Arzu Rugs
Tagline: Hope by design
Founder and president: Connie K. Duckworth
Founded: 2003
Mission: Helps weavers and their families break the cycle of poverty by providing them above-market compensation and access to education and health care.

When Connie Duckworth retired from her position as partner and managing director of Goldman, Sachs & Co. in 2001, she never dreamed she'd have a second career helping Afghan women weave their way out of poverty.

Then, in 2002, President George W. Bush appointed her to the newly created U.S.-Afghan.Women's Council. By January of 2003 she was on a military plane bound for Afghanistan. At the time, Duckworth knew little about Afghanistan or its culture. "I didn't know anything about international development, and I did not know anything about rugs. But I did know about business," she says.

As she explained, during the war, the image of the Afghan rug was devalued as the supply chain was disrupted, weavers were displaced and the quality of the rugs declined.

By August 2003, she had incorporated Arzu Rugs as a nonprofit and applied for a 501c3 designation. But getting into production was a more involved process. "It was probably about a two- or 2½-year process from the idea to actually seeing a rug come off the loom," Duckworth recalls. "It's sort of a serial challenge."

The first year, Duckworth lay awake wondering whether she'd ever see any products. The next challenge was finding people to train as managers. Then came production and quality control and, finally, building a brand. More recently, Arzu has retooled production processes so Arzu can do more customization to meet buyers' needs.

From the beginning, Duckworth was determined that "it had to be about them, not about us." She also made a deliberate decision to work in the rural areas, which added a layer of complications. But it also led her to villages that were destitute. "Village by village, we developed a procedure," she says.

Duckworth hired someone with international development experience to get the program off the ground. Since then, she's been able to build up a local staff of 31 people in Afghanistan who run Arzu's many programs. Arzu--which means "hope" in the Dari language--also has a staff of seven in the U.S. "who work on everything from design to sales to marketing."

Arzu Rugs employs 700 weavers in nine villages. Those 700 directly support 2,000 people, according to Duckworth. But overall, through Arzu's community projects, an additional 12,000 to 15,000 people benefit from the organization's holistic approach, which includes not only employment but education and health care. "It's not just about jobs," Duckworth says. It's also a means to empower Afghan women, who can shift the balance of power by earning an income. And it's a means to educate not just the mothers but the children.

"The two sides of our program are connected by our social contract," Duckworth says. By signing a contract with Arzu, the weaver agrees to send all of her children under the age of 15 to school full-time and to have at least one woman from each household attend literacy classes. Many women in Afghanistan are illiterate and can't even differentiate currency. In return, Arzu agrees to pay the weavers market rate for their weaving, plus an additional 50 percent bonus up front.

Duckworth--who runs Arzu Rugs on a pro-bono basis--believes she is driving the development of a new model of social entrepreneurship. "We want to generate what we need, so we never have to raise money," Duckworth says. "That's the mission I'm on."

Duckworth's aim is to replicate the model in other developing countries where there's a core women-made art form that can be translated into a salable export.

But there's a side benefit Duckworth hadn't anticipated. "We went into it to help empower women in Afghanistan. What we also found is that the buyers of our rugs also feel empowered," Duckworth says. "They are able to take a very simple act--buying a rug--and from that, they are tangibly doing something to make the world a better place."

Duckworth encourages would-be social entrepreneurs to follow her lead. "It's incredibly nourishing and rich in psychic income," Duckworth says. It's also stimulating intellectually. "I had to delve into areas that are not core competencies for me--marketing, branding, production."

The experience has also "opened up an entire cadre of new, professional relationships," she says. According to Duckworth, Arzu was built with pro-bono help that included everything from tax lawyers to pro-bono office and warehouse space. "Everywhere I go in the U.S., people say, 'how can I help?' " She even has a cadre of "Arzu ambassadors" who represent the company in their city or town. "We go to trunk shows, art exhibits, and we're starting to sell to the commercial market. We're actively interested in hearing from commercial architects and design firms or companies that would like to use our product as a visible sign of commitment to sustainable development."

Duckworth is far from ready to sit on her laurels. Of her weavers, she says, "My worst day would be a day they can't dream they'd ever have."