's model for high-impact entrepreneurship “the best anti-poverty program of all.”

“Endeavor (http://www.endeavor.org/) was formed for the purpose of promoting entrepreneurship in emerging markets,” Friedman writes in the chapter entitled “If It's Not Happening, It's Because You're Not Doing It.” “Its basic model is to link up small and midsize businesses with seasoned entrepreneurs so that the little guys and gals can get the advice and contacts they need to grow their companies into bigger businesses that can employ more people.”

Friedman's praises Endeavor's “mentor capitalist” model for helping midsize entrepreneurs to expand and create jobs and innovation in developing countries worldwide. “As important as it is to help make poor people into small business people,” Friedman says, “it is just as important to make small business people in a developing country into big business people who can employ lots of their neighbors.” “(I)t is precisely these sorts of middle-class start-ups and small businesses that create the most jobs and the greatest innovation in a society.”This is the “pro-entrepreneurship” example that Friedman says has the “inspirational power” to encourage individuals in the developing world, where role models are scarce, to think big. “There is no greater motivator for the poor than looking at one of their own who makes it big and saying: 'If she can do it, I can do it.'”

FACT: Endeavor's "mentor capitalist" model breaks down economic and cultural barriers through rigorous screening and strategic advising from our network of world-class business leaders. With their guidance, our 266 Endeavor Entrepreneurs have created 79,000 jobs and generated $1.9 billion in revenues.

Join us at the 2007 Endeavor Gala on November 8th as we celebrate 10 years of supporting high-impact entrepreneurship and launching this “mentor capitalist” model further. For more information on the Gala, contact rebecca.plofker@endeavor.org.