Hey, I've got a gig!

I'm taking an important step in gaining some credibility in the non-profit space. I've just started working with SOTENI, a non-profit organization aimed at fighting AIDS in rural Kenya. As most of you know, my interests are focused on international organizations with a focus on either health or economic development. There are so few of those types of organizations in Cincinnati, but I feel really lucky to have discovered SOTENI. 

The organization was founded by Victoria Wulsin, whom you might know by her recent Congressional bid against Jean Schmidt. Victoria is actually an epidemiologist by formal training, and that knowledge led her to create SOTENI, an organization aimed at using education to help stem the spread of AIDS in rural Kenya.

I met earlier this month with their Executive Director, Randie Marsh and a member of their Board, Chuck Hollis. Its clear that SOTENI is led by passionate people who are committed to seeing it succeed and grow its mission.

The opportunity I laid out for them is to provide Monitoring and Evaluation help. By helping them better measure the effectiveness of their programs, I hope to help them parlay that knowledge into improved operations, and a better ability to secure additional funding. As I've noticed in my review of the non-profit space, M&E is routinely cited as a critical need but one that is difficult to meet. Its just so hard for leadership to get their hands around WHAT to measure, and HOW to measure it. And the problem is exacerbated by the knowledge that funds spent against M&E today will take away money from current field operations -- your classic vicious cycle. Lack of money makes it hard to fund M&E which makes it hard to justify future funding for the program which further reduces the ability to fund M&E (and on and on).

By providing my services to SOTENI, I hope to create that initial bridge that helps me transform my program evaluation skills into the non-profit arena. My effort here should be unfolding over the next 3-6 months and I'll use some of my future posts to keep a running dialog of what I'm learning as I go along.

Another good step on the journey.

Prodigal Son or Portugal Sun?

I know its been way too long since my last post, but I’m back now (the prodigal son returns). I should have warned all of my friends that I was going on vacation(s) for a couple of months. People apparently thought that I might have died. For the record, I did not die.  

Most recently, Megan and I spent a couple of weeks in Europe. We loved Portugal especially, the beaches there are amazing! The whole trip was really quite wonderful, but the dollar/Euro conversion makes every purchase (from coffee to clothes) a bit of a hard swallow.

And I might as well fess up that I actually have one more trip scheduled for next week, but for all intents and purposes, the partying is over and I’m ready to get back to work.

When I last posted, I felt pretty clear that I was planning to pursue dual paths – starting my own consulting company and working for an established organization. I’m still firm on that general plan, but I’ve gotten a bit more interested in working on the governmental side of things versus the non-governmental world.

During my most recent trip, we spent some time in Portugal with our friends Beth and Marv. These are the folks who actually introduced me to Megan so they have been an important part of my life for quite a while. It was great to see them, and in fact, our visit got me thinking about the possibilities of engaging my passion a bit differently.

Marvin is a consultant with NATO and he and I spent some time talking about NATO’s mission post cold war – its really quite fascinating. What you have is an organization that has been evolving its role and shifting its deployment strategy to better support nation stabilization as well as disaster relief and recovery. Its an organization that still manages considerable assets although many folks (myself included) have viewed them as a somewhat antiquated structure, born from a need that no longer exists. NATO is now a first-in organization in many disaster relief situations and when asked (as is increasingly the case), they are available to provide ongoing recovery support. As a next step, Marvin has offered to help me connect with an EU economist and ambassador to help me learn more about what’s possible here. While I’m not interested in the more military aspects of how NATO provides support, I am interested in their humanitarian efforts as directed/requested by the UN.

Beth also provided me with some food for thought. She encouraged me to connect on the straight-up political side of things. Her rolodex connections include former congressman Tony Hall who has been a longtime supporter of hunger relief efforts in Africa and Asia and who is currently working on Middle East issues. The idea of supporting within the political realm is a little hard for me to imagine for myself, but that could just be the bias of someone who has made a judgment from the outside without really understanding what’s going on. Without a doubt, there are more broad-based ways of helping out if pursued through the political arena. I’m still mulling this one over, but I’ll admit that there is some allure here…

Chasing Dual Paths

It’s been a while since I posted, so I thought it was time to provide an update. As many of you know, I’m finishing up my last few days at Bridge Worldwide. My official last day will be Friday, June 27th. We’re still working out my role with the agency post-departure, but I’ll be sitting on our Advisory Board for the time being. There might be a better way to stay involved, but for now, participating as an Advisory Board member seems to make the most sense.

In terms of what’s next for me, I believe I’ve settled on two complementary paths.

The first is to start my own organization aimed at supporting not-for-profits. It will be a consultancy aimed initially at program measurement and evaluation, but it might expand into some other strength areas of mine over time. Measurement and Evaluation is becoming critically important at most non-profits – they are the evidence that programs are delivering or failing. That evidence helps create the case to continue or kill programs. And from my read of the existing literature it looks as though too much energy is placed on the quantity and comprehensiveness of M&E data and not enough on what that data really means. That’s my opportunity. For the business itself, I’m still determining whether this will be a solo venture to start out or if I’ll begin with a partner. I’m working that out over the next several weeks and at the same time, beginning to dig into the hard work of creating a real business plan.

The second path is to work for a small non-profit with an international/developing world focus. I’m envisioning this to be a part-time role that lets me gain deep and direct access to the aid programs I find most interesting (economic development, education and health). I believe that this will really inform the work that I want to do on my own business (and add lots of credibility too). I’d still put Concern Worldwide at the top of my short list (and I’m still working with them to explore opportunities – it takes time), but my criteria are broad enough that I can make any of a large number of organizations fit my needs/desires on this front.

From previous posts, I’m sure you can see the transition in my interests from larger organizations to smaller organizations. You can also see the consistent desire for entrepreneurship. That bug bit me a long time ago and I doubt I’ll ever be able to shake it. This dual path strategy that I’ve mapped out has me feeling really excited and energized. And of course, it also has me quite terrified. This next year will be the most challenging one I’ve faced in a loooong time and that feels really, really good.

Maybe Smaller is Better

My last several posts have focused on my entrepreneurial interests. I'm very excited by the opportunities there and I'm sure that I will continue down that path. 

But I continue to be interested in working with an established organization too. I want to learn how non-profits work from the inside. And in particular, I want to learn how to support international aid efforts. My previous work experience hasn't really given me much international exposure and I believe that I need that to really deliver on the commitment that I've made to myself -- the one that has gotten me started in this career-switch to begin with. In other words, I believe I'd be happiest if I could pursue something entrepreneurial AND something more formal that already exists.

What I think I'm learning is that I'd be better off trying to work for a smaller, international organization.  I got some good insight into this via a recent phone interview that I did with a development economist focused on Eastern Africa. She's done work with many of the larger organizations (including the World Bank) on issues like gender violence, rural development and human capital investments (education, health, nutrition). As I described my situation, she cited three reasons why larger organizations and the World Bank in particular, might not be a good fit for me. First, she described a mind-numbing level of bureaucracy -- something that would be very difficult for me to deal with. Second, I'm an American, and its just not easy to get into the World Bank, the UN or its related organizations as an American. Its not impossible, but its a drawback. And third, my lack of direct experience in the non-profit world will make it very difficult for me to break into these organizations.

So, perhaps a smaller organization would be the more sensible way to try and break in. She suggested that I might actually need to consider taking on pro bono work or doing an internship to help me build my creds. I'm very open to this idea and in fact, this might be exactly the right way to explore a brand new industry.

Recall my post on the Congo a few weeks back. Concern Worldwide is a smaller international organization (about $10-12 million operating budget). Perhaps this could be a good place to explore. I reached out to them recently and connected with their Director of Operations.  I'm hoping for a call soon from their HR folks to explore opportunities with them -- perhaps in the area of Monitoring and Evaluation (e.g., measuring program success). Another step I'm now taking is to identify a list of prospective companies with international focus but that have relatively small operating budgets.

Nudges in Action

I noticed that I’ve started a number of streams in previous entries and haven’t provided any follow ups. I’ll try to do a better job of reaching back and touching those threads from now on. Recall my “nudges” post from a few weeks back. I continue to be really interested in this idea and I’ve been trying to figure out ways to use nudges for good causes. My friend Willie and I have been playing around with two different ideas.

The first is to leverage affiliate marketing programs. Affiliate marketing (per Wikipedia) is a web-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts. So, in other words, if you put a link for Amazon on your blog and people click on it to make a purchase of something, you can get a small cut of that back from Amazon for the referral.

Many organizations are including affiliate marketing programs to raise money for charity. Wikipedia makes a brief reference to this practice in their entry on Cause Marketing -- Affiliate marketing is becoming increasingly popular with online retailers many of whom use affiliate marketing to pass donations on to charities, supporters of the charities shop through affiliate links in order to gain commission for the charity. One prominent example of this is The Royal British Legion using a webshop shopping portal to raise funds whilst passing on sales to retailers.

So, building on this idea, I want to build a shopping portal for a charity and include occasional nudges to spur more activity (and hence more commissions) for the charitable organization. I found a willing partner to conduct some initial experiments in the League for Animal Welfare (http://www.lfaw.org/). Our agency has done pro-bono work for them in the past and they are a really good organization (LFAW is locally based, no-kill shelter that places a premium on making good matches between the animals in their care and prospective new pet “parents”.) Willie and I (and hopefully some more folks at our agency) will be creating a beta site for them soon as an inital step. Think of the site as a LFAW-branded shopping portal that would become your homepage when you initially get online. So each time you logged on, you might see a little reminder about the good that the League does and how your use of the portal is doing good for so many dogs and cats that need homes. Those nudges should in turn lead to increased purchases and a small but growing revenue stream for the League. I’ll be sure to post the link when its ready.

The second idea is to build a widget that helps people track their donations online. I tend to make lots of small online donations throughout the year, but during tax season I never seem to be able to track down all those little donations to itemize on my return. The widget (or gadget) behind this idea would be a little desktop tool that you would keep active and then update after each online donation. I’ve created a clickable prototype version of that widget here (definitely just the 1.0 version). I’m not sure if this idea has got legs or not. But if it does, I can imagine a scenario where people download the widget and get occasional nudges that would spur them to even greater philanthropic action. The truth is that most of us are motivated to do good, but its not always top-of-mind to find opportunities to do good. This widget is intended to keep those opportunities top-of-mind (and hopefully solve a meaningful consumer problem at the same time). Feel free to click around on this prototype and let me know if you think there’s an idea here.

A Loving Tribute?

My friends at Bridge Worldwide have apparently been planning my departure for some time. During a recent all-company event, two of our "house" bands battled it out for Bridge Worldwide supremacy.  The group Mystery Head performed the following "tribute" song (Steve Wolf) much to my amusement (and embarrassment). 

It feels good to know you are loved and it makes me even more determined to make the most of the opportunity I'm pursuing. Thanks Mystery Head -- you're the best!

You can take the boy out of the startup…

But you can’t take the startup out of the boy. Over the last several weeks, I can see my interests shifting away from super-large institutions and back towards startup-style organizations. I suspect that this may be a reaction to my fear of losing personal control if I join a larger organization. I don’t want to run the risk of seeing good ideas from me (or my fictional team) getting killed for reasons I’m not privy to. And I like the energy of small, entrepreneurial organizations. I like being part of a nimble organization that can adjust course quickly when conditions change.

At the same time, this brings to light the problem I’ve been working against my whole life. When you’re in a big organization, you have the resources you need but the organization typically lacks the focus and agility needed to act quickly and with full effect. When you’re in a small organization, you can easily get everyone aligned and working as hard as possible towards the goal, but you lack the resources to deliver at the level of scale needed to make a major impact.

One of the places where this seems to be leading me is to think about the venture capital model – the VC model instructs you to create a robust platform, prove out your model and then rapidly scale. I find myself consistently attracted to these kinds of small, but scalable opportunities. Here’s a recent example. My friend Scott shared a link with me from a recent PBS episode dealing with the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (its long so if you choose to watch it, know what you're getting into). As you might know, the DRC (formerly Zaire) has been going through a civil war for several years but is currently experiencing a period of relative peace. Two aid organizations (Concern and Doctors without Borders) are actively trying to push as much aid as possible into the more remote regions of the DRC during this quiet period. Their problem is that they can’t get the provisions in using trucks because the roads are so bad. Their solution: bicycles. Using a bank of about 70 bikes they can move in about 7 tons of supplies in a few weeks. This is far short of the 40 tons of supplies that they would like to distribute, but it’s a step in the right direction. And beyond the positive impact of getting the supplies in, there is also the additional benefit of job creation -- each bicycle courier is paid to deliver the aid which introduces additional capital into the local economy. Scott’s thought – how can we scale the bicycle solution?

This feels like a great local problem/solution pair with some pretty significant scale opportunities. The bikes can transport enough food/supplies to sustain thousands of people. What happens if we add more bikes? And/or what happens if we port this solution to the next country that needs aid and has terrible logistics infrastructure. What if I offered to start this program for Concern or Doctors without Borders? This would be an opportunity to still have significant control, but also have the opportunity to have a large impact.

I’m not convinced that this bicycle idea is THE idea for me by any stretch, but this is the KIND of idea that I’m finding more interesting than just plugging myself into an existing organization and letting them tell me what they want me to do. I’m not sure if I’m being smart or egotistical (probably both). I’m not swearing off the idea of working for a large organization, but this shift in my thinking feels somewhat concrete. There’s something satisfying about that.

Nudging the World Towards Improvement

For the last five days, all I can think about are nudges. A nudge is a subtle influencer, a quiet reminder. Its a cue, a signal to gently push you towards an action. My wife, Megan, sent me a great article about nudges from the New York Times this week. The article talked about the kinds of nudges that can improve our lives in small ways. For example, the cafeteria that puts fruit at eye level and moves candy to a low traffic area nudges you to eat healthier. The company that pays you bi-weekly instead of twice a month nudges you towards saving more money (it turns out that people paid bi-weekly save more because they get two “extra” checks a year -- 26 pay periods versus 24 pay periods).

In a new book called Nudge (which I am currently devouring), Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler describe how nudges work. Essentially, nudges are about creating a meaningful “choice architecture” -- the context in which people make decisions. In other words, setting up the conditions for the individual to make the “proper” choice. Of course, the use of the word “proper” immediately raises concerns. Its easy to imagine people or organizations designing choice conditions that are not in the best interests of the end-user. But that’s not really what Sunstein and Thaler have in mind when they talk about nudges.

In many cases, nudges are simply intended to move us from “automatic” processing mode, to “reflective” processing mode. Returning to the cafeteria example above, the intention of the nudge is to get the lunch-time visitor to at least consider the apple over the Snickers bar (for those who know my personal nutrition habits, I’m sure you’re chuckling as you read this). What I love about nudges is their subtlety. I love incentives too -- incentives are like nudges but they’re just more obvious. Part of the reason incentives work is that we make them plainly known so that people can take advantage of them. Nudges operate quietly, eliciting desired behaviors without having to pay for it.

For the last five days, I’ve been thinking about nudges and seeing them everywhere. If you went online Saturday (March 29th), you likely saw Google’s “black” homepage -- a nudge about Earth Hour and the need for energy conservation (they are actually getting what I would consider to be silly backlash about their efforts). This is a perfect example of how I believe we can use nudges to improve the world every day. Google updates their homepage all the time -- why not take advantage of that fact by adding in a nudge that reminds people about the need for conservation. The experience planners behind Google’s homepage understand their role as choice architects and they are leveraging their fortunate position in a responsible way (consistent with Sunstein and Thaler’s vision).

The new challenge I take from this nudge-mindset is to find ways to consistently apply it. What are the ways that I can incorporate positive nudges into the experiences that I have a hand in designing? And I urge you (or nudge you if you prefer) to look for the opportunities to design positive nudges into the work that you do.

If you have thoughts about nudges or other examples of nudges, please share them. In my mind, nudges are small ideas with potentially big impacts.

Exploring Social Entrepreneurship

A few weeks ago, I wrote briefly about Muhammad Yunus (a former Vandy alum) and his micro-lending work with the Grameen Bank. Micro-lending is just one example of the new genre of philanthropy called social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship begins with the recognition of a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. It allows on-the-ground entrepreneurs in the developing world to gain access to the capital markets. This appeals to me because I believe that lasting change comes when those closest to the problem lift up both themselves and one another. Local businesses run by locals are uniquely positioned to leverage the strength and interdependence of the members of a community.

My friend Michael has been helping me learn more about social entrepreneurship. Michael is an extraordinarily bright guy whom I’ve gotten to know since he joined our agency about a year ago. He has an amusing penchant for transforming nouns into verbs. In Michael’s world, we don’t schedule appointments, we “calendar” them. He’s well connected in the venture capital world and there are in fact, a number of venture firms that have philanthropic arms that invest in social entrepreneurs. One of these philanthropic venture groups is run by Vinod Khosla, Sun founder and an early partner at Kleiner Perkins. Khosla Ventures is actively supporting social entrepreneurship in the areas of micro-finance, education, alternative energy, and global health (among others). This is one of the places that Michael is trying to help me make a connection.

Getting involved with a group like this might be an attractive alternative to the large aid organizations. I like the additional accountability that comes with these business-focused (yet still philanthropically motivated) organizations. I know that my personal strength is in evaluating business opportunities and leading results-driven organizations. I worry that I won’t be able to find like-minded people in the large aid organizations (or at least not enough of them).

To test out social entrepreneurship in action, I’ve recently invested in a small African company that provides eco-friendly safari tours in Kenya. As you likely know, Kenya has recently experienced signficant upheaval following its December elections. Kenyan politics tend to fall along tribal lines with no tribe comprising a majority of the population. The current President (Kibaki) is a member of the Kikuyu tribe. He “won” in the December election against Raila Odinga of the Luo tribe, but international election oversight groups cited significant irregularities in the election and did not endorse its result as democratically legitimate. The contentious relationship between Kibaki and Odinga (who used to be part of Kibaki’s cabinet) boiled over into violence for most of the month of January (approximately 1000 Kenyans were killed and numerous citizens were forcibly displaced from the Rift Valley). Kofi Annan has sinced stepped in and brokered a power-sharing arrangement between Kibaki and Odinga and tensions have eased over the last several weeks (Canada has just lifted its travel restrictions to Kenya -- as of this writing, the U.S. still has not).

Naturally, the violence and tumult has driven a dramatic downturn in the travel and tourism industry in Kenya and many businesses are suffering as a result. The eco-safari business that I’m supporting is simply one of the innocent bystanders in the situation. I’m still learning about this company and this industry so I’ll save a more thorough discussion of this investment for a future post, but I’m excited by the opportunity to get a first-hand look at social entrepreneurship in action.

Wolf's Uncertainty Principle

You Must Choose That Which You Do Not Know

- steve wolf (March 16th, 2008)

Heisenberg may have come up with the more scientifically enlightening uncertainty principle, but the one above is certainly weighing more heavily on my mind today.

My networking efforts to date are definitely helping-- they are pointing out the need for me to get more focused on what I specifically can bring to the not-for-profit party.

A friend of a friend who works at USAid wrote that, "recruitment in this community is demand-driven. (Steve) may be a person of great merit with lots of experience, but my guess is he can’t supply-drive the hiring process."

In other words, I can't just expect that people will be so blown away by my experience that they'll fall over backwards to offer me some sort of dream opportunity in their organization. At the same time, I got some comforting news that my entrepreneurial experience is likely to be considered a valuable skill in the not-for-profit world. Why? Fund-raising. There is an expectation that fund-raising is likely to be part of almost any not-for-profit role so the ability to help sell the plan behind my business will be viewed positively. Apparently, the Gates Foundation takes a consistently positive view of entrepreneurial experience.

But the overall challenge to get more focused is a bit disconcerting for me. Its the classic uncertainty problem. I need to make a decision about where to focus but I lack sufficient information about the organizations and opportunities to do so with any confidence.  Choose that which you do not know...

My strategy has been to delay the decision to gather more information but that won't be an appropriate strategy for much longer. Essentially, I believe I need to step up the efforts to circulate more directly within the target organizations of interest. The truth of it is that I still don't even have a bona-fide short list of target organizations, but I keep thinking that places like the World Bank or the Gates Foundation have got be somewhere high on that list (once it gets officially developed). Getting some informational interviews in those types of organizations will help clarify things for me I'm sure.

New resources that popped up through contacts this week include:

The Careers section of Philanthropy.com (the not-for-profit online newspaper) and another site called Guidestar. The Guidestar site provides overviews of charitable organizations and also provides budgets and some salary information. This could be really helpful in terms of sorting through organizations and getting to that bona-fide short list of places to actively target.

Is it OK to Bribe People to Do the Right Thing?

If you’re clicking through from an RSS feed, you know from the title that you’ve signed up for a longer post. Here goes.

It started on Friday. My friend Michael and I were talking about the “bountys” that are sometimes paid to motivate programmers to solve specific problems (e.g., I’ll pay $$ to anyone who can fix such and such bug in Firefox).

I really think the idea of a bounty is interesting and has potential play in the non-profit world. Making anything happen is usually just a process of finding the right set of incentives to drive the right behavior. But I hadn’t taken the thought of paying a bounty any further than that for the moment…

As I was noodling about the idea this weekend, the NYTimes Sunday Magazine arrived at the house. The Sunday Magazine is one of my favorite things in the world to read and this week’s was all about giving and philanthropy. As I started reading it, I came across an interesting article from Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner talking about business models to elicit more effective behavior in the non-profit world (see their related blog post here).

An emerging model in the minds of Levitt and Dubner is the idea of paying a bounty for progress against social issues. They specifically described the success of a program called Smile Train and contrasted its mission with Operation Smile.

Many of you have likely heard of Operation Smile, the non-profit organization that sends medical volunteers to developing nations to conduct surgeries on those with cleft lips or cleft palates. It’s a great organization that has made a big difference in a very focused way.

Smile Train on the other hand has taken a very different approach. They put their efforts into training medical professionals on-the-ground (who live in developing countries) to conduct the surgeries themselves. Very smart. But Smile Train is willing to go even further. They offer mid-wives roughly $10 to bring babies born with cleft lips and cleft palates to the hospital to have these surgeries. Why? Because in some developing nations, the shame of having a child with a cleft lip or cleft palate is so great, that the mid-wives will actually smother the infant to death rather than let it live a life of shame and poverty. So Smile Train decided to tackle that problem head-on by offering a bounty to the mid-wife to have them bring the children in for a cosmetic, but life-altering surgery. Very interesting. But is this an ethical way to use the money donated to Smile Train? I suppose that if there’s full disclosure, the ethical dilemma is reduced. So, for me personally, I can get over the ethical qualms about Smile Train’s approach pretty easily.

But my question is this: How far is too far when it comes to bribes for doing the right thing? Can I set up a bounty system to dis-incent the cultural (and sometimes religious) practice of female genital mutilation? In Kenya, can I pay off the Luos to stop forced relocation of the the Kikuyus? Can I pay off militias to keep them from stealing the food targeted for the starving populations in Somalia? How far is too far?

I love incentives. But I hate slippery slopes. If I wanted to leverage the idea of a bounty going forward, how far can I go? I’m interested in your perspective on this to help inform mine.

University Connections

Had another good networking opportunity come up just the other day… Hiring and developing a diverse work force is a key priority for our leadership team, and I’m currently leading a diversity initiative for us. As part of that effort, I reached out to the new Chair of the Marketing Department at Wright State University (Dr. James Munch). I did my undergraduate work at Wright State but its been years since I’ve been back on campus, so I called Jim to learn more about how the program has evolved and to understand the types of students that are currently graduating from the University. Had a great call with him and a couple of nice follow up email exchanges. I’m planning to make a campus visit soon to get set up with their placement office and to see ways to develop a more formal relationship between my agency and the University. The exciting part in terms of my not-for-profit transition is that Jim is also looking to expand his board of advisors and he asked if I’d be interested in participating. For me, this is a no-brainer decision. Educational Institutions often have great connections into the not-for-profit sector so participating as a board advisor makes total sense. I’ll have to see where this one takes me, but it certainly feels like a promising step to be considered.

It also immediately got me thinking about connecting with my other school – Vanderbilt where I did my MBA. I know that Vandy has a number of great philanthropic ties. Most recently, Muhammad Yunus (a Vandy alum) won the Nobel prize for his work on the Grameen bank. The Grameen bank is essentially a micro-lending institution. It allows for entrepreneurs in developing countries to obtain very small loans that help them get their businesses started. Surprisingly, poor entrepreneurs in the developing world have a very difficult time securing funding of even tiny amounts of capital (< $100). They have to pay outrageous interest rates if they go through traditional lending institutions, and this makes getting their small business off the ground almost impossible (the surest way for any business to fail is for it to run out of cash, even that secured through debt). Yunus’ Grameen bank created a vehicle for entreprenuers to secure small loans through a community-style bank. The community aspect of the lending drives very high repayment rates (less than 1% of loans go into default) and numerous businesses have successfully launched that could never have made it in the traditional lending environment. I love to see bottom-up solutions like this that have the potential to scale up. There are now micro-lending institutions popping up all over the developing world – Yunus uncovered the need and provided the necessary market liquidity to improve the lives of many.

For me, this just points up the need for me to reconnect with folks at Vanderbilt. I’m not sure who to reach out to yet, but I know there are valuable connections to be made there…

Using Data to Tell a Great Story

My friend Hank sent me a link the other day that still has me thinking. It’s a presentation from the TED conference held each year in Monterey. The TED conference was originally focused on innovations in technology, entertainment and design, though its subject matter seems to have broadened over the last several years. I find that most TED presentations are pretty impressive, but the following link blew me away.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92 (Warning: note that this presentation is about 20 minutes long, but you can tell whether or not its grabbing you in the first three or four minutes)

First, let me set up the subject matter of the presentation – its focused on global aid and its impact on health and economic development (e.g., life expectancy, child survival rates, family size, per capita income). That puts it right in the sweet spot of the kinds of problems that I’m interested in – measuring big problems, and evaluating scalable solutions in the parts of the world that need it most.

With such dense subject matter, you’d expect a very dry, sleep-inducing presentation. This is the exact opposite. If you recognize beauty in the elegant display of information, you’ll be fascinated by this. Seriously, anyone involved in visual design should take a look at this. The presenter, Hans Rosling runs a not-for-profit in Sweden that focuses on the representation of complex, global health data. The software that he developed to bring that data to life is on full display here. Incidentally, this software (http://www.gapminder.org/) has been purchased by Google and is in the process of being made publicly available (for free natch). Rosling has office space at Google now too – I should try to find a way to connect with him…

Anyway, what’s so powerful about what has been done here is that Rosling has simplified the narrative around global aid. He uses animated, time-series charts to immediately show the real story behind the data. For example, in an animated chart early in the presentation, Rosling demonstrates the generally positive growth that all developing nations have experienced over the past 30+ years. But as the time period reaches the late 80’s and early 90’s, it clearly highlights the tipping point for when things began to turn negative for the countries in sub-saharan Africa. What this presentation and the software behind it allow for is easy exploration of high level hypotheses -- How does per capita wealth affect infant survival rates? Plug in the data and watch…Did China’s change to a market driven economy improve health, wealth or both? See what the data tell you…

And Rosling himself is a fun and engaging presenter. He dances around in front of the big screen like a conductor orchestrating the colored dots as they move and tell their data-story. He helps you believe that the high-level problems we are facing globally are surmountable – that the problems are more understandable than we’ve trained ourselves to think they are. It highlights the intersection of two passion areas for me; decision making and data analysis. All too often, I believe that our decision making becomes paralyzed by the overwhelming amount of data that we have on a given topic. As Mark Twain once said, “there are three types of lies – lies, damned lies and statistics”. When confronted with important choices, we feel compelled to look at the data from all angles, and when viewed from all angles the data tell you different stories. What I love about Rosling’s approach is that he cuts through the mountains of data and takes it back to its fundamental elements – the dependent variable (e.g., life expectancy or infant survival rates), the independent variable (e.g, per capita income) and and lets the story tell itself over time (roughly 30 years). Simple and beautiful.

Thank you Hank, for the link, it has definitely led to another step in the journey.

Leveraging the Power of the Venture Capital World

I renewed a friendship with a buddy I knew 6-7 years ago when I was working on my start-up company (that was an online marketing services company and a nice business idea, but not funded well enough to really take hold in the market place). CM works at a venture capital firm here in Cincinnati -- I know that he’s well connected to lots of different organizations and that if I wanted to start networking, I needed to involve lots of people who are used to making business connections and introductions across industries. CM, a fellow alumnus from B-school, is a natural networker (his easy-going style is a primer on how to network without even trying).

In particular, I wanted to let CM know that I was interested in a board position (or two) with some of the companies in his venture portfolio. With my entrepreneurial background, I know that I can offer some meaningful help, particularly to some of the early-stage companies they are funding. In terms of my not-for-profit transition, I believe that understanding how to effectively consult on another company’s business will serve me well in couple of ways.

First, all companies and all industries are different. The skills and expertise that I’ve developed in the digital marketing business don’t translate perfectly to any other industry. I want exposure to other businesses so I can see what parts of my experience translate and what parts do not. I think any broadening experience will better equip me for whatever I might face in the not-for-profit arena.

Second, board positions are another powerful way to network. You never know where a good friendship, or a useful business relationship might emerge. By plugging in on a couple of boards, I can better connect with folks that might be able to help me out down the road.

And third, there are some really cool companies in CM’s portfolio. In particular, they have a business centered around dog and cat boarding services that looks great. I’m an animal lover (two dogs), so the opportunity to play a role in a business like that would be a lot of fun for me personally.

I’m not sure where the relationship with CM will take me next. I’ve sent him a bio and we’ll stay in touch over the coming weeks and months to better understand what opportunities might unfold. Look for future updates on this one.

Setting the Table

Many friends have expressed interest in learning more about the career transition I’m making and would like to follow along as I move from the for-profit to the not-for-profit world. I’m happy to have you along and I welcome your thoughts and your help as I go.

Where do things stand right now? Well, I’ve committed to leaving my current job (see my profile for details on that position) and I know that I want to work in the not-for-profit sector. Beyond that, the simplest way I can describe what is driving my decision process is to lay out my three guiding principles.

First, I want to KNOW that what I am doing is having an impact -- I need to have confidence that the work I’m doing is actually making a positive difference. That might mean that I have a significant degree of control (e.g., managing the $ allocation of a fund), but more than likely, it will mean that my efforts will have clear success metrics attached to them. If I can’t tell that I’m having a positive impact, my motivation to continue will drop like a stone.

Second, I want to work on problems where a scalable solution can be implemented. While I admire the hell out of people in the social work field, I’m not personally interested in deeply engaging and helping to solve a single person’s problems. It just doesn’t motivate me. Quite frankly, it drains me. I want to have an impact on 10,000 people, 100,000 people or a million people. I’m far more energized to think about and work on larger societal problems like hunger, health, poverty and education – these problems fascinate and motivate me.

Third, (and correlated with the scale comment above), I’m a strong believer in the principle of “the greatest good for the greatest number”. In the context of my transition to the not-for-profit world, I think about this in the following way – I value a life equally whether its here in the U.S. or somewhere in the far reaches of the globe. I don’t need to know you personally to want to help you. What’s important to me is that my efforts on your behalf will go as far as they possibly can. In other words, if a dollar would improve 1 life here or 3 lives in Africa, I would almost always opt to spend my dollar in Africa. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have some passion for local problems, I do. But I want the switch I’m trying to make here to be as tailored to my truest motivations as is possible.

So those are the principles for finding the new job. Beyond those principles, the full depth of my plan is wrapped up in one word – networking. I want to reach out to lots of people tied into the not-for-profit world and pick their brains. Future posts will likely focus on who I’ve been meeting with and what I’m learning as I go.

I want people who are already experienced in the not-for-profit world to show me how things work and I want/need their help in directing me towards the best possible position for me to chase. If you want to directly help me get there, thank you very much. If you want to just read-along that’s cool too.