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A Lasting Legacy

You may not recognize the name of the founder of one of the world’s largest non-governmental organizations.

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed was humble. He was tenacious, bold, idealistic. He rarely sought accolades for the incredible work that BRAC does.

He was simply too busy touching the lives of 125 million people… one hundred and twenty-five million.

BRAC is one of the largest NGO in the world and a renowned leader in microfinance and poverty alleviation. Despite a 40-year track record and acclaim from the development community, BRAC’s work stayed under the radar. Now, its pioneering program to graduate people out of extreme poverty has been adapted by organizations in dozens of countries and validated by third-party research. With 95% success rates and international momentum around the “Graduation” approach, BRAC is advancing global efforts to eradicate extreme poverty in this generation.

This past December we lost a star.

Our team was lucky enough to work with this visionary leader. His warm heart, audacious goals, desire for authentic and lasting impact, and deep investment in the details left a lasting impression on us.

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Meeting Sir Fazle Hasan Abed in NYC in 2013.

Back in 2013, while working at Amplifier, we learned about the early results of IPA’ researcher Esther Duflo and her team studying the BRAC model adapted in different contexts globally. We saw the incredible potential and the need to create a collaborative initiative with donors and implementers to scale this amazing approach globally, through Uplift.

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Amplifier (the social impact agency where Impact Atlas and Uplift were born) worked hand and hand with Sir Abed & BRAC to document the graduation approach, make it known and scale it globally.

By connecting BRAC to a network of capital–as well as offering technology and implementation support (the genesis of Impact Atlas) — we could scale a still-unknown development success story worldwide.

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December 2016, at the BRAC headquarters in Bangladesh, celebrating our collaboration for the last 3 years.

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed was curious. He was constantly learning and refining his program until it really worked. He had strong core values.

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Impact Atlas piloting in the field with BRAC in 2016

He is the kind of mission-driven entrepreneur we seek to support at Impact Atlas, with the ambition and curiosity to reach audacious scale and results.

125 million people… one hundred and twenty-five million.

How’s that for a legacy?

It is with a heavy and humble heart, we thank you Sir Fazle Hasan Abed. You have inspired us all.

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Some other beautiful articles about his legacy: