While studying for his MBA at the Kellogg School of Management, Andrew Youn took a mission trip to Kenya with the idea of thinking bravely in mind. He quickly realized that given his skillset, he could help double – if not triple – the crop yield in that part of Kenya. Right after graduating from Kellogg in 2006, Andrew moved to Kenya and launched the One Acre Fund.
Since then, Andrew has grown the One Acre Fund into an enterprise employing over 1,500 people on the ground in Kenya and Rwanda. The crop yield has doubled or tripled on 175,000 farms, and impacted the lives of over 800,000 children. The current goal is to reach 20 million children with the help of the Kenyan and Rwandan governments. Not surprisingly, Andrew has been named in Forbes Magazine as one of the top 25 global social entrepreneurs.
Harry Kraemer’s partnership with Andrew and the One Acre Fund began in 2011, shortly after his book, From Values to Action, was published. When Andrew returned to Kellogg for his fifth year reunion, Harry chose him to be a guest speaker in his class. After class, Harry recalled telling Andrew, “You know what, you are the best possible example of From Values to Action. You’re living it.” So Harry told Youn that he would donate all the proceeds from the book to the One Acre Fund, and when he wasn’t teaching, or on a board meeting, once a month Harry would give a talk, and all the proceeds from those talks would also go towards the One Acre Fund.
That was in 2011, and while Harry vowed to do one talk a month, the number has grown to about two hundred! To learn more about the One Acre Fund’s tremendous impact, please visit the organization’s site by clicking here.