While traveling in Liberia as an undergraduate research student, William Smith played in 7am pickup soccer games. As the captain of the varsity team at the College of William & Mary (‘14), he needed to stay in shape. Little did he know what would happen next. William’s foot skills impressed Sekou “Georgie” Manubah, a former national team player. A few days later, Georgie invited William to play a friendly game at the national stadium. But it was no ordinary game. It was the Liberian Peace and Reconciliation match where JJ Okocha, Samuel Eto’o, Patrick Mboma, and Roger Milla had been invited. The organizer of the event was the legendary George Weah, Africa’s only FIFA World Player of the Year (and Liberia’s soon-to-be-President). 35,000 fans—including President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—came out to watch the game. William was the only non-African player on the field. Though he lost the match that day, William gained an [...]

During his senior year at the University of Kentucky, Jacob Dietz made it his mission to raise $25,000 for Students Helping Honduras. He and his classmates wanted to build a school in La Lima, Honduras, where 400 children lacked a middle school building. Jacob asked himself: “Do I have the ability and time and self-discipline to do this?” It all seemed daunting. The previous year, they had raised $11,000—less than half of what they hoped to raise this year. He called up his SHH chapter at the university for a meeting. For him, the group was “a team in the utmost sense.” They studied and discussed how other chapters had succeeded in different cities. A few days later, they decided on an event that had been carried out in New York and Maryland. They were going to organize a gala to raise $25,000 in one night. Jessica Schilling, a fellow student at [...]

Rich Johnson is the co-founder of Spark Ventures, a nonprofit focused on international community development in Zambia, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Along the way, Spark Ventures began to facilitate engagement trips for the mutual benefit of supporters and partner communities abroad. In this episode, Rich discusses his past challenges, fundraising, creating a separate business venture called Ignite, Board development, trends in impact travel, voluntourism, and more. Listen to it on iTunes or Stitcher, and hit the subscribe button to download future episodes automatically. Stream by clicking here. Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as." Rich Johnson Reading List The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change The World by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan Rich Johnson Show Notes In 2006 Rich Johnson was hanging out with two friends when they decided to go to Africa They went to Zambia and found a community organization there called HOPE that was helping children affected by [...]

Alex Altman and Zeke Copic are longtime supporters of Students Helping Honduras. They have been organizing a charity gala each year in NYC called Brick By Brick to benefit SHH. In this episode, we discuss what it takes—step-by-step—to organize a gala that can raise $25,000+ in one night for your favorite nonprofit organization. Listen to it on iTunes or Stitcher, and hit the subscribe button to download future episodes automatically. Stream by clicking here. Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.” Show Notes The first thing to do is to understand the audience One of the biggest costs is the event venue They wanted to make sure the cost was as low as possible A friend of Zeke organized a charity casino night but ended up spending way too much for the overhead cost Brick By Brick has gotten the event venue spaces donated Sesame Corporation donated the space in 2016 and 2017 Venues need to be reserved [...]

Countless nonprofit organizations are stuck on the treadmill of financial survival. Most of their energy is spent trying to make payroll at the end of each month—which means less time is spent maximizing their impact. Does that sound familiar to you? For five years Kathleen Janus traveled the country to find out how successful organizations like Teach for America, City Year, and Charity: Water broke through their barriers. She conducted studies and interviewed 200 social entrepreneurs. She documented their secrets to success and wrote down the five patterns that got them there. Soon, a playbook was created. In this episode, Kathleen talks about her new book, Social Startup Success: How the Best Nonprofits Launch, Scale Up and Make a Difference. She is a lawyer, lecturer at Stanford, and founder of Spark. Listen to it on iTunes or Stitcher, and hit the subscribe button to download future episodes automatically. Stream by clicking here. Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.” Kathleen Janus Reading List The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit: Strategies [...]

"Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong," said Steve Sexton. His first major fundraising event as the chapter president of Students Helping Honduras at UMD—a 5K— was a "disaster that barely broke even." “I wanted to deflect the blame at first," he said, "But I took a long look in the mirror and said it is my fault. I can’t let this happen again.” He dusted off and said to himself, “You can’t let some naysayers put you down. You gotta keep going!” Steve wanted to improve the team's unity and morale. Soon, barbecues, rollerblading nights, and paintball outings were organized.  His biggest focus as the leader was simple: “to look out for my friends in the chapter.” In this episode, Steve deconstructs how they raised $1,500-$2,100 per day selling Krispy Kreme donuts at metro stations and through their campus thrift shop. “Every waking moment I had to do something," he said, "Planning, organizing, talking to somebody.” [...]

While studying at the College of William & Mary, Sam Pressler learned about the post-traumatic stress disorder war veterans were facing as they reintegrated into civilian life.  So in 2015, he started Armed Services Arts Partnership (ASAP) to help them re-enter and thrive in their communities. ASAP, based out of Washington DC and Hampton Roads, VA gives veterans a voice by doing something completely unconventional… By offering them free classes and workshops in stand-up comedy, improv, storytelling, and creative writing. But the entrepreneurial journey for Sam Pressler was no joke. He bootstrapped with just two other employees—and during the same week, they both quit. “That was rock bottom for us. I thought we were going to implode,” he said.  “How the heck am I going to do this?” he asked himself. Yet instead of quitting, Sam kept pushing forward. “Time stopped and I immediately went into survival mode." He asked himself one question, "What is the first step to take [...]

Today’s guest is Noam Angrist, the founder of Young 1ove, an NGO providing sex education to 35,000+ young people in Botswana. Sex-ed is a complicated issue, and over the decades it’s been hard to tell what worked and what didn’t. In Botswana, where 22% of the population has HIV, much of it hadn’t worked. But when Noam used a tool from the scientific community, he could actually tell what interventions worked. Like a scientist, Noam discarded the interventions that didn’t work and focused on the ones that did. Soon, teenage pregnancy dropped by 28% in the communities he worked with, and he had the evidence to prove it. The tool that Noam used was the randomized control trial (RCT). In this episode, Noam talks about his experience carrying out RCTs and discusses their limitations, challenges, and financial costs. He faced countless struggles along the way, like not having funding as launch day [...]

Katy Ashe is the co-founder of Noora Health, a tech NGO in India. When she visited the hospitals of Bangalore as a graduate student, she saw a sea of people sitting around in the hallways. Who were they? They were family members of the patients—and they were scared, bored, and lacked basic health information. Many slept outside the hospitals, waiting for days. They had nothing to do but wait. The incredible waste of time was tragic. But Katy and her cofounders saw opportunity amidst the tragedy. The cofounders asked themselves, what if these people sitting around in the hallways spent those hours learning about health, physical therapy, and disease prevention? After all, some people didn't even know what a pulse was, and at least 40% of the patients had diabetes. Noora Health began by showing one health video that they filmed in a parking lot. To the surprise of the founders, patients and their families loved the video. [...]

While volunteering in India as an undergraduate student, Annie Ryu fell in love at first sight. What she saw at the market wasn't tall, dark, and handsome. It was a spiky, green fruit she had never seen. The huge fruit she was looking at was the jackfruit, the largest tree born fruit in the world.  Fascinated, she researched the fruit and ate them. Many of them. So much so that she'd soon be known "The Jackfruit Lady." The jackfruit, which tastes different in its various stages, has several nutritional benefits. It's high in vitamin E, magnesium, fiber, potassium, and manganese. It also tastes great! The jackfruit is incredibly fibrous and has a meaty texture similar to pulled pork. When ripe, Annie describes it as, "a combination of pineapple, banana, and mango." That sounds delicious! The meat industry is the second largest contributor to global warming. The problem is, many meat alternatives don't taste too great. But what if someone could [...]