Alex Counts - Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind: Leadership Lessons from Three Decades of Social Entrepreneurship

Praise for Changing the World Without Losing Your Mind

If you have heard of microcredit, you have benefitted from Alex Countss determined drive to give this idea global wings. In the process, he showed all of us how to market and spread a social innovation everywherewhich is, in itself, a how-to breakthrough. This remarkably open, honest book explains how he did this. It will give you many tools, both programmatic and personal.Bill Drayton, CEO, Ashoka: Everyone a Change-maker

Do you have an idea that would help others that you dont know how to implement? Are you worn out from working in the nonprofit world without achieving results? This book will give you the confidence and skills you need to make a real difference. Alex Counts has been there and done that. Now he shares his vast experience on how to save yourself while you save others.Mike Enzi, U.S. Senator from Wyoming

Alex Counts brings us insights on social impact with thoughtful reflection and generous advice. With verve and wit, he distills key leadership lessons from his decades of service building one of the great pioneering organizations in the financial inclusion movement.Michael Schlein, CEO, Accion

Remarkably candid, self-reflective, generous, and practical, this book is part memoir, part self-help. Alex Counts is an astute observer whose amazing memory helps him recount his own healing journey in vivid detail, offering stories, lessons, and sage advice that will benefit many readers. Youll love this book, and you'll laugh out loud as you read it!Susan Davis, co-author, Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know, past chair, Grameen Foundation, and co-founder, BRAC USA

Nonprofit leaders and managers need great mentors. Alex Countss new book lets you experience conversations with a brilliant mentor whose candid sharing of his mistakes and accomplishments will help you avoid pitfalls and multiply your success.Sam Daley-Harris, founder, RESULTS, Microcredit Summit, and Civic Courage

"Effective social entrepreneurship is both an art and a science. In this book, Alex Counts generously shares what he learned during more than 25 years addressing pressing issues such as poverty. It will be an invaluable resource to the next generation of entrepreneurs, both social and traditional, especially as it addresses not only how to make an impact but also how to ensure that it does not come at great personal cost."M. R. Rangaswami, founder, Indiaspora

Alex Counts has led a major organization, taken principled moral stands, and made decisions that have helped humanity on a grand scale. As all-consuming as that is, he has also led a life of balance. If you need to get world-changing things done, but you dont want to ruin your life at the same time, Alex is the perfect person from whom to seek advice.Mark Levy, founder of Levy Innovation LLC and author of Accidental Genius

Also by Alex Counts

When in Doubt, Ask for More:
And 213 Other Life and Career Lessons for the Mission-Driven Leader

Small Loans, Big Dreams:
How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and
Microfinance Are Changing the World

Voices from the Field: Interviews with Microcredit Practitioners for the Poor

Give Us Credit: How Muhammad Yunus Micro-Lending Revolution Is Empowering Women from Bangladesh to Chicago

Copyright 2019, 2021 by Alex Counts. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Printed in the United States of America - May 2021 - I

ISBN-13: 978-1-953943-03-3

ISBN: 978-1-953943-04-0 (e-book)

LCCN Imprint Name: Rivertowns Books

Rivertowns Books are available online from Amazon as well as from bookstores and other retailers. Orders and other correspondence may be addressed to:

Rivertowns Books

240 Locust Lane

Irvington NY 10533

Email:

To Emily, my bride of twenty-five years,
who has been there for me
through all the ups, downs, and lessons learned

Contents

Foreword

by Muhammad Yunus

MANY YEARS AGO, an unusual letter crossed my desk. It was from a college student in the United States who said he wanted to come to work with Grameen Bank because he admired what we were doing and wanted to learn everything he could about microcredit. The author of the letter was Alex Counts.

At that point, we had had foreign visitors coming to us to stay a few days at a time. Although I was not sure what he intended, I sent him a letter welcoming him and giving a him a list of advice. My first advice was that he should learn Bangla as much as he could before coming, because English would not be useful in communicating with Grameen borrowers.

I also told him we couldnt pay him anything, and that he might not like the work. Furthermore, we might not be able to offer him interesting and useful things to do. I thought if he was not serious about his intentions, I might never hear back from him.

I did hear back from him. He arrived in Dhaka eighteen months later, with his degree from Cornell University in hand and speaking Bangla at a reasonable level. He spent a total of six years living in Bangladesh, the first part as a Fulbright scholar. Over time, he learned to speak Bangla beautifully, with a noticeable accent from the district of Tangail. If someone were blindfolded and listening to Alex speaking in Bangla, he would bet Alex was a native from Tangail.

Alex spent many of his formative months at a remote branch office of Grameen Bank in Tangail with few of the facilities he had grown up enjoying, such as running water and electricity. He got fond of spicy Bangladeshi food. Everybody in the village forgot that he was an outsider. For them, he was a young man from their village. He was a friend and an ally.

Ultimately, when he was leaving Bangladesh, I asked him to take the responsibility of Grameen Foundation in the U.S.A. in 1997, which existed basically on paper at that point of time. Alex injected life in it and led its growth from its modest beginnings into a powerful institution.

Alex has always been there for us during times of crisis. For example, when a cyclone hit us in 1991 and we were facing other difficulties, Alex worked around the clock without any sleep for several days trying to be helpful. One of the results of his efforts was an impressive and supportive article he wrote that was published in the Washington Post. There have been many other times when he devoted himself to helping us address some need or seize an opportunity. He earned our respect and trust.

In this book, he reflects not so much on what he accomplished during his career and life, but on what he has learned. His ideas on managing and leading people, fundraising, and attending to his well-being are in some cases not the same as my own, but I am sure that they will be useful to many people. In some respects, he has adapted Grameens philosophy and applied it to his own life and work in creative ways. His impressive accomplishments in the areas of microcredit and social business, some of which are chronicled in this book, speak for themselves.