TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

The Acumen Fund provides capital to for-profit companies whose goal is to help solve poverty:

We believe that pioneering entrepreneurs will ultimately find the solutions to poverty. The entrepreneurs Acumen Fund supports are focused on offering critical services – water, health, housing, and energy – at affordable prices to people earning less than four dollars a day.

The key is patient capital. We use philanthropic capital to make disciplined investments – loans or equity, not grants – that yield both financial and social returns. Any financial returns we receive are recycled into new investments.

I find this absolutely fascinating. I wrote about exactly this kind of company when I first began writing TightWind.

It is a difficult proposition, both for Acumen and for the companies they provide funds to, because their target market does not have much funds. But unlike the developed world, their market has something incredible — a vast amount of untapped potential.

I am glad that they are not afraid to be a for-profit company, and to support for-profit companies. Non-profits certainly have their place, but for-profit firms are self-sustaining and, more important, build reserves of capital that can be invested in other areas to further develop their market.