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 [...]

Social entrepreneur Robbie Bergquist is the co-founder of Cell Phones for Soldiers. In 2004 when Robbie was 12 and his sister Brittany was 13, they heard the story of a soldier returning from Iraq with a near $8,000 phone bill. They couldn’t believe that a man serving his country was unable to call his family for free. So they decided to do something about it. With just $21 and some help from their parents, Cell Phones for Soldiers was born. Today the nonprofit organization provides cost-free communication services and emergency funding to active-duty military members and veterans. They've provided more than 300 million minutes of free talk time and have recycled 15 million cell phones for the cause. Robbie, now age 25, is the recipient of the Jefferson Award for Public Service and was recently named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 List.  Donate your used cell phone to Cell Phones for [...]

Most foreigners who visit Indonesia end up at the beaches of Bali. But not Adam Miller, a young conservationist from St. Louis. While volunteering at a pet shop at age 10, he came up with the vision of one day working in Indonesia to help the animals there. His vision quickly became an obsession. Many years later, Adam found himself in a remote village in Borneo, Indonesia. It’s a part of southeast Asia facing the fastest rate of deforestation in the world and the second highest number of endangered species in the world. He lived there for six months on a total budget of $1,000 and built up a nonprofit organization called Planet Indonesia. In this podcast episode, Adam discusses the challenges of working in a country with a culture that is vastly different. When he goes running, random fathers in the community might stop to offer their daughters as wives. And you will find out what Adam [...]

Social entrepreneur Rachel Sumekh is the founder and CEO of Swipe Out Hunger. This nonprofit organization works to end hunger by activating college students to donate their unused meal points. Since Swipe Out Hunger began in 2009 as a college pet project, the NGO has served 1.3 million meals. Rachel Sumekh was recently awarded Champion of Change by The White House and named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 List for Social Entrepreneurship. In this episode, Rachel Sumekh talks openly about her inner doubts, challenges as a Persian-American social entrepreneur, how she responded to opposition from campus administrators, and what she did when she was told "you're just too nice to be a leader." 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.” This episode is sponsored by the Tikker, the death watch that counts down your life [...]

Every morning for nearly a decade, CNN Hero Razia Jan drank a cup of water from her school's well to make sure it hadn’t been poisoned overnight by the Taliban.   She works in a part of Afghanistan where girls face unimaginable obstacles just to attend school. They must face the threat of getting acid thrown onto their faces, risk buying snacks with grenades hidden inside them, and make sure nobody has sprayed poisoned gas into their classrooms. Razia Jan worked as a tailor and dry cleaner before starting Razia's Ray of Hope Foundation in 2008, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and children in Afghanistan through education. She operates the Zabuli Education Center, a school that she founded in rural Afghanistan that provides a free education to 625 girls.  Listen to it on iTunes or Stitcher, and hit the subscribe button to download future episodes automatically. Stream by clicking here. Download as [...]

As an investment banker, Andy Stein never imagined that a visit to an orphanage in Chile would change his life, and the life of thousands of others. In 2001, after 25 years on Wall Street, Andy Stein left everything behind to start the Orphaned Starfish Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works with orphaned, trafficked, and at-risk youth around the world. The NGO has built 50 vocational centers and computer labs in 25 countries. I first read about Andy Stein on The CNN Freedom Project, a TV show highlighting projects around the world that are fighting modern-day slavery. I never imagined I'd have the opportunity to interview Andy to learn about his work, travels, and why he loves to do magic tricks during his spare time. 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.” Reading List Three Cups of Tea: One Man's [...]

WARNING: If you are involved or will be involved in the medical field, this episode may alter your future aspirations... CNN Hero Dr. Ben LaBrot began working on fishing boats in California at age 11 and always knew that he was destined to live at sea. In 2009, he began refurbishing a 76-foot-long fishing boat and named it The Southern Wind. A year later, Dr. Ben and his penniless team left EVERYTHING behind and set sail to Haiti to cure the poor. “My high school counselor never told me that these kinds of jobs and solutions existed,” he said. So he created a nonprofit organization and called it the Floating Doctors.  “I pushed all my chips in the center of the table. I was all in,” he said. Upon arrival, Dr. Ben LaBrot said to himself, “I’m about to find out if this works or if I just wasted a whole lot of everyone’s time, money, and resources.” For [...]