Adam Carter: How to Find Micro-Philanthropy Project Work in India

In Chapter 9 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, micro-philanthropist Adam Carter answers "What Did Doing Your Recent Micro-Philanthropy Project in India Teach You?"  Carter talks about his past experience traveling to India and how a recent trip collaborating with VANNI working with deaf children in Kolkata taught him the power of communication.  Carter travels to India to help the non-profit improve how it creates education materials for hearing-impaired children living in poverty. 

Adam Carter is a micro-philanthropist currently living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He is the founder of the Cause and Affect Foundation which raises small amounts of financing to provide direct-to-source project funding for individuals and communities in need across the globe.  To date, Carter has traveled to over 80 countries.  He earned an MA in International Development from George Washington University and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What did doing your recent micro-philanthropy project in India teach you?

Adam Carter: Well, I’ve spent a lot of time in India over the years, and it’s a place that has always attracted me. It’s something about the combination of the millennia of history and culture. It’s always kind of been that real exotic place in the world, and even now after having been to, I don’t know, 80 plus countries, I’m still drawn back to India time and time again. This recent trip I was in Calcutta in the eastern part of India and I think the most—what it really taught me, I guess, as far as a lesson is, I would say, the importance of communication, and the reason I say that is because I was working with a project called VAANI which is an amazing project, that’s kind of an award-winning project, really, really dynamic director, and what they do is they work with deaf children in the slums of Calcutta.

So as you can imagine, not a pretty place, a very, very rough place to live, to grow up, and for a lot of these families, you know, they have a lot of children, and often one of the children has some kind of deformity, or whether they’re born with some condition. Unfortunately, they don’t have the resources there to act upon that, and in the case of this project, what we’re working with are deaf children, and unfortunately, many of these families that have deaf children, first of all, a lot of them don’t even really realize that their kids are deaf. They haven’t really fully been diagnosed, so they kind of have this idea that, oh, well, he doesn’t really understand, he’s a little slow, this or that. And even if they know, that, okay, my kid can’t hear. They don’t know the resources that are out there, which is really a shame because these kids grow up, basically, kept at home, not going to school, and kind of ignored by their family, and these kids, their mind is perfectly functional. I mean, it’s horrific to imagine really being trapped inside your body where you can’t communicate with your family, and nobody knows what you’re saying, what you’re thinking.

So thankfully this project, first of all, they send social workers out into these neighborhoods to look for these children and to tell the families, “look, there’s an answer here. We’re gonna help your kid, and you’re gonna see that your kid is just as smart as all the others, and he can actually participate in a regular school setting.” So it was incredibly heartwarming to see these kids now that are getting one-on-one education, educational help from a trained practitioner, you know, that works with deaf children. They’re learning how to do sign language. They’re learning how to speak a bit. Some of them that don’t have complete deafness are getting the hearing aids that they need to be able to hear more and more. The mothers are brought in with the kids, so they’re both there, and they’re both learning sign language because it’s important for them to communicate. This is the bridge that’s gonna allow this kid to communicate with his parents and with his family.

Erik Michielsen: How did you get involved in that project?

Adam Carter: I knew I wanted to go back to India, so sometimes I focus on an issue. Sometimes I focus on a place. In this instance, it was kind of a combination of the two. I knew I wanted to go back to India, and I was speaking with my mentor. He had mentioned how he had come across some—a project helping some deaf people in Asia, and I thought, well, that’s a group that I don’t know much about, I haven’t worked with before, personally, but I think we can all understand it’s a pretty black and white issue. So I started to do some research before I went about to see if there were any organizations that were addressing this on a local or national level. There’s a project called VAANI, which is the first kind of nationally—it’s based in Calcutta, but they’re planning to expand it nationally. They now have projects in West Bengal which is the state of Calcutta and up in Assam which is further up in the northeast, and so I communicated with them. I did some research on the organization and found out that it has an amazing reputation. And, so, I met with them and I visited all of their projects, and then I sat down with the director and with a few other of the staff and we talked about what would be the most effective ways of improving the project, and what we came up with was—is wonderful because these kids are coming in so if you have a deaf child that’s coming in, let’s say, twice a week, with his mother for this training. They have different ways of teaching them. They have a lot of educational materials, and then a lot of it has to do with the teacher one-on-one. 

The only kind of gap in this process is the fact that when the kid goes home, until he comes back later in the week or the next week, he’s kind of at a standstill.  Sure he and the mother could practice what they’ve learned, but the problem is he has to leave the educational materials at the project because they need them for the next kid. So what we came up with was, well, why don’t we improve this process by producing more of these educational materials, producing kind of like, you know, sets of them like booklet sets, so that the kids can take them home with them, practice it over the course of the week with the rest of their family, the father who may be working, the brothers and sisters who are in the house. So we’re creating really nice, heavy laminated, very durable materials that will be able to really improve the interpersonal communication, which is so important.

Adam Carter on Helping Charitable Trusts Identify and Fund Projects

In Chapter 10 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, micro-philanthropist Adam Carter answers "How Are You Learning to Apply Your Passions in New Ways?"  Carter talks about how he finds value in a liaison role between charitable trusts and the social impact areas they seek to affect.  Carter gives local assistance to global non-profit organizations, helping them identify, design, and implement projects in areas such as Brazilian favelas and shanty towns. 

Adam Carter is a micro-philanthropist currently living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He is the founder of the Cause and Affect Foundation which raises small amounts of financing to provide direct-to-source project funding for individuals and communities in need across the globe.  To date, Carter has traveled to over 80 countries.  He earned an MA in International Development from George Washington University and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What did doing your recent micro-philanthropy project in India teach you?

Adam Carter: Well, I’ve spent a lot of time in India over the years, and it’s a place that has always attracted me. It’s something about the combination of the millennia of history and culture. It’s always kind of been that real exotic place in the world, and even now after having been to, I don’t know, 80 plus countries, I’m still drawn back to India time and time again. This recent trip I was in Calcutta in the eastern part of India and I think the most—what it really taught me, I guess, as far as a lesson is, I would say, the importance of communication, and the reason I say that is because I was working with a project called VAANI which is an amazing project, that’s kind of an award-winning project, really, really dynamic director, and what they do is they work with deaf children in the slums of Calcutta.

So as you can imagine, not a pretty place, a very, very rough place to live, to grow up, and for a lot of these families, you know, they have a lot of children, and often one of the children has some kind of deformity, or whether they’re born with some condition. Unfortunately, they don’t have the resources there to act upon that, and in the case of this project, what we’re working with are deaf children, and unfortunately, many of these families that have deaf children, first of all, a lot of them don’t even really realize that their kids are deaf. They haven’t really fully been diagnosed, so they kind of have this idea that, oh, well, he doesn’t really understand, he’s a little slow, this or that. And even if they know, that, okay, my kid can’t hear. They don’t know the resources that are out there, which is really a shame because these kids grow up, basically, kept at home, not going to school, and kind of ignored by their family, and these kids, their mind is perfectly functional. I mean, it’s horrific to imagine really being trapped inside your body where you can’t communicate with your family, and nobody knows what you’re saying, what you’re thinking.

So thankfully this project, first of all, they send social workers out into these neighborhoods to look for these children and to tell the families, “look, there’s an answer here. We’re gonna help your kid, and you’re gonna see that your kid is just as smart as all the others, and he can actually participate in a regular school setting.” So it was incredibly heartwarming to see these kids now that are getting one-on-one education, educational help from a trained practitioner, you know, that works with deaf children. They’re learning how to do sign language. They’re learning how to speak a bit. Some of them that don’t have complete deafness are getting the hearing aids that they need to be able to hear more and more. The mothers are brought in with the kids, so they’re both there, and they’re both learning sign language because it’s important for them to communicate. This is the bridge that’s gonna allow this kid to communicate with his parents and with his family.

Erik Michielsen: How did you get involved in that project?

Adam Carter: I knew I wanted to go back to India, so sometimes I focus on an issue. Sometimes I focus on a place. In this instance, it was kind of a combination of the two. I knew I wanted to go back to India, and I was speaking with my mentor. He had mentioned how he had come across some—a project helping some deaf people in Asia, and I thought, well, that’s a group that I don’t know much about, I haven’t worked with before, personally, but I think we can all understand it’s a pretty black and white issue. So I started to do some research before I went about to see if there were any organizations that were addressing this on a local or national level. There’s a project called VAANI, which is the first kind of nationally—it’s based in Calcutta, but they’re planning to expand it nationally. They now have projects in West Bengal which is the state of Calcutta and up in Assam which is further up in the northeast, and so I communicated with them. I did some research on the organization and found out that it has an amazing reputation. And, so, I met with them and I visited all of their projects, and then I sat down with the director and with a few other of the staff and we talked about what would be the most effective ways of improving the project, and what we came up with was—is wonderful because these kids are coming in so if you have a deaf child that’s coming in, let’s say, twice a week, with his mother for this training. They have different ways of teaching them. They have a lot of educational materials, and then a lot of it has to do with the teacher one-on-one. 

The only kind of gap in this process is the fact that when the kid goes home, until he comes back later in the week or the next week, he’s kind of at a standstill.  Sure he and the mother could practice what they’ve learned, but the problem is he has to leave the educational materials at the project because they need them for the next kid.

So what we came up with was, well, why don’t we improve this process by producing more of these educational materials, producing kind of like, you know, sets of them like booklet sets, so that the kids can take them home with them, practice it over the course of the week with the rest of their family, the father who may be working, the brothers and sisters who are in the house. So we’re creating really nice, heavy laminated, very durable materials that will be able to really improve the interpersonal communication, which is so important.

Adam Carter on Finding Life Advice in Unexpected Places

In Chapter 11 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, micro-philanthropist Adam Carter answers "At This Point in Your Life, Where are You Seeking Advice and Coaching?"  Carter finds good advice in a network of friends pursuing different field of work and study.  He finds the best advice often comes from the most unexpected places.  For example, in his micro-philanthropy work, Carter finds inspiration meeting and learning from local heroes in places such as the shanty towns of Rio. 

Adam Carter is a micro-philanthropist currently living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He is the founder of the Cause and Affect Foundation which raises small amounts of financing to provide direct-to-source project funding for individuals and communities in need across the globe.  To date, Carter has traveled to over 80 countries.  He earned an MA in International Development from George Washington University and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: At this point in your life where are you seeking advice and coaching?

Adam Carter: Luckily, I have a network, a lot of friends that are involved in various fields, fields of study, fields of work, and I’ve found that sometimes some of the most insightful information comes from the most unlikely of places. So I always try to keep myself open to those friends that I—sometimes friends that I really respect that have climbed up in whatever field that they’re involved in, but, at the same time, I’ve found that sometimes it comes from the people on the street, the people that you would never assume would be those to be giving advice, and in my philanthropy work, I’ve become so inspired by some of these local heroes that I’ve been working with, or just some of the people that I have come into contact with through these projects. The 85-year-old woman in Rio, in the shantytowns in Rio, We can see her living conditions are horrible. They’re sub-humane, so “we’re going to fix the roof. We’re going to get you a new mattress. What else do you want?” She’s like, “no, that’s great.” And we’re like, “okay, how about a new fan, you know, to get—“ she’s like, “well, that one still works fine.” “Okay, well, how about—“ and just that humility. Someone finally shows up at her doorstep to help her and she has the humility to say, “No, that’s great. That’s all I really need.” I mean, that’s incredible. We’re used to hearing about people that just want to take, take, take. So, I mean, sometimes it’s—as I said, people you would never expect to learn something from. You’re not even seeking advice, and all of a sudden you get this life lesson thrown at you. So that’s been one really rewarding aspect of receiving advice.

Adam Carter on Building Mother-Son Bonds After Mom Retires

In Chapter 12 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, micro-philanthropist Adam Carter answers "How Have You Grown Closer to Your Mother as She Has Moved into Retirement?"  An only child, Carter shares how the bond with his Mom has grown over time, mainly through traveling together internationally.  After his mother retires to Guatemala and begins volunteering, Carter and his Mom bond as peers and learn from each other working on micro-philanthropy projects together. 

Adam Carter is a micro-philanthropist currently living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He is the founder of the Cause and Affect Foundation which raises small amounts of financing to provide direct-to-source project funding for individuals and communities in need across the globe.  To date, Carter has traveled to over 80 countries.  He earned an MA in International Development from George Washington University and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How have you grown closer to your mother as she’s moved into retirement?

Adam Carter: Well, my mother and I have always had a very close relationship. I, like yourself, am an only child, and so I always had a very strong bond with my mother. And our relationship has really evolved over the years which is something that really has warmed my heart because I think this started—once I started to travel after college, I think my mom realized that she needed to—in order to see her son, she needed to kind of get out there and start crossing continents, and so we’ve had—we’ve met up and traveled in Spain, in Nepal, in Italy, in Brazil, in India, in Central America, so that’s been a wonderful dimension, but beyond that, my mom got to the point where she was able to retire. 

And she realized that she wanted to lead a more fulfilling life. So she retired to Guatemala, and she’s currently living there, and she’s speaking Spanish, and she’s volunteering with a variety of organizations, and she’s really found her heart’s calling. And to me that’s been extremely rewarding because it shows that this relationship between mother and son is not—you know, I think when we’re little we have this idea that, okay, our mother is there to teach us, and that as we get older we will always be looking to our mother, you know, the mother guides, the mother teaches, and while that’s still the case, all of a sudden, I think we can see that we’re learning from each other, and that my mother is, you know, I’m helping guide my mother, and my mother’s learning things from me, so I think it’s a wonderful circle there where a parent is able to create something in a child where that child becomes an adult with a meaningful life that can then help teach and guide the parent. 

So that’s been wonderful, and what’s been extremely rewarding about this is being able to participate with her in some of these projects with Cause & Affect. Being based down in Guatemala, and working with these organizations on her own, my mother is a perfect scout, as you will. She’s on the ground, and so, for example, when I recently went down there in February, she had been traveling with one of these projects to some of the rural villages in Guatemala and she came across this family that just—it just broke her heart to see the living conditions that this family was living in. It was a father and his two children, and the mother had died five years earlier, which presented a real challenge because this is a part of Guatemala where most of the men go off to do seasonal work, agricultural work, in other parts of Guatemala. He wasn’t able to do that because he couldn’t leave his two little kids in the house alone, so they had a real financial problem, and their home, as a result, was really just a shack made of kind of wood and mud, and there was a lot of bugs and mosquitoes and rodents. It just was not a safe place. They were cooking in—they were cooking over a fire in the house, which was very bad with the smoke inhalation. It was just one tiny room, which was not a place for this family. 

So it was my mother and I, and we were able to find a local organization that helps build houses for families like this. And we were able to help finance it so that they could live in a new home, and three weeks later, there it was—a 2-bedroom house. You know, obviously, dispartan, you now, but real floors, windows, some security, safety, health, so that was wonderful for my mother and I to be in a position where we’re working together, because much of what I‘ve put into Cause & Affect, the reason that I got here is because she instilled that compassion in me, and it’s really just been a means of me directing that compassion that she instilled in me outwards. So to be able to do it together as a team has been very rewarding.

Adam Carter on Growing a Step-Sister Relationship

In Chapter 13 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, micro-philanthropist Adam Carter answers "How Are Your Family Relationships Changing With Age?"  Carter talks about building a relationship with his step-sister and taking her on a micro-philanthropy project trip after she graduated high school.  By giving her an opportunity to raise money and do micro-philanthropy, Carter bonds with his little sister and opens her eyes to non-traditional education possibilities, which leads her to do the Global Citizen Year program. 

Adam Carter is a micro-philanthropist currently living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He is the founder of the Cause and Affect Foundation which raises small amounts of financing to provide direct-to-source project funding for individuals and communities in need across the globe.  To date, Carter has traveled to over 80 countries.  He earned an MA in International Development from George Washington University and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are your family relationships changing as you get older?

Adam Carter: Well, in the march of time as we all get older; it’s really interesting to see how our relationships and our roles change with each other, whether it’s between son and mother, son and father or even son and sibling.

In the case of—My father was remarried and had two children so, technically my half-sister, which I affectionately call my sister. My sister is 20 years younger than myself. She was born when I was in college. So when I started traveling the world, she was 2-3 years old.

So as she got older, I can only imagine what ideas she had of her big brother—this guy that would come from faraway lands. Each year he’d come back, he’d look different, he’d have a different hairstyle, he’d have different facial hair, he’d have different clothes, whatever, and so over time, we formed a really wonderful bond.

And as she started to mature, she became more interested in these places that I was going and this lifestyle that I was leading, and I could really sense that interest. So I asked her if she would want to join me on one of these trips, and she said, “of course, how can we make it happen?” We were thinking about— in Illinois, you’re able to take your child out to home school them. So we had spoken with the principal. We had gotten permission to do that. It turns out that that was—would be a challenge because she would have to be learning certain classes while we were doing that, and taking my sister around Latin America and teaching her trigonometry and biology didn’t seem to be too cohesive.

So what we did is she was able to graduate early from high school, and so she graduated a semester early, and then she came and traveled with me for four months, and I really approached this as kind of a, almost kind of like a training session. I mean, I wanted it to be as fun and as enriching as possible, and so first thing that we did is she raised money in Chicago before she left. She made these bracelets that she sews and was able to sell those to friends and family and, you know, members of their congregation, whatever, and came up with $1,200, which is quite a nice sum of money, and she was then able visit projects with me on behalf of Cause & Affect, and not only be an observer, but be a participant. Since this was money that she had raised, I allowed her to have a role in—really just teach her the process from the ground up, which is, okay, here we are.

So we started in Guatemala, and we did some wonderful projects there. We repaired some cleft palates. Some of these babies that are born with cleft palates. Surgery, parents can’t afford it. They can’t afford it throughout the life of their kids, unfortunately, and so a lot of these kids grow up almost as a shame—an object of shame for the families, so we’re able to work with an organization that we partnered with before, and do some of these surgeries, which is incredible. It’s $200 each, so, I mean, simply with $600, she’s able to say, “Okay, look, we just completely changed the life of three of these babies.” I mean that’s the kind of thing that you can really feel that effect. And then I took her down to Panama. She had also had another friend that had amassed all these little teddy bears and things. It’s kind of her own pet project.

So we went down to a children’s hospital there in Panama City, and we were able to distribute these to all these kids, and, you know, that was a wonderful experience also to be able to, you know, see all these smiles. Even though it’s a small gesture for each of these kids it was—it brightened their day. And then from there we went down to Brazil and we spent a month in Rio, and she was volunteering with me at some of the organizations that I worked with, and it was incredible to see. I mean, you know, you grow up with somebody, and this is how you talk about the different relationships, you’re used to somebody like, okay, I changed your diapers and we’re playing hide and seek, and you’re getting older and we’re playing around, and here we are in our house—it’s our comfortable surroundings, right. And all of a sudden, here I am, I’m in the middle of Rocinha, this big favela, and we’re going up to visit this project, and we’re walking through these tight alleyways, or we’re on the back of a, you know, they have these moto-taxis to zoom around, and I kind of had a catharsis at one point, where I’m on the back of this guy’s motorcycle and I see my sister zooming up the hill on the back of this other guy’s motorcycle, and you’re just like, “wow, you know, we’ve come a long way.”

So it’s been wonderful to see her open her world and help be a part of that consciousness being born, and she’s actually now back in Brazil. She’s doing a really cool exchange program where she’s working with a social organization down there. It’s a program called Global Citizen Year, which is an incredible, kind of like a gap year program. So it’s been really fun to help, kind of propel her into this new adventure, and, you know, so many people have said, “Oh, man, she’s so lucky to have a brother that can take her to do this.” And I said, “Yeah, she is lucky. I wish I had that.” You know, 20 years ago, I definitely had to kind of jump in headfirst and learn the hard way, but, yeah, it’s been wonderful to see that relationship being able to evolve, in that sense.

Stacie Bloom on Leaving a Nonprofit Job to Work in Higher Education

In Chapter 3 of 18 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, Neuroscience Institute Executive Director Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What New Challenges Are You Facing in Your Career?"  Bloom notes the challenges she has faced transitioning out of a relatively small nonprofit and into an 18,000 employee-strong university, NYU.  She also details the challenge of understanding the governance and leadership structure of the organization. 

Stacie Grossman Bloom is Executive Director for the Neuroscience Institute at the NYU Langone Medical Center.  Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) and, before that, held editorial roles at the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Medicine.  She earned her BA in chemistry and psychology from the University of Delaware, her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did post-doctoral training in Paul Greengard's Nobel Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen:  What new challenges are you facing in your career?

Stacie Grossman Bloom:  There are a lot of new challenges in this job, I would say understanding how a very large university system works has been an interesting challenge. I was previously working in a small not-for-profit organization, maybe 65 people, all of a sudden, I’m at this medical center, 18,000 people. It’s a very different type of organization, so I’m going from a place where I sort of knew everyone, if I had an HR question, I would walk to HR, there was 2 people working in there. You know, now, it’s a situation where if I have an HR question, I’m sending an email to a vague email address and getting a response from a person who I’ve never met before. 

I think also in a very large organization, things move at a different pace, because there are a lot of levels, sort of checkpoints to get through and a lot of policies and procedures, of course. I think also understanding the governance and the—how the leadership is organized at such a big place was a little bit challenging for me coming in. It’s not as simple as a CEO, a COO, a CFO, and some directors and vice presidents, it’s an incredibly large organization with a very diverse and big leadership structure. 

How to Make the Most of Living in Your City - Randall Metting

In Chapter 2 of 7 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, brand marketer and on-air radio personality Randall Metting answers "How Do You Make the Most of Living in a City?"  Metting shared how he embraced living in Austin, Texas after relocating from St. Petersburg, Florida.  Learning about the arts and entertainment scene helps Metting identify charities and get involved supporting non-profits.  Ultimately this research shapes his approach to fully embrace his Austin city living experience.  Randall Metting is an on-air radio personality at 93.3 KGSR Radio in Austin, Texas.  When not on the radio, Metting consults organizations on integrated marketing strategy and brand development.  He also writes the Austin community music and entertainment blog at www.randallmetting.com.  Metting earned a B.A. in Advertising from the University of Florida.

Jon Kolko on How to Design Culturally Relevant Social Solutions

In Chapter 16 of 21 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, design educator Jon Kolko answers "How Have You Learned More Effectively Across Cultures?"  Kolko notes how design work is culture-dependent.  He notes how impact-based design is local and often constrained by the cultural environment.  This often limits scalability yet allows students to better focus their solution design for the communities it will serve. 

Jon Kolko is the founder and director of the Austin Center for Design.  He has authored multiple books on design, including "Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving."  Previously he has held senior roles at venture accelerator Thinktiv and frog design and was a professor of Interactive and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).  Kolko earned his Masters in Human Computer Interaction (MHI) and BFA in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How have you learned to work more effectively across different cultures?

Jon Kolko: Design work is explicitly tied to culture and in a super nuanced way. So, a design solution that works in this particular culture may or not work in a different culture and I don’t necessarily mean country or geographic boundary. It can be culture as defined by style, as designed by fashion, anywhere there are shared values. And so, when you're dealing with design for impact, it's really, really local and micro-driven, which is directly at odds with most impact investing and a lot of the places where you will find big money like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who are looking to fund scalable solutions, solutions that aren’t going to affect 500, or 1,000, or 10,000, or even 100,000 people, that are going to affect 10 million people, 100 million people, a billion people. And I don’t claim to know if that’s a good or a bad process for them. I don’t know anything about their inner workings but for where my students are, which is nowhere near that in terms of impact, their solutions can’t, by definition, can't scale outside of a certain locale without changing.

It's not to say they can't change, but it's not a cookie cutter approach and traditionally design has been all about cookie cutter approaches. That is what design for manufacturing is about. It's about taking a single part and mass producing it exactly the same a hundred million times with no defects, shipping it all over the world. You can see where that breaks down in a really, really obtuse and dumb way with adapters on PCs that the same PC, the manufacturer has to make six or seven different ends to plug the thing in, in different countries. That has nothing to do with culture, it has everything to with these Legacy electric grids but that’s the equivalent of how prepared designers are to deal with that issue. It's like that’s all they know. Well, we got to localize it by changing the language and by using a different cord. No, no, no, it's so much deeper than that. The homeless in Belo Horizonte and the homeless in Austin, it's a different world. And to say somehow, “Yeah, I conducted a thousand hours of research with homeless in Austin and therefore my solution transfers to the middle of Brazil,” is just ridiculous. And so, I don’t know how my design work has changed as a result of that but my philosophy toward it is certainly crystallized around this idea of local design decisions being okay, that we don’t have to design for scale en-mass right away.

Jon Kolko on How to Define Social Entrepreneurship

In Chapter 18 of 21 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, design educator Jon Kolko answers "How Do You Define Social Entrepreneurship?"  Kolko first defines an entrepreneur as someone who takes on the risk and reaps the reward of a situation and who sees opportunity where others see problems.  He differentiates between entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs in both the type of problem and the reward. 

Jon Kolko is the founder and director of the Austin Center for Design.  He has authored multiple books on design, including "Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving."  Previously he has held senior roles at venture accelerator Thinktiv and frog design and was a professor of Interactive and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).  Kolko earned his Masters in Human Computer Interaction (MHI) and BFA in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How do you define social entrepreneurship?

Jon Kolko: I think it helps by defining entrepreneurship first. And so an entrepreneur to me is somebody that takes on the risk and reaps the reward of a situation. It's also somebody that sees opportunity where others see problems or issues.

And so, that is true of a social entrepreneur, too. The difference is in the type of problems or opportunities and in the type of risk and reward. A social entrepreneur’s reward may or may not be monetary and typically it is monetary and, or plus in a double bottom line context. It's monetary, sure, there's money at stake but it's also about a larger social or humanitarian issue and that can be something as big and broad as poverty or it could be something extremely simple and detailed like getting the homeless in Austin, Texas to have beds when it's lower than 32 degrees at night. But either way, it's that yes and part of the reward. In terms of the opportunity where some see issues and others see opportunity, I think it constantly has to do with that idea of theory of change that we alluded to previously of: I see the world in a certain way and I would like it to be a different way. And so, I hypothesize how I’ll get there. Working backwards, you sort of get this logic trail of if I do this and this falls into place and this other thing happens, then those on the streets won’t be on the streets when it's 32 degrees or colder.

And so, for me then, a social entrepreneur is somebody who is applying all of the same principles of entrepreneurship and a design-led social entrepreneur is taking all of the same principles of the design but the context of the problem has shifted just a little.

Jon Kolko on Using Evaluation and Testing to Improve a Design School

In Chapter 20 of 21 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, design educator Jon Kolko answers "What Roles Have Evaluation and Testing Played in Building Your Design Graduate Program?"  Kolko details how testing, evaluation, assessment and feedback are honing the Austin Center for Design program.  Kolko details the iterative and collaborative process that is taking place in Austin as the school matures and improves how it operates and educates. 

Jon Kolko is the founder and director of the Austin School for Design.  He has authored multiple books on design, including "Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving."  Previously he has held senior roles at venture accelerator Thinktiv and frog design and was a professor of Interactive and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).  Kolko earned his Masters in Human Computer Interaction (MHI) and BFA in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What roles have evaluation and testing played in building your design graduate program?

Jon Kolko: So we've treated the building of Austin Center for Design as an iterative design exercise and part of that process is testing it with real people. And so, we treated our first cohort as co-designers and to their faces I called them co-founders and I think that the majority of them would agree that they're co-founders in the venture. The venture is a non-profit. They don’t literally own equity in it and neither do I, but they own decision-making power. And it wasn’t all democratic but there was certainly a lot of things that we changed as a result of both explicit feedback, implicit feedback, observation assessment.

And so I think testing—so testing means different things to different contexts but I think it always means trying something, and learning from it and then iterating on it. And in this case, we tested the pedagogy: how we were actually going about teaching and learning. We tested the entrepreneurial idea, the notion that when you leave the program, you’ve started a company. We tested some professors who had never taught before. We tested some course content that had never been sort of used before. And like anything else with testing, we failed a bunch of times and that’s the point. I mean, so, arguably it's better this year and arguably it will be better next year.

What's really nice about being a new school is that if you're not dealing with bureaucratic organizations like accrediting bodies, you can change on a dime. That changes when you're dealing with those organizational bodies and probably in my future, I will deal with those organizational bodies because there's a huge benefit to them. But at least for the time being, it means that I can hone this program, content notwithstanding because the content is always going to change but I can hone the structure of the program until I feel like there's evidence for it being really, really good. As always with evaluation, you sort of take it with a grain of salt. And so, there’s things that I just have pushed back on as changes that were suggested and there’s things that I completely didn’t think of that students were like, “Hey! We should be doing it like this. Why aren’t we doing it like this?” So now we're doing it like that.”

There is something sort of really, really nice about building a program together with the people that are benefiting from it. I wasn’t expecting that at all when I started it. I never really thought of this as like, I guess I do think of it as like, it's my thing but I've never felt overly protective of it from outside feedback but I was not ready for how much benefit I got from that outside feedback, I think is what I'm trying to say. 

How to Find Meaningful Work With a Global Impact - Slava Rubin

In Chapter 3 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, crowdfunding entrepreneur and IndieGoGo CEO Slava Rubin answers "What Makes Your Work Meaningful?"  Rubin references how the crowdfunding projects his company has enabled give him meaning in their varied initiatives to solve problems and build solutions.  Slava Rubin returns to CYF for his Year 3 interview.  As CEO and Co-Founder, Rubin has helped transform cause and project fundraising by establishing his company IndieGoGo as a global leader in crowdfunding.  He is also active in philanthropy, starting the Music Against Myeloma annual charity event to fight cancer.  He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What makes your work meaningful?

Slava Rubin: We could be focusing on strictly becoming a billion dollar company optimizing profits and along the way really upsetting customers and trying to take advantage of employees but for us it’s knowing that there’s an impact. Knowing that we’re doing good in the world and bringing good things to life. So, that’s what’s exciting for me.

It’s really about stories like a crowd funded baby that would have never existed unless Indiegogo was there. Knowing that there’s kids in third world countries who are reading because two incredible women on a campaign called Illuminate were able to create an inflatable solar light, knowing that some kids aren’t gonna be bullied because an amazing movie was created called The Bully Project and was funded on Indiegogo then picked up by the Weinstein Company for distribution, knowing that a church has new stained glass windows because their community came together to know that they want to improve the architecture there or just knowing that a liver transplant happened through for somebody in Congo because he was known as the Oskar Schindler of Congo but couldn’t afford a liver transplant so on CNN, people came together and funded his liver transplant.

Courtney Spence on How Giving TED Talk Improves Public Speaking

In Chapter 1 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "What Did Giving a TED Talk Teach You About More Effectively Telling Your Story?"  The preparation process for her TEDxPeachtree talk in Atlanta teaches Spence to separate her story from her organization and focus on identifying core values and believes.  Spence discusses how she then was able to create a narrative arc to more effectively tell her story in the TED Talk time constraints.  Courtney Spence returns to Capture Your Flag for her Year 3 interview.  As Founder and Executive Director, Spence leads non-profit Students of the World to empower college students to use film, photography, and journalism to tell stories of global issues and the organizations working to address them.  Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What did giving a TED talk teach you about more effectively telling your story?

Courtney Spence: I was honored to give a TED talk in Atlanta in November. And I had a few months to prepare for it. I think the great challenge was for me not using notes. As a public speaker, I tend to always speak with notes of some capacity, whether it’s the actual speech written out or just some sort of bullet points. So it really challenged me to come up with a very effective narrative arc that would make sense for me as I was actually giving the speech. So it wasn’t that I had notes to refer to but the story really kind of followed into a path that would make it easy for me to deliver it and easy for me to communicate it. I also had a very strict limit of time and wanted to really incorporate media elements as a part of my speech and so it was also challenging because the kind of, the number one rule was that you couldn’t talk about what you did. Like you couldn’t talk about your organization for more than just setting up what it was that you were going to be speaking about.

So, you know, I was talking about the transformative power of storytelling in areas that are going through recovery from massive situations whether it’s Haiti or New Orleans. These are experiences that I’ve had through my organization but haven’t – but wasn’t able to talk about Students of the World. So it was really – it was a really wonderful challenge because I recognized that when I often speak, I often speak about Students of the World, so this was really more about what do I believe in? What has Students of the World taught me? What do I think is a really important message that needs to be conveyed? And for me that I feel so passionate about places like New Orleans and Northern Uganda and Haiti, and the need for the continuous storytelling to come from these areas that have gone through earth-shattering, literally earth-shattering disasters, either man-made or environmentally made. So it was really – it was a nice opportunity to force me to really dig deep and figure out what I believe and how to communicate that effectively. And it was wonderful.

Courtney Spence on How Aspirations Change As Career Matures

In Chapter 4 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "How Are Your Aspirations Change As Your Experience Grows?"  After 12 years building a program, she finds an urgency to do more to tell the stories of progress that will educate students, life non-profits, and transform communities in need.  Through the process, she builds confidence, reaffirms her conviction to her cause, and gathers experiences and skills to elevate organizational aims further.  Courtney Spence returns to Capture Your Flag for her Year 3 interview.  As Founder and Executive Director, Spence leads non-profit Students of the World to empower college students to use film, photography, and journalism to tell stories of global issues and the organizations working to address them.  Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How are your aspirations changing as your experience grows?

Courtney Spence: My aspirations are changing drastically. And I think what has happened for me is the blinders were lifted a bit and I recognized that when – as we start to really cultivate, you know, our vision and what we believe in and as I was alluding to earlier like being able to articulate not what we do but what we believe in made me realize that we could be doing so much more. And when we really believe that we wanna change the dialogue from problems to progress, when we really believe that the greatest contribution that the millennial generation can give right now is through media and communications and we believe and know that there are non-profits and causes who desperately need their stories told, and we live in a society that needs to hear those stories, then all of a sudden, we realized we got a big job to go do.

I love the program that we have run to date, but, man, we gotta do more. And there is an urgency to that drive, and there’s this real knowledge that we have something to give the world that the world needs. And there’s no ego in that, it’s just we have a concept and we’ve been in this space and we’ve done a lot of the hard work and really kept our head down when we did that work, and all of a sudden, it’s like I looked up and I was like, but, you know, there are so many more stories that need to be told, there are so many more students that wanna get involved in this kind of work, there are so many 20-something and 30-something individuals that wanna give their time and their talents, and they just don’t necessarily have that outlet or know how, so as I am maturing as an individual, I think I’m also gaining more confidence in the kind of work that I can go do.

Quite honestly, when I was given an opportunity to give a TED talk, I was pretty shocked, I was like, wow, I mean, do I – what am I gonna talk about? And not to say that I’m an expert by any means, but I’ve started to recognize that I’m not 22 any longer, I’m 32, I’ve been doing this Students of the World gig for 12 years, that’s a long time. I don’t think that I really understood how long of a time that was, you know, I think in a lot of ways, I had been thinking as if I was a 23, 24-year-old that was just starting out in this endeavor but I’m not. And our organization is not, and our organization has matured. And we now stand on a foundation of a dozen years of really hard work and there is knowledge and there is understanding and there is compassion that comes from that. And so we’re gonna use that and go do something even bigger than I had dreamed we could ever do. So, it’s changing.

Courtney Spence on How Personal Priorities Change With Age

In Chapter 6 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "How Are Your Personal Priorities Changing As You Get Older?"  Spence shares her challenge with cultivating a meaningful life outside work.  She details how in the months before the interview, she has learned the personal and professional benefits of making her personal life a priority.  Courtney Spence returns to Capture Your Flag for her Year 3 interview.  As Founder and Executive Director, Spence leads non-profit Students of the World to empower college students to use film, photography, and journalism to tell stories of global issues and the organizations working to address them.  Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How are your personal priorities changing as you get older?

Courtney Spence: I just realized, literally in the last 2 weeks, I never really prioritized having a life outside of Students of the World. And if I started to have one, I felt guilty about it. And I didn’t realize this. I’ve always been someone that works hard and I’m fortunate that I get to work hard on something that I believe in and something that I helped to create or I created, and it’s something that I love to do, so it doesn’t feel like work, it doesn’t feel like a job. But I didn’t – I didn’t really allow for myself to truly cultivate a life outside of that. I think that there are times I thought I did but in reality I think my mind and my heart was always focused on Students of the World.

So part of the last – the evolution of these last 6 months as well as Students of the World is growing and I think I’m growing as a person too and recognizing that having a life – a meaningful life outside of Students of the World actually makes me more effective at what I do for Students of the World, and it makes me a more effective leader. It makes me more efficient in the way that I work. It’s a motivator to do really great work and do it well, and do it in maybe a little bit less time because I gotta do some other things outside of it.

So my priorities are definitely shifting and it’s still in line with wanting to move the ball forward with Students of the World and what we’re trying to do and really change the narrative, nationally, internationally, from problems to progress, I mean we – it’s all in line with that big goal that I have but it’s also motivated by the understanding that I need to have that as a priority as well in terms of my personal life and my relationships, and to take care of myself perhaps better than I have before, so I can take care of the people I love, and an organization that I love as well.

Courtney Spence on Comparing Non-Profit Leadership and Management

In Chapter 8 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "How Do Leadership and Management Differ in What You Do?"  Spence shares how both leadership and management play into her Executive Director work in the midst of her organizational growth phase.  She details the vision casting elements of leadership and the one-on-one nature of management in describing the differences.  Courtney Spence returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview.  As Founder and Executive Director, Spence leads non-profit Students of the World to empower college students to use film, photography, and journalism to tell stories of global issues and the organizations working to address them.  Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How do leadership and management differ in what you do?

Courtney Spence: Leadership is about setting the big goals and having the vision and having the guts to go after it, and having the ability to be confident even in the times when you’re not wholly confident, and I’m not saying it’s an act, I think there is an essential quality of a leader to be honest in the moment and as, you know, we’re going through a time of scale and growth, it is scary, it is exciting but it’s also scary, and I think being able to acknowledge that fully to the people that you’re working with and that work for you, is really important, but it’s also really important to stay really strong emotionally and stay really strong in your convictions. And kind of set that tone as you head upward or westward or wherever that looks like.

Management to me is about – is much more a one-on-one relationship and helping people continue to stay on that path with the organization, and with the leadership that’s been provided, and really making sure that everybody has a say in that and is a part of that, and feels engaged in the big vision, and engaged in how we’re gonna get there. And that they are encouraged when they need to be, but also that, you know, if certain people are starting to fall off, or this isn’t the right journey for them, being able to see that as it cultivates and really anticipate that before it becomes an issue. And I think that management to me is a much more personal one-on-one relationship and leadership is much more of here we are, big family, and we’re headed west, and this is what we’re gonna go do. So they’re very different but they’re very – they’re equally important and equally challenging too.

Courtney Spence on How Recruiting Priorities Change as Non-Profit Grows

In Chapter 9 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "How Are Your Recruiting Priorities Changing As Your Organization Grows?"  Referencing Jim Collins, author of "Built to Last", Spence notes how it is about getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats.  She shares how growth requires more specialization in job description and greater demand for positive minded team members who critique constructively.  As Founder and Executive Director, Spence leads non-profit Students of the World to empower college students to use film, photography, and journalism to tell stories of global issues and the organizations working to address them.  Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How are your recruiting priorities changing as your organization grows?

Courtney Spence: So – I know I talk about Jim Collins a lot but he always talks about the importance of getting the right people on the bus. And, you know, the right people in the right seats on the bus is really, really important and I think that the growth that we have gone through this last half year went from a core staff of 3 that did all things all the time always, all 3 of us, to a staff including volunteers of 12 to 15 where everybody has a defined role and responsibility. Now, granted there’s a lot of fluidity to that definition, we’re still a scrappy, boot-strapping type organization but I’ve recognized the importance of not just getting the right people on but the right people in the right seats.

And the importance of getting people who are really motivated by the vision that you have, and they might differ on how we get to that vision and you want them to challenge you on decisions you make, and you want them to be part of shaping the how we get there, but you cannot, absolutely cannot especially in times of growth and scale, have people on board that are naysayers for the sake of saying nay. You know, you can’t have people that are gonna be challenging and critical because that might be his or her nature, you can’t have people that are challenging and critical because they are scared about the direction you’re going in.

You really need to find people that are gonna be challenging and critical for the ultimate purpose of getting to that vision more effectively and more quickly and more meaningfully than you might know, if that make sense, so I think the – my recruiting and my understanding of who are the people that we wanna add onto our family has really, really matured in the last 6 to 9 months significantly.

Courtney Spence on How to Increase Alumni Community Engagement

In Chapter 10 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "What Steps Are You Taking to Create a More Engaged Alumni Community?"  Spence details how her organization is creating in-person programs to bring her alumni together and strengthen the kinship and bonds across graduating years.  Courtney Spence returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview.  As Founder and Executive Director, Spence leads non-profit Students of the World to empower college students to use film, photography, and journalism to tell stories of global issues and the organizations working to address them.  Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What steps are you taking to create a more engaged alumni community?

Courtney Spence: So we’ve had about 300 alumni go through the program to date. And this last August we held our first Students of the World summit and we called it “re-engaged for good”. And it was really targeted at our alumni, we invited past partners and speakers, and thought leaders in the realm of, you know, film and communications and development. But we really focused on bringing together our core alumni. And it was the first time that we’d ever physically brought together our community into a space. And in a day and age where you have, you know, the ability to do Brady Bunch video, you know, calls through Skype or Google, you have all of these ways to connect with people virtually, I think what I realized in August was you can never – we will never be able to replace what happens when you bring people together in person. And there is such a need for that. And it’s – it needs to be done well and for the right purpose.

So when we brought our alumni together, whether it was listening to great speakers or having margaritas, I just got to see our alumni interact in ways that they had never have been able to interact before and the hugs and the tears and the enthusiasm that came out of that weekend was – It blew me away. And I recognize that, you know, whether or not they participated in Students of the World 12 years ago and went to Russia or they were in Tanzania last year, there’s a common experience that has been had and there’s a common thread for a majority of our alumni that make me realize that they need to know each other. They need that encouragement of that community. And we are the only ones that can provide that.

So we’ve really focused on building out an alumni board. We had a founding year of an alumni board that we selected and then this last year we actually accepted applications and we have a really great kind of diverse group of individuals that are committed to really bringing our alumni community together. And, you know, these are people that are wonderful, wonderful individuals that if I have to go war, I wanna go to war with them. And it’s really up to us to bring them together. So it’s been a big focus for us and one that I’m really excited to see grow over the next couple of years.

Courtney Spence on How to Effectively Delegate Responsibliity

In Chapter 11 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "How Are You Learning to More Effectively Hand Off Responsibility?"  As an organization founder, after years feeling she knew best, Spence learns to trust her team with roles and tasks she previously held.  She realizes she is not the best person for many roles and turns her attention toward supporting those that best perform in those roles.  Courtney Spence returns to CYF for her Year 3 interview.  As Founder and Executive Director, Spence leads non-profit Students of the World to empower college students to use film, photography, and journalism to tell stories of global issues and the organizations working to address them.  Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to more effectively hand off responsibility?

Courtney Spence: I’m learning a lot about handing off responsibility. I think that as a founder, you know, there’s founder syndrome, and there’s tons of articles and books written about it, but I do think that for many years it was – I felt that I always knew what was best from a big level to a very micro, small level. And what has been so powerful for me to see in the last few months is getting the right people on the right seat and the right place. They will make decisions and they will come up with ideas and solutions faster, better, smarter, more creatively than you ever could.

Now, they’re not gonna go necessarily run the organization now, I mean I’m still leading it and providing the leadership and the vision and, you know, the blood, sweat and tears of it. But I recognize that at some point that role will not be the role that I’m most effective at for the organization, just as I am now not the most effective person to do recruiting for our students necessarily, I’m not the most effective person in coming up with the curriculum and the programming for our students as they participate, we have people in our organization who are way smarter about that stuff than I ever would be. And it’s really exciting when you start to see as you hand off responsibility to others, see things happen in a way that you never dreamed it could. And I think that’s a very encouraging thing.

I needed to see that before I could really let go. At the same time, you also have to recognize that mistakes will happen and some things will slip through cracks but – I make mistakes all the time and things slip through the cracks for me all the time, and it’s not a matter of well, if I’d only been a part of that, this wouldn’t have happened. Those situations do arise but I think in general, when you have the team in place that you trust, handing over responsibility is absolutely essential, and you have to do it joyfully, willing-fully, and with great purpose. And that’s what we’re trying to do.