CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Jenni Morello is currently a Peace Corps volunteer stationed in Morocco since March 2006. She is calling from Ouarzazate, in the south of the country, a big film center. A number of films are being made there now, including one with Russell Crowe, but she is still waiting to see a star. In the meantime she is working as a health and sanitation volunteer, educating people about basic hygiene, water treatment, and painting murals with health messages.She is also instructing people in her village about AIDS. AIDS is starting to become a problem in Morocco, although it has the lowest infection rate in Africa. AIDS is often brought in from other countries and carried to the villages by husbands who work in cities and visit prostitutes. The government has good Arabic language education materials in the cities, but many village people cannot read Arabic or are illiterate, and education often relies on talking and murals. The rural population can be very conservative so Jenni, even though she speaks Berber, cannot talk about sex or sexual diseases because she is not married and it is assumed she knows nothing about sex. Jenni can tell women about AIDS as a disease and how it can be transmitted by infected henna needles and other non-sexual means.
After living with a family for a few months, Jenni moved into a small house of her own. It is too large for her, but she enjoys the privacy. The village just got electricity and village people are excited because they can watch TV on the satellite dish all the time, instead of just off a car battery for a few hours a night.
Jenni traveled abroad while in college, loved the experience and wanted more. The Peace Corps gave her a cross-cultural experience and enabled her to work in a sustainable way.
Her advice to social entrepreneurs: “Understand that things take a very long time. Get used to the fact that things may not always work out, and may not always get done, or done right. Don't focus on a schedule,” she adds, “and stay in good humor.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to her interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
John Shores has a long history with Peace Corps including six years as a Volunteer and eight more as Washington DC-based staff. In his first assignment, he was a technical advisor to Los Nevados National Park in the Central Cordillera of Colombia, and later in the National Parks & Wildlife Division in Bogotá. In the Dominican Republic he worked as an advisor to the Director of the new National Directorate for Parks.He joined the Peace Corps because he felt that he had benefited from 16 years of public education and wanted to give something back to the world.
He has consulted on environmental topics in more than 35 countries and has seen the emergence of some positive environmental social enterprise. His motivation is environmental protection, and he feels enterprises don't always achieve that. Attempts to blend business and sustainability for environmental protection and local income generation have grown. But there are often problems, usually the pressure on small entrepreneurs for immediate income. Local entrepreneurs are frequently cash poor and cannot generate early profits. Many cannot afford to take entrepreneurial risks because the consequences of failure are serious -- sometimes the next meal.
Agro-forestry and eco-tourism are two of a growing number of environmental trends in social enterprises.
• Agro-forestry -- often successful - is essentially mixing trees with agricultural crops to expand the tree cover, supply timber and non-timber forest products (fuel-wood is often the most important), enhance family nutrition, and increase the income of local people.
• Ecotourism is tricky because tourists demand standards and conditions that the local communities may not be able to provide easily and the missed expectations cause tensions. He recommends that social entrepreneurs in ecotourism explore The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) for best practices.
John also works with sustainable finance tools like national environmental funds, often established through debt-swaps or debt forgiveness, which are small foundations that select and promote the best NPOs in their own countries. He recommends to check the Conservation Finance Alliance for more on these tools.
He reminds social entrepreneurs to remember a saying from ecologists: Everything is connected to everything else. "It helps to be aware of the broader context so that when we solve one problem we don't create other problems elsewhere in the system. Keep the big picture in mind; seek wide advice on the ramifications of development first."
CLICK on the player above to listen to his interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Matt Kopac was in the Peace Corps in Benin between 2001 and 2003 in a mid-sized town, Djougou, near the border with Togo. He was a Small Enterprise Development Volunteer working with an agricultural credit union to create a microfinance program for women's groups, and developing courses in business management. Benin was one of his first trips outside the US and getting off the plane was a thrilling shock. There were some struggles, but once he made friends, adapted to the culture and learned the languages, he had one of his most meaningful experiences of his life.He decided to join the Peace Corps in high school although he was not completely sure what it was, but he knew it offered the opportunity to be of service and to see the world. He also had the opportunity in high school to sing the soundtrack of the film, The Power of One, about the transformation of South Africa during apartheid. The injustice and the haunting beauty of the music resonated with him, and he decided to go to Africa. Five years later he got his chance.
Matt is currently a student at the Yale School of Management, where he focuses on community development finance. He is also General Manager of Food For Thought, a social venture coffee shop serving organic Fair Trade coffee and food. All the profits go to the Yale School of Management Internship Fund, which supports students who want to do public service summer internships.
His Peace Corps flight to Benin was scheduled to leave on September 12, 2001. It was delayed by the terrorists attack until October. When he arrived in Benin, there was an outpouring of sympathy from the Beninese people.
Matt was most inspired by Bilha Foussena, a primary school teacher who worked with him to teach courses on credit and business management to women’s groups. She also served as the intermediary between the women's groups and MFI's involved in micro loans. A widow, she was not subject to many of the same restrictions placed on women in the community, and she used this freedom to advocate for other women around her.
His advice to social entrepreneurs: “Get your feet dirty, listen to people – don’t come into a situation with a preconceived notion about what is needed. And don't wait to get started even if all the pieces don’t seem to be in place, and take risks – there is no time to waste.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to his interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Diane Davis was in the Peace Corps in Kenya from 2001-2003, working in a rural village near Kakamega. She taught HIV prevention in schools, women's groups, and orphanages. She joined the Peace Corps to satisfy her adventurous spirit and love of learning other cultures.While in Kenya, she raised money for the education of four neighbor children, three of whom have graduated from high school (which is not free in Kenya). She is now raising money to send them to college in Nairobi where they will learn marketable skills.
After the Peace Corps, she volunteered with the California Habeas Project, interviewing women serving life sentences for crimes related to intimate partner violence. Diane’s reports were used to recruit defense attorneys for the women.
Diane also led youth groups to build homes for poor families in Mexico, enabling her to show American youth who have so much, to see how others live and how to share with them. Diane responded to Hurricane Katrina by volunteering with the Red Cross in Gulfport Mississippi. She recalls sitting on a porch, supporting a man in his grief who recently lost his wife due to the mold in their home. Diane believes that building relationships is essential to meeting needs.
One of Diane’s inspirations is her homestay mama in Kenya, a resourceful Kikuyu woman who has supported her family through growing and selling maize. When the prices dropped due to oversupply, she turned to Diane for advice. Diane mentioned women in other villages who were growing sunflowers and selling the oil. Her house mama took her advice planted several fields of sunflowers to harvest the seeds and make oil to support her family.
Her advice to social entrepreneurs: “Be adaptable and do not enter a new endeavor with a set paradigm because you need to be ready to have your paradigm shifted as you hear other peoples' stories.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to her interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Mary Balmaceda was in the Peace Corps from 1996 to 1998 in Benin, where she trained cotton producers to form credit unions to provide micro loans to farmers. The Peace Corps was a life-changing experience that started when she was 13. She was in Sierra Leone visiting her father stationed there with the UN Development Program when she met an exciting Peace Corps volunteer on a motorcycle. She thought to herself, “I want to do that!”She began her career as a marketer through an internship with the National Geographic Channel during her MBA studies at Georgetown University. She was hired as a full-time consultant after she graduated. While at National Geographic, and later at the Discovery Channel, she felt drawn back to social action. Through a Net Impact contact she was offered a job as Marketing Manager at the Calvert Foundation – the non-profit arm of Calvert Mutual Funds. It was a great opportunity to combine her interest in socially responsible investing, her marketing experience and her love for social action.
She is now Director of Marketing and Communication for Unitus, trying to reduce global poverty through microfinance. Unitus works with local microfinance institutions, helping them to get access to business tools and capital to scale up so they can serve more people. Unitus’s portfolio of partners now reach close to three million people.
Her job is to manage Unitus' print and media communications, branding, reports, website, and e-marketing campaigns - essentially everything to attract attention to Unitus, the social entrepreneurs they fund, and the mission of fighting global poverty.
She does not consider herself a social entrepreneur, but an accelerator of social entrepreneurs. Her advice: “Be persistent! Success comes when you persist against the odds, keep your eye on your ultimate vision and your mind on the people you are helping.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to her interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Luke Filose served in the Peace Corps in Mauritania from 2004 to 2005 after a career with international non-profits in the U.S. He had his first intensive overseas experience in Mauritania working with a micro-finance organization in a small town giving loans to women's groups. After Peace Corps he went to Chad to create a supply chain to distribute fuel-efficient cook stoves.He is now an MBA student at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley and considers himself a social entrepreneur studying new skills. He defines social entrepreneurship broadly, ranging from small micro-loan businesses to big socially responsible corporations. The key is to look at poverty through the lens of entrepreneurship. He was inspired in the Peace Corps by the women's groups he was giving loans to. The women really wanted to take control of their lives and build a future. Mostly illiterate, but very entrepreneurial, they persisted and overcame very difficult obstacles.
Luke is a Board Fellow with Lenders for Community Development, a U.S. domestic microlending organization. Lenders makes small business loans in the San Francisco Bay Area to give poor people an opportunity to get a foothold. He also worked with The Children of Uganda dance group that raises funds for HIV/AIDs orphans. He had just graduated from college when he encountered them at his job at a PR firm. They inspired him so much that he fell in love with Africa and dedicated himself to helping others. He feels there is tremendous potential and entrepreneurship in Africa.
His advice to fellow social entrepreneurs: “Keep an open mind and think big. Don't limit yourself to the non-profit world; big corporations and the civic sector are also part of the fight against poverty. And do not to forget your backyard – there is work that needs to be done close to home.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to her interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Meg Garlinghouse served in the Peace Corps in Niger from 1989 to 1992, running economic development projects. She was assigned to a millet seed center, millet being the most popular staple in Niger.She was first inspired by her eight-grade teacher, a returned Peace Corps volunteer. Then while Meg was in college earning degree in international public policy she interned at the U.S. State Department and decided she wanted to continue with a career in international policy. Her colleagues there suggested that the Peace Corps was the best way to get experience to continue on in the international policy field. "They were right. The Peace Corps experience was the best experience in my life and I believe is responsible for my success in the private sector today," she now says
Meg now works at Yahoo, a global brand and a huge online community, where she runs Yahoo for Good, which seeks to connect Yahoo's tools and communities with causes to change the world for the better. She focuses on Yahoo's major asset, the 550 million people who visit it every month from around the world. She conceives programs and campaigns that inspire and connect those 550 million people with great causes.
Even though she does not have an MBA, she knows business; she learned it at home. Her parents were business people who ran their house like a business, producing reports and budgets and conducting weekly meetings - even making Meg and her five siblings submit a budget for their allowances.
Despite the fact that Meg has raised millions of dollars and created some very high revenue generating projects, she does not consider herself a social entrepreneur and doesn’t feel she is in the same league. She does have the stamina and courage – the rational risk-seeking spirit of social entrepreneurs.
Her advice to social entrepreneurs: “Take advantage of the power of the Internet to make connections with people who want to support you. Use the Internet the way organizations like Kiva and Global Giving do. Use the Internet to find those individuals who can support you with money, ideas and advice.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to her interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Steve Wright was sent to Micronesia after completing training in Hawaii in 1989. He was stationed on Wolieye as a teacher after working on one of the smaller islands for a while. He contracted a life–threatening disease and had to be medivacd off the island on Christmas Day. Since Micronesia is a very remote place, he arrived in a hospital in Hawaii a week later after four very bumpy days on a fishing boat. Altogether, his experience changed the course of his career, and probably of his life.
He worked in education and spent nine years as a teacher and school administrator, where his experience was tied together with efforts to create connections to help his students understand a broader world.
He now works for the Salesforce Foundation, helping the non-profit sector use data more effectively. He helps them understand their baseline, their problems and their progress toward their missions. Salesforce.com sells a customer relationship management, an on-line service that allows organizations to collect the data most important to their mission, such as human resources case management.
Since he works with a foundation that does not generate revenue, he is not a social entrepreneur. But he is empowering social entrepreneurs around the world. Social entrepreneurship resonates with the business community. He is trying to leverage the business environment to help social entrepreneurs understand their progress in effectively spending their money and understanding their progress toward their goals.
His advice to social entrepreneurs and would-be social entrepreneurs: “Maintain rigor on using data to measure your social impact and keep it pre-eminent. The bottom line is a better world; not more revenue.” He urges social entrepreneurs to use data to understand their progress both internally and across sectors.
CLICK on the player above to listen to his interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this ten minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
John Hatch was in the Peace Corps from 1962 to1964 in Colombia, where he was an urban community development volunteer. In 1965 he returned to Peru where he supervised 65 volunteers in an agricultural cooperative.
In 1984, he built FINCA on the village-banking model, very much like a savings and loan group run by the villagers. FINCA loans money to small groups, which in turn loan it to the people in the village. Groups meet weekly in the home of one of the members, which creates a place to save and develop the personal power that comes from financial independence. FINCA’s research shows that the average business generates $3 a day in per capita income.
FINCA focuses its loans on women because “they are the pillars of the village and the best way to guarantee that the money earned goes to support the family. The men often spend money in the cantina... With women, you can be sure that 98 cents of every dollar is going to benefit the children in food, education and health care.”
John Hatch created an intern program in which 50 interns used Palm PDAs, into which FINCA had programmed a 15 minute long questionnaire, to interview borrowers. They came back with useful data and also with fire in the belly because they had seen what microfinance could do. They wanted to continue their career in microfinance.
Hatch's inspiration to create FINCA came from a very simple thought: “people should be in charge of their own banking system.” This was a basic lesson from the Peace Corps –people often know how to organize solutions to their problems but don’t always get a chance to do it. When you organize development from the bottom up, where people are in charge of managing themselves, it creates loyalty an strength and ownership. The Peace Corps was the inspiration for FINCA.
FINCA is a non profit, but is self-sufficient; it raises about 108% of its operating costs and every country program is also self-sufficient after 3 to 5 years. The country programs send a royalty to FINCA international – making FINCA the most self-sustain microfinance organization on the planet.
John Hatch is a social entrepreneur. "The business must be generating not only profits, but also impact that benefits poor people, like the number of children in school and how much the economy is growing."
His advice for other social entrepreneurs: “Never give up on your vision! Refuse to let pessimism stop you –ignore it. Act on your vision and it will manifest itself in reality. Never get discouraged.”
John Hatch now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he actively campaigns for an end to global poverty by the year 2025.
CLICK on the player above to listen to his interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Dr. Judi Aubel served in the Peace Corps in Ivory Coast (1970-1972) working up-country, teaching English in a secondary school.
She was always interested in languages and other cultures, and she studied international relations and African studies at UCLA. In the secondary school where she taught English, the students were from 30 different ethnic groups. This experience was an on-the-ground opportunity to learn a lot about different cultures and languages.
Dr. Judi Aubel is now leading The Grandmother Project, an American non profit she co- founded two and half years ago based on 10 years of work developing a grandmother-inclusive approach to maternal and child health programs.
For the past 20 years she has worked with numerous community health programs, mostly in Africa, but also in Asia and Latin America. She realized that most of the maternal and child health programs focus on young women of reproductive age and their children, while ignoring the senior women, or grandmothers. In Western-oriented programs, development staff often makes the assumption that young women are autonomous to make all health care decisions themselves.
This approach, which leaves out the senior women in the community (the mothers-in-law and aunties and grandmothers) who are the def facto advisors to younger women, is neither culturally appropriate nor effective. She decided that the senior women as well as the younger mothers should be involved to insure that these programs not only have an impact but also build on cultural roles. She founded the Grandmothers Project to strengthen grandmothers' roles as family advisors on health and education, and to strengthen intergenerational communication.
The Grandmother Project does not work independently, but likes to assist other organizations, such as Helen Keller International in Mali, World Vision in Senegal or UNICEF in Djibouti, to integrate an intergenerational dimension into their early childhood and community health programs, to "put grandmothers on the map" as Judi Aubel likes to say.
She feels that western aid programs invariably base their approaches on the western model of the nuclear family – as opposed to an extended family or village in which there are other familial and cultural influences that impact women’s attitudes and practices. Her training in anthropology gives her a more holistic or systems view of life as opposed to the view associated with medical training, which can be focused on individuals.
Her advice to social entrepreneur: “Put together a team of people who really understand and believe in the cause you are promoting.” In her case, she put together a team of people (some of whom are former Peace Corps volunteers) who have skills in program planning and management but who also are committed to the goals of the Grandmother Project. They can serve as advocates for an idea that is still not readily accepted in the development community.
CLICK on the player above to listen to her interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Phil sees himself as a social entrepreneur – he is providing a service in a non-static way. Part of the teaching at camp is how to prevent AIDS. He is giving the children a platform where they can find answers themselves and hopes the lessons they learn in camp become part of their inner beings, especially AIDS avoidance.
This is a departure from the usual rote-learning model. He was afraid this would be a problem along with bringing talk of sex and AIDS home, where it is usually not discussed. But the parents did not object. He has heard nothing negative in the four years he has been running the camp and taught 3,000 children.
His advice to other social entrepreneurs: “When you have a skill, go with what you think is right. Don't take giant steps until you follow the basic steps and things are lining up; then move ahead. Don't get discouraged by the scale of the problem. Do what you can – I am trying to solve AIDS 137 kids at a time.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to his interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Tony Zola was in the Peace Corps in Thailand from 1970 to 1972. He joined the Peace Corps as a stepping-stone to joining the US professional diplomatic corps, but it didn't work out that way. After his Peace Corps service, he went to work as a consultant in the region and never returned to his idea of the Foreign Service. He now has his own consulting firm, the MIDAS Agronomics Company, advising developing projects and others in the region.
A few years ago he was asked to consult to the Princess Mother's Foundation (the mother of the King of Thailand) on the Doi Tung Project help villagers grow crops other than opium. Today the mountain is free of opium production and has secondary schools, running water and a sanitation system. The development project has become a model for alternative sustainable livelihood development and has won a UN award.
He recently founded the Doi Tung Center for Social Entrepreneurship to spread the model around the region, including in Myanmar, Afghanistan and Indonesia where he successfully implemented several opium replacement projects. Each location involved a different approach, customized to the people there, and each has been successful, thanks to the use of micro credit and training in entrepreneurship.
Tony did not realize that he was a social entrepreneur until recently; he thought of himself as a consultant. He sees entrepreneurship as providing people with what they are looking for; helping theme design products they need and that they can sell to others, bettering their own lives in the process.
His advice to entrepreneurs and would be social entrepreneurs: “Be persistent. Have a vision, have a sound project, make sure your management is good. And be dedicated and determined. Also understand that some projects will take time. It may take 30 years, while many funders have 3 -5 year time horizons. It may take much longer – so be persistent.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to his interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Lynne Moquete joined the Peace Corps after being in a service program called Mexico Outreach and she wanted to continue working to help others. The idea of the Peace Corps came to her on a plane ride when her seatmate who had been in the Corps told her about it. She decided soon afterward that the Peace Corps was what she wanted to do.
She learned to fix plumbing, dig latrines and repair homes, and she learned from the people of the village. She realized that she and other volunteers could help facilitate things, but it was the villagers who did the teaching.
She later started Building Dreams, Building Hopes to build houses, repair homes, do plumbing, build latrines….whatever a village would need.
She says she now understands that she is a social entrepreneur. She feels that the world would work better if each of us took our gifts and worked for the betterment of humanity – if we were all social entrepreneurs. Her skill is teaching, so she gives back through teaching. Her work in the Peace Corps was a life changing event for her, living with people who were so full of love and generosity.
She advises other social entrepreneurs to understand that “everyone is gifted in a different way. It is not about competition, it is about helping people. If we can work together, in the end the world will be complete and beautiful. We all have to do our part.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to her interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this eight minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Stephanie served in the Peace Corps in Mali, where she was a Natural Resource Specialist, teaching environmental education to village children and doing side projects that the villagers needed.
She joined the Peace Corps after traveling abroad with AFS in high school and spending Semester at Sea in college (Semester at Sea is a program in which students live and travel on a large sailboat and visit and stay in ten countries during the semester).
Semester at Sea was a jolting experience for her because she would spend days with very poor people, then go back at night to a luxury ship.
Stephanie Tolk started The Pangaea Project, an unusual endeavor that empowers Portland’s at-risk youth to become local leaders with a global perspective, a 10-month program that includes a month outside the U.S. They learn about the social justice components both locally and through "change makers" – people who are making a difference in the world.
This year they visited Ecuador. They traveled all over the country, met change makers there and visited development projects to learn lessons and techniques that might actually work in Portland.
They also lived with local families and completed a service project, getting immersed in the culture and developing the empathy they need to understand the country they are in. Many of these kids are very at-risk, but we see a lot of leadership potential in them, Stephanie says in this interview. Most of them, she adds, would never have a chance to travel outside the U.S.
She is a true social entrepreneur herself and trains future social entrepreneurs in the Pangaea Project. She thinks a social entrepreneur recognizes a need in a community and innovatively tries to address it and create social change. There are lots of people re-inventing the wheel to correct social problems –but true entrepreneurs try something different.
Her advice to other entrepreneurs: “Keep plugging away to manifest your dreams.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to her interview.
CLICK on the player to listen to this seven minute interview, or on the link below to download the audio file to your desktop.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Brian Williams was in the Peace Corps twice, in Nepal and then in Guatemala.
In Nepal he taught English and math in grammar school and then served as a community educator and resource volunteer for environmental education. In Guatemala he worked in conservation, his real passion. He prepared himself to switch between the very different cultures of Nepal and Guatemala by shaving his head in the month between tours.
His conservation passion existed from his childhood and was rekindled when he saw how little forest was left in Nepal. He realized that conservation work was based on science, and he returned to college to get a Master’s Degree in conservation and ultimately founded the Red Panda Project.
Brian set up a protected forest and conservation project that includes training local people to guard the forest. He understands that community-based conservation is the only way to insure long-term protection of the area. The Project undertakes community-based research and protection centered around Forest Guardians –local villagers who monitor the community's forest and advocate for the forest and the community.
The funding comes from donors who give through the website, and though revenue-sharing partnerships with zoos in San Diego, Rotterdam and other cities. The Red Panda Project is also funded by the Critical Ecosystem Fund.
Brian sees himself as a social entrepreneur and plans to create sustainable youth groups as his next step in the Red Panda Project. For him, any person in any sector who is focused on more than one bottom line is a social entrepreneur. The Red Panda Project is designed to demonstrate that economic development and conservation can exist hand in hand.
His advice for other social entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs: “Never fear your dreams – you can always accomplish what you set your mind to. And you can achieve a bottom line and make a difference at the same time."
CLICK on the player above to listen to his interview.