Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 220. Ending Global Poverty with Dignity + Entrepreneurship: The Mission of The Adventure Project - Becky Straw

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220. Ending Global Poverty with Dignity + Entrepreneurship: The Mission of The Adventure Project - Becky Straw · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Becky Endicott: Hey, I'm John.
• 0:01
  Becky Endicott: And I'm Becky.
• 0:03
  Jonathan McCoy: And this is the we are for good podcast.
• 0:05
  Becky Endicott: Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:15
  Jonathan McCoy: We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
• 0:23
  Becky Endicott: So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:34
  Jonathan McCoy: So let's get started. Hey, Becky,
• 0:37
  Becky Endicott: welcome everybody. Are you ready? Are you ready for an epic conversation?
• 0:42
  Jonathan McCoy: We've been counting this one down. So excited for this person, this human this mission, like it's going to be so good.
• 0:49
  Becky Endicott: The story we're about to bring to you is going to awaken your empathy and your humanity. And I hope it challenges you to think about things and think about your charity and think about the ethics and the dignity and the way that we engage in philanthropy and empowerment.
• 1:04
  Becky Endicott: But we got to give a shout out to our godmother, Susan McPherson, you know how much we love her. We talk about her in her wisdom on the podcasts all the time. But she has brought and connected us to the our incredible guest, Becky straw, she is the co founder and CEO of the adventure project. And folks, I fell in love with this nonprofit when I started to go down a rabbit trail of what they were doing. But Becky has this passion to revolutionize giving and create movements that marry good intentions with a measurable impact. Is this our person? Or is this our person, what an aspirational goal. It's so she was one of the founders and one of the leaders and early employees that charity water.
• 1:48
  Becky Endicott: But the thing we love so much about her is she had an awakening in Haiti. And I'm going to allow you to tell that story. We love Haiti, our resident producer, unicorn, Julie has been there, we feel such a kinship to that country and to those people. But I think the thing that I love so much about the adventure project, it is taking what we have talked about many times on this podcast, which is how do you go into a community and create empowerment? How do you create jobs and employment and economic drivers instead of giving charity, because that is how we really start to begin to teach someone how to fish. And we want everyone in this world to be a thriving individual. So I want to give a little bit of background on the adventure project because our mission is just so inspirational, but they help people in developing countries by supporting grassroots social enterprises that give people the means to help themselves. And the thing that we love so much about them.
• 2:49
  Becky Endicott: It's about investing in dignity.
• 2:49
  Becky Endicott: And they support organizations that treat people as people, not as the poor, or the marginalized. And everyone who has listened to this podcast even once knows that our core value is that everyone matters.
• 3:04
  Becky Endicott: And we love how this upholds this core value, that community is everything and everyone has something to give. And the last thing that I have to say is Becky and her co founder, Jody are the recipients of the 2015 Diane Von Furstenberg People's Voice Award for female founders making a difference. And because of that, they were the recipient of a million dollar Bitcoin donation from the pineapple Fund, which I hope accelerated this amazing work and I just can't wait to hear all about it.
• 3:34
  Becky Endicott: Becky, welcome to the show.
• 3:36
  Becky Straw: Thank you so much for having me. I feel like I need to wake up every morning listening to that intro. You feel so good.
• 3:44
  Becky Endicott: done all that.
• 3:44
  Becky Endicott: And I have to tell everybody listening, I have like a two page bio on Becky and I couldn't even read it all because she's so extraordinary and kind. And I just want to know your story.
• 3:55
  Becky Endicott: And I want to know about Becky growing up you you little Becky not me little Becky. Yeah, we're gonna be confused on the podcast. But yeah, but I want to know, where did you grow up? And where did this heart for justice and equity come from?
• 4:11
  Becky Straw: I grew up in California and the Bay Area. And I was really fortunate to have really great parents and a really great church. There's not a ton of church life in Northern California. But my parents were were churchy, social justice people and it was a really small church congregation that was very active in the community and the surrounding community. So everything about youth group was really focused on how could you do more to serve others and I walked away from that experience being like, I've never been happier than when I was serving others. I was a swimmer. I swam in college. That was kind of my my thing. I graduated from undergrad and went like, gosh, I've spent so much of my time just like focusing on my own academics focusing on my own swimming. Like when was I actually the most alive and the most happy And that was, you know, when I was in youth group doing some sort of service opportunity, and I, I just craved more of those experiences, not only as being a volunteer, but then how do I, how do I get to the other side of working for a really high impact organization that's really going to empower other people?
• 5:16
  Jonathan McCoy: I mean, I love that answer. Because we also talked about since Becky and I both have kids, it's just, we're always trying to infuse these values, like, into our families, you know, and I think, talking to so many founders, you realize that it really does matter, like your experiences and your perspectives. Not that you can always gain, you know, some of that, but why not, you know, like, want to really pour into the younger generation, because they do grow up and want to invest in a different way and show up in a different way. And so, it's, we're really leaned into this next upcoming generation, because we feel like there's that awakening happening across the board. So, okay, take us from growing up to like this transition, I know, you've, you know, worked in different charity, and then visually had this vision to come together for adventure project, can you give us that piece of your story,
• 6:01
  Becky Endicott: and if there's a part of Haiti in there, we definitely want to know that
• 6:06
  Becky Straw: there is a part of Haiti. Sure. So um, you know, I after college, went to Romania, because it actually was the cheapest place to volunteer
• 6:17
  Jonathan McCoy: sorting by price on
• 6:22
  Becky Straw: a cheap, you know, um, but that really gave me a heart to understand that I knew so little about development, and about what I was doing, you know, I was helping volunteer in a government orphanage. But, you know, in the the town, which was about 10 minutes away, there was a whole bunch of street kids, and it was negative 20 degrees, some days, and they didn't have shoes, they didn't have socks.
• 6:44
  Becky Straw: And so, first mistake I made was another volunteer. And I raised all this money for shoes and socks. And we thought, here we are, we are like the Oprah of shoe givers. I'm so good. At
• 6:55
  Becky Endicott: some socks, you get some shoes
• 6:58
  Becky Straw: was knockoff Nikes, you know, from Eastern Europe.
• 7:01
  Becky Straw: And we were like throwing them at the kids felt great. The next week, we went back to buy our groceries, all the socks and shoes were gone. The kids took them off. I don't know what happened. I don't know if the parents sold them. I don't know what the deal was. But I realized, well, that was a huge mistake. Because that was me assuming I knew what was best for those kids. And maybe that parent of that kid on the street needed to sell them to buy food or buy medicine and how arrogant of me to assume that that might be that family's greatest need, right? So making some mistakes, made me realize like, I need to go back to grad school. And I need to focus on international development, but also, you know, social enterprise in diminished administration, like how do we really you know, create organizations that create impact and end up empowering people by listening to people and what they actually need. So that was what led me to go to Columbia got into Columbia in New York, they have a great program there that also connected me to an internship at UNICEF, Division of Water and Sanitation. So I went to like a beautiful windowless cubicle analyzing a whole bunch of data. And during my internship there, I got connected through my supervisor to a man by the name of Scott Harrison, who was this kid starting this charity and working off his couch. I begged Scott, through a series of various emails and conversations, to let me volunteer on his couch. After I graduated, I took all the data with me, like all the free packets from anything, and carted it over to his apartment and just said, Look, I've spent the last year analyzing water and sanitation data, can I help you? So he first said no. And then he agreed, finally, and worked there for the first three years as the third employee, basically helping get the organization, whatever they needed to get off the ground and be successful from from the backend operations to then program development, ended up spending about a third of my time in Africa and Haiti, figuring out you know, who are local partners doing really great water and sanitation work?
• 9:04
  Becky Straw: And how can we make sure that they're getting the the tools and resources they need to bring clean water to people? So it's just your
• 9:14
  Jonathan McCoy: life in these chapters, you know, and I'm just like, each one is really preparing you for what's to come. And I just think, what a unique perspective to be on the ground floor of something like charity water that's clearly changed the game on so many different levels. But you know, I know you had it within you to do something, you're kind of maybe approach things differently. What was that next step looking like whenever you stepped out and did adventure project?
• 9:39
  Becky Straw: Yeah. And Jody, and I met actually in Liberia, my co founder and I, she was a charity water's largest individual fundraiser at the time. She has six kids. The last two were twins adopted from Sierra Leone.
• 9:50
  Becky Straw: So that instilled in her a sense of purpose to think globally as well and just she was kind of an OG blogger before. tick tock billion people, um, you know, just kind of she was super, she's super authentic as a person and humble. And so people follow her journey. And we became fast friends around this idea that, you know, how can we just make sure that our money is doing the most good to really help people like us, we're never going to become Bill Gates and be able to give away millions of dollars. But we still want to know that our $20 is doing the most good in the world that it could and can do. And so we really wanted to carry the torch of where Charity Water started this incredible mission and movement of redefining and reinventing what charity looks like in terms of motivating millions of people to give. And we thought, well, let's do something to really take it to the next level and say, Let's really focus on what's actually going to move people out of poverty, you know, can we focus on the most effective low cost solutions that are going to create the most good in the world? And how can we do that effectively, and bring a collective movement of people who share those same values with us. So, you know, the perfect example of that is that there are so many organizations out there that are drilling wells right now, but only a third of all wells are currently working, or I'm sorry, a third of all wells are currently broken, right? So we have about $450 million of broken wells that are scattered across Africa. And that that is a huge issue.
• 11:21
  Becky Straw: That's a huge global problem is that so many? Well, good intentions are going into that perfect, beautiful moment of the photo being taken at the well with otter squirting out for the first time. But what we really care about was, is that well, working the next month, the next year, the next two years, who's maintaining that well, do people in the community have the tools, the spare parts and the training to keep that well working? And what's that financial mechanism that's going to make that a sustainable long term business model.
• 11:53
  Becky Endicott: So I love that we're having this conversation.
• 11:56
  Becky Endicott: And before we move forward, I just have to point out something that I'm just observing about you. And just for you to have this moment in Romania, where you did the you had such self awareness, and you did self reflection to say, I think I missed the mark here. And I want to say that you, you were kind of hard on yourself. And I'm like, What you did was a beautiful thing. And what you did was so kind and whether it was warming someone's feed or whether those shoes were sold to feed someone, it's like, I feel that the good intention in there had to be infused at some point.
• 12:30
  Becky Endicott: But I love this thread of humble leadership that you have. And it's in, it's rooted in listening and understanding and looking at data. And going to the root of the problem. And I think this is a lot of the problem in nonprofit is we hit things at such a surface level.
• 12:49
  Becky Endicott: And these issues are systemic.
• 12:49
  Becky Endicott: And we have to go deeper into the issue to figure out how can we actually affect change and the empowerment component of it is so beautiful, I mean, I what you're describing to me, we have our pet charity of water for we love them so much. And they do exactly what you say about empowering people and providing really low tech because this equipment has to be sustainable in the most, you know, harsh of environments and those kinds of things. So I love what you're doing here. I love how you're such a listener, I love how you see all people and I want to talk about the adventure project because I think it is such a beautiful organization. And I want to compliment you on how you storytel In the ethical storytelling that I feel like is all over your website. The women that are on your site had so much joy in their faces, they have love. And I don't know, there's some sort of Spark there. So I love the way that you've expressed that. But I want you to go and tell us how this organization came to be?
• 13:58
  Becky Endicott: And what is the lifeblood of it and just share a little bit of the history of the mission.
• 14:03
  Becky Straw: Yet no, thank you so much. I think um, you know, I think a lot of it comes through ethical storytelling of having a really phenomenal photographer and that that's Esther havens, who is the humanitarian photographer who's shot for for many people, and we became fast friends working together at Charity Water, and she has infused just next level best practices in terms of every single person on our website.
• 14:27
  Becky Straw: You know, we know their name, and we know their story, and they have a signed waiver that we're allowed to use their photo. I also think she's just brilliant at how she captures stories. There aren't pictures of starving kids and torn clothing and women in hospital suffering, right? These are people at their best, not at their worst and that's how we wanted to start our organization was let's really capture people at their best and and sometimes that means you've been waiting for for women. There was a woman who was a farmer and we were there taking pictures and showing her And she's like, Can I change my outfit?
• 15:03
  Becky Endicott: Yes, that's universal in every language for
• 15:06
  Becky Straw: women, she put on her Sunday best dress, and she wanted a photo of her and her family and their Sunday best.
• 15:13
  Becky Straw: And I think taking time to do those things ends up really in the long run, creating a product you're so proud of, and the stories you're proud to tell because you've spent time listening to people and not just hearing a surface level, you know, five minute conversation, but you you went deep with people, and I think people appreciate being heard. And I think supporters really appreciate that level of storytelling.
• 15:38
  Jonathan McCoy: I think the other aspect, and this is just such a sidebar, but I love that you can also gift that photography to a family, you know, to get to have somebody like Esther, come to your country, be there spend time to make you and your family just ready. You know, radiance on this film, I think is just such a gift to that family too. And I think that's part of the dignity of it too, celebrating what that means for a family to have a photo that shows that. And
• 16:04
  Becky Endicott: I also think I want to compliment you and I want to make sure that nobody else misses this as they're listening. You said there's storytelling and photography, and you are 100% accurate. And I know everyone is listened to us harp on this podcast about stop using stock photography, unless you're you know, in a domestic situation or trafficking situation. Use authentic people as your story. And the medium of photography is very much a storytelling arc just as much as your written words as video are, there is an expression there.
• 16:38
  Becky Endicott: And I think a really great photographer, as her Haven's Holy smokes, she can catch nuance, you know, in a look in something that is so slight that will grab somebody. So I think that is an excellent pro tip.
• 16:49
  Becky Endicott: We've had a lot of interest around ethical storytelling this year, specifically, because it's one of our eight trends for 2022. And I think that was a great tip for how you can start.
• 16:59
  Becky Endicott: But I want to transition into the adventure project. And I want you to tell us how this came to be. And how did this get developed? How did you send in your mission? And what did this look like when Jodi and you were kind of coming together to put this dream together?
• 17:14
  Becky Straw: Yeah. And I think, you know, people always love to say, Oh, here's this one story, right? Like Adam Braun will say, like, a kid asked for a pencil.
• 17:19
  Becky Straw: And I wanted to start an education, charity, you know.
• 17:21
  Becky Straw: And I wish my marketing story was so simple, but I would say it was a series of moments. And one of the main moments was just the sheer number of repetition of people who would come up to me in every country I went to, and then it started to become nearly every, every trip, somebody would come up to me and say, ma'am, thank you so much for this. Well, I'm wondering if you're hiring, and then they would spout out the reasons why they want a job. They'd have their kids with them. They'd say, I just need to earn I don't need to get paid months, I just want to send them to school. And you're like, oh, my gosh, what are we doing? What are we doing?
• 18:03
  Becky Straw: There are so many people who the number one dream of people around the world is a good job.
• 18:07
  Becky Straw: And I think we get so caught up in saving the world and trying to be saviors that we forget that that people want to save themselves, they want to save their own families, and they deserve the opportunity to work.
• 18:21
  Becky Straw: And they are just missing those opportunities, but they have so much purpose and so much, you know, passion to work. So that that was something that I think just kept speaking to my heart, and as a Christian, I kept thinking like, okay, like, what are you telling me? Like, maybe I'm dense, and you have to keep telling me every country but you know, I think I think it's really, you know, really true, and really speaks to that. And, you know, the second thing was just seeing, seeing aid that I thought could be more effectively allocated. And I speak to that on in terms of the water projects, it was heartbreaking to go back and see that there's so many wells that are broken, or you go into a village and you see eight wells that used to be functional, and then you see one that's left that's still working. And that was eight different charities that went in to do them. So I think we sometimes become so passionate and such good marketers that we forget about longevity and sustainability as being our most important benchmark. It's not how many wells we build or how many schools we build. It's are there still kids in the classroom learning? Is our people still getting clean water? You know, how, how are we leaving people better off tomorrow? Based on what we gave today?
• 19:40
  Becky Endicott: Thank you straw, shaking it up, and I love it.
• 19:46
  Jonathan McCoy: Hey, friends, this episode is presented by virtuous and they just happen to be one of our favorite companies. Let me tell you why.
• 19:50
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• 20:36
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• 21:11
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• 21:18
  Jonathan McCoy: pro.com/free. Okay, let's get back to this amazing conversation. Well, I think it's it's like so much in life, it's like, it's the stuff that's not glamorous, that really, really matters, you know, and it's not the things that are easy to give to, but they're the things that are sustainable and consistent and what that means for a family and especially over the course of like generations what that means. So, you know, this is a little off script, but I watched a video of you kind of casting vision for your programs and everything. And I know you've put that number out there to, you know, employ 1 million, 1 million women find jobs by 2030.
• 21:56
  Jonathan McCoy: Is that right? I mean, that's an audacious, she is an audacious number, because again, we're not sitting across the screen from somebody that just wants her marketing point, that you're like, No, I want to legitimately, you know, give livelihood to these families. So how do you actually activate that? How do you use entrepreneurship, and VC are all these different mechanisms that y'all are activating to employ people to give them jobs and that you employ them at them to be able to be employed?
• 22:28
  Becky Straw: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with with our model, and mission is all about empowering local organizations, it's never my job to go in and tell the community how to build a system. You know, instead, we have local organizations who are doing incredibly impactful work. And a lot of those organizations, you know, when I was spending so much of my time in Africa, I saw their passion and their heart and their leaders had these phenomenal ideas, but yet, they lacked a lot of the resourcing they needed to scale. So, you know, I saw this, you know, juxtaposition of like, well, Americans are the most generous country in terms of philanthropy, why aren't we making sure it's going to the right places to empower these people to be the change in their own communities. So it's kind of like a triple ripple approach, where it's, we're supporting a local organization, 50% of our organizations we support now are female founded, which we think is important to us to make sure that we're giving women leaders opportunities to grow. And then they're going out there providing training and hiring people locally, where they're working to become entrepreneurs, whether that's helping farmers to learn how to grow more food, to helping wall mechanics, fix and maintain wells, start a business, they're there. And then those people those parents now have the jobs and the income and the stability locally, to serve their communities. So Wow,
• 23:56
  Becky Endicott: I'm so impressed by you. And I just love this empowerment piece. And I It really reminds me of something Tammy Tibbets with she's the first it's just posted this incredible Bloomerang equality article this week that really hit me in the face. And it was talking about the lost girls of COVID. And that for 25 years, girls in developing countries had been on this trajectory, to grow and to get educated to be empowered. And the pandemic has just hit this population so hard. And so I would love it if you could shine some light on what women around the world in developing nations are facing in light of the pandemic and how we can help empower them and get that train back on the track.
• 25:15
  Becky Straw: Definitely, yeah, I know, Tammy said it so well. And she's so wise. And I think a lot of that also correlates to women and it correlates to people living in extreme poverty.
• 25:25
  Becky Straw: Extreme poverty was decreasing every year for the last 20 years until COVID hit. And so what we're seeing is is an extreme rise in not only female inequality and poverty inequality as more people are slipping into extreme poverty, but that translates to lives lost a quarter of a million children died last year, in 2021, because of starvation in East Africa, not even the continent, just focusing on East Africa. And that is a really sad and unfair where to die. Just see so many parents who are trying to do the best they can.
• 26:09
  Becky Straw: And it's, I think, with COVID, hitting us so hard, I think we talked about this is there, it's like, it's hitting us so hard dealing with no childcare, trying to work full time jobs, managing so much managing sick, being sick, having COVID, you know, but I think we need to recognize that all of those things are also hitting people who are currently only making $2 a day or less than $2 a day. And now, you know, they're not allowed to go to the market to sell their produce or go, you know, into the community to do their jobs. So, you know, I think without being too much a bit of a Debbie Downer, one of the things that we realized that adventure project that to me sounds so silly, in retrospect, is we had been working at the vendor product for a decade, and then COVID hit. And we realized that we actually had a name for the jobs we were creating. And that was that they're essential workers, you know, in that these are people on the front lines, and we started getting phone calls and emails coming in saying, okay, the government gave us clearance to provide as health care workers were still allowed, even though the government shut down our streets, were given badges to go out and still provide maternal health care to pregnant moms and sick kids. We just need gloves, and we need masks. Can you help us? Right? And so we started to get these requests that were traditionally more emergency response mechanisms or requests.
• 27:31
  Becky Straw: And, you know, we have always focused on sustainable development. So we turned around and said, like, why don't we ask our donors if that's something they want to support? You know, and how can we ask our monthly members? Do you want to allocate your gift this month instead, to provide these basic things, you know, they need hand washing stations, and we just got very detailed, and, like you said, kind of unsexy. And said, these are the things that are really going to make a difference right now. And we saw an overwhelming amount of support for that. And I think that helped to build some transparency and some more trust that people know where their donations are going. So as you talk about scale, and as you talk about wanting to impact, so many more jobs, I think, for us, it's really being brave. I've been fortunate to work under Scott Harrison for three years, if you ever want to brave person, right? That's a big vision and big goals. But I'm in my heart of hearts. I'm thinking like, oh, my gosh, these, the work is working. And I know that sounds so silly to say. But it really was a little bit of a risk for us when we started like would donors be appeal? Would they appeal to the unsexy stuff, right? Would they it's so much easier to see a picture of a kid drinking dirty water and say, they need a well, you know. And, you know, we we realized, you know, after 10 years, 10 plus years that there is an audience for that. And there's a lot of people and there's corporate partners, and there's a lot of different organizations that are joining with us, which we're really grateful for, and individuals that are joining with us, too. So we have about 10,000 donors so far. But we're really hoping to expand and impact more people as we grow
• 29:15
  Becky Endicott: 10,001 and making a donation. I'm so inspired by this, but I do think that I want to hit on something that honestly I feel like is an elephant in the room in this sector, and you hit on it beautifully, which is sometimes we get so caught up in trying to sell the shiny thing to our donors, we try to that we try to put ourselves in their shoe and we try to put, you know, the sexiest project that's just gonna look, you know, appeal to a very specific niche. And it's like, if our needs are so basic, then we need to be talking about that, because I'm feeling my privilege so much in this conversation because you're right, we do have access in this pandemic to unbelievable resources and, and offerings and help. And I do you think that if the needs are so basic, then it's our job as nonprofits to go in and storytel that need and say, and I would say hit it between the your the eyes and say, we know that this is not, you know, something that's traditionally funded, but this is what we need to achieve X.
• 30:27
  Becky Endicott: And I really appreciate that you're doing that and going for it because to me, you're doing exactly what we said at the beginning. You're getting to the root of the problem. And when you get to the root of the problem, everything that comes after that doesn't seem as overwhelming. And I have to ask you this question, which is entirely off script, because I'm just so curious, how do you manage these stories and these people from a mental health perspective, from an emotional perspective, the heartbreak, the desire, I just feel like such an empath in you and want to help everybody, how do you separate that as a founder and not get sucked into the oh my gosh, this guy just came up and said, I just want a job. How do I just give him some money? But that's not the solution. You know? How but how are you distancing yourself from the emotion of coming into these stories and hearing, even the hardship,
• 31:22
  Becky Straw: um, when you find out, please tell me how to do that.
• 31:26
  Becky Endicott: I haven't figured it out it well, I'm working through it in therapy.
• 31:30
  Becky Straw: And I have, since I've had kids, and people warn me, they're like, oh, when you have kids, this is going to get harder other people in the sector. And they were so right, because as soon as I had kids, and I saw that, Mom, I'm like, That's me. I couldn't be me. I'm so grateful. I have emotions.
• 31:47
  Becky Straw: I'm so grateful that I still feel really sad about some of the things I've seen, and heartbroken. Because that wakes me up every morning. And it wakes me up and say, Everybody should know about this, everybody should know that the solutions are not hard or expensive or going to waste but you're actually going to make a tangible difference with your$10 donation, right? Like it, your money goes so much farther, if you're focused on high impact, low cost solutions, like you're just really transforming people's lives in deeper ways.
• 32:24
  Becky Straw: And and that's a great thing. So if I, if I wasn't crying about it, I think I'd be a little bit worried that something's wrong.
• 32:32
  Becky Straw: You know?
• 32:34
  Jonathan McCoy: That would mean if I agree with you, yeah. And I feel like you've given me multiple sucker punches. I mean, in this today, you know, but I can't get over the fact of being there trying to provide aid or coming in with a team to serve and being said, hey, it's not an it's not taking away from the spirit of gratitude. But it's just what we really need is a job. You know, why y'all are doing this job in our country like, it's a, it's such a paradigm shift. And I feel like, this is the reason Becky and I feel so I don't know led to have these type of conversations that make us uncomfortable, because there's not an easy solution.
• 33:09
  Jonathan McCoy: But this is what we want to empower people to go back and have these conversations, because we do have a lot of resources. We have a lot of incredible donors that are with us and mission. And we can help shift the narrative, how we can really move things around the world, to the betterment of people that are struggling, and people that just that want to be empowered, and we just need something simple. So I do believe in the power of this community listening today that we can shift the narrative on this full tilt in. Okay, we love storytelling, and I want to hear how philanthropy is personally impacted you, you know, we believe it's transformational for the giver, and obviously, the person being impacted. But is there something that's hung with you on your journey of how philanthropies really moved?
• 33:54
  Jonathan McCoy: Yeah,
• 33:55
  Becky Straw: well, I think I'll share speaking along the same vein, since that's what we're talking about is when we were just starting out, you know, Jody's the wife of a worship pastor, I would have been working at a startup charity, you know, neither of us married rich, unfortunately. But I was I was single at the time. And so um, you know, the first year we started, we decided not to take salaries, we ended up only making about $150,000, the first year, which, you know, isn't enough because we weren't. So I started to move on to friends couches, and just was couch hopping. And we put money into like a beautiful video that was raising a lot of money in support and a producer at a huge news agency. I won't share the name, contacted me and said, We're going to Haiti to do a recap of the anniversary. We love your video. Can you come with us and tell your story about a stove program that we were supporting, which, for people who don't know about clean cookstoves totally look them up. They're phenomenal. Not only at helping women, but also the environment. They are a great job producer. Having a clean cookstove in your home is a phenomenal win for people. And so we were helping that local organization get started there.
• 35:12
  Becky Straw: And
• 35:15
  Jonathan McCoy: meaning clean energy as I'm googling this I was picturing like just a clean stuff. This is how elements
• 35:19
  Becky Straw: Yeah, most people over an open fire which is about breathing into packs of cigarettes of smoke per day. So if you can provide, make an affordable clean cookstove for a family it's a much better way for them because they're saving a lot have energy, either with firewood or from having to buy charcoal. And then they're also not breathing in that toxic smoke. So anyway, we were helping this local organization and they, they wanted to capture that story. And of course, we didn't have a lot of money at the time, I like borrowed money from my dad, which is like, at 30 Super responsible and me, but he was like, Oh, my gosh, you gotta go, you gotta go, you know. So I like slept in the airport. And Florida went down there. And found this beautiful story of a woman we knew whose job seller and just being back a few months before, I'm there, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh, look at her, she like got a door, which I know, that sounds so silly to so many of us. But to go from a home that just had like a cloth overhang to having a door with a lock is a beautiful thing. And it's a beautiful indicator, because it means you had enough money to buy that. But then you also have valuable things inside, which means that you are slowly moving out of extreme poverty, just having that. And of course, she was trying not to act too excited. But you know, she had her son in a new red shirt. And I was just like, this is really precious. We get there, start shooting, do the interview. And the producer turns to me and says, This is a non story. And my heart No,
• 36:47
  Becky Endicott: he didn't. Well, it
• 36:49
  Becky Straw: was a she. But yes,
• 36:50
  Becky Endicott: she Oh, no, she did it.
• 36:53
  Becky Straw: This is not a free, you know, as a woman was talking about herself and how she's doing. But she said, we need you to take us to attend camp, because people need to see poverty. And this woman is not poor. And I didn't know what to do. And I just thought okay, and so we took, you know, this whole news agency, we eventually got her the shots and they flew out.
• 37:17
  Becky Straw: I was totally rejected. I thought for sure. That, you know, later in the week, I was going to be on the nightly news.
• 37:24
  Becky Straw: Now I'm like, Well, great. Now it's just a story about Haiti and poverty. And, you know, we were not featured. So I thought that was the end of our organization, we had, you know, not raise that much. I'm like, What are we doing? This is not working. Bla bla bla bla bla. So I ended up just turning it into a blog post a story that said, you know, there's a local, there's a woman who's not going to be on the news tonight. But she, you know, because she's not poor. But you made that possible. And I just sent it out as an email to all the donors saying, Thank you for making her not poor anymore, you know. And what ended up happening is it got forwarded around a bunch of times, people were a friend at Warby Parker was like, I sent it to everybody on the team, you know, and it started to go like mini viral before viral is the thing. And we raised $20,000 in 24 hours, you know, and so I think, just having the capacity to put your feelings aside and say, Okay, how is this like a teachable moment, or maybe there are other people who are also might feel enraged like I do, and just really saddened that the state of our cultural affairs is about let's just shoot and tell stories of poor people, because that's what we want to hear. And that's what will drive engagement and donations was a really great lesson for us. And it got us to the next stage of growth of our organization. And clearly, we didn't die, we kept going, it gave me some resiliency. And so whenever things are going wrong, I remember that time where I thought we were going to have to quit. And we ended up writing that blog posts,
• 38:53
  Becky Endicott: Becky straw, you are my hero. This is such a good story and a lesson for everyone out there and nonprofit I can think of many times best laid plans were set. And we were thrown into the middle of a situation that was untenable, and not at all what we expected and the way that you pivoted, you made lemonade out of those lemons. And the just the idea that it was the launching pad for the next phase of your organization tells me everything about the human being that you are and what your organization is grounded in I am so moved by that. And I also say that it underscores how much work we have to do to socialize these messages. I mean, whether the mainstream media, I mean, if they're not going to listen, then we've got to do it in community, you know, peer to peer person to person and our own social networks talking about why this mindset needs to be shifted and why this is a wonderful thing. That a door is on its hinges inside here and why this little boy has a red shirt on and why we should be proud of that moment. So thank you for that beautiful story. I just ate it all up.
• 40:09
  Becky Straw: Well, thank you and I just want to add to that.
• 40:12
  Becky Straw: Yeah, maybe it seems like I had a lot of hardship. You know, I bouncing I think I lived on 12 couches. I never felt more loved in that moment. And that wait, the best experience of my life?
• 40:25
  Becky Straw: Um, you know, living more simply was great. But I think what it taught me was asking for help.
• 40:30
  Becky Straw: They're They're your people. are going to gravitate towards wanting to help. When I started asking I, you know, sometimes had three places to stay people texting being like, I'm going out of town, you know, or somebody who worked at Google and was like, Oh, I'm gonna be in Silicon Valley next week, stay at my place, you know, I've never felt more cared for and more loved. And I think that's a good development. Lesson Two is like when you're asking for help, and there's people who come out of the woodwork to make it happen for you. And that that's a great feeling.
• 40:59
  Becky Endicott: I just love the way you fought for your mission.
• 41:01
  Becky Endicott: And I love the richness that it poured back into you yours is such a wonderful story.
• 41:06
  Jonathan McCoy: Thank you. I didn't say your story just makes me think of, you know, one of our values from spending our lives on the inside of nonprofits and wanting to jump in do we forget is that we saw a difference in just growing donors versus growing believers of your mission. And believers don't always have the capacity, you know, like, major gift term for that. But the power of what they can do when they believe that, that whatever is possible, can band together can make the connection are going to show up for you in moments like this.
• 41:33
  Jonathan McCoy: And I think your story points to that in spades. Beautiful, okay, I don't want to wrap this up, like you have to go because this means we're starting to wrap that before. Question,
• 41:43
  Becky Endicott: Becky, we our final question that we ask all our guests is, what is your one good thing? Tell us maybe a life hack or mantras? Something that somebody could take away today?
• 41:52
  Becky Endicott: What would you offer our community? Yep,
• 41:54
  Becky Straw: I think I'm given where we are now in the world.
• 41:58
  Becky Straw: My one good thing is, I have had so many unfortunate things happen to me in my life. You know, I lost my mother a few years ago, I Sorry, I've been let go. I've had my kids had COVID. Last week, a few weeks ago, you know, I think just trying to balance all of the the hardship has given me so much more empathy, for realizing that we need to be kind to ourselves and kind to our teams and make sure that especially fundraisers and people working inside charities, that they're recognized, and they're valued.
• 42:31
  Becky Straw: You know, last month, we decided when we posted some job postings that we would also pick posts, what we're being paid, and post what we were offering for jobs, because that just we felt like was a transparent right thing to do to make it easier for people to know if they wanted to apply.
• 42:51
  Becky Straw: And I think it's just treating people with dignity and respect.
• 42:55
  Becky Straw: But I think I had to go through actually physically feeling like I've had some bad moments to hopefully, make sure my one good thing is like, make sure that you're taking care of the people around you, because they're going to make that mission run.
• 43:11
  Becky Straw: And you know, you have a great team. If you have a great team behind you. It's not on me. It's not me at all. It's it's the team, who
• 43:19
  Becky Endicott: the humility,
• 43:20
  Jonathan McCoy: I know. We're we love you. We love this entire conversation. This has been super inspiring. So connect us your audience in the audience today of just how can we run alongside you with the adventure project? Where are you on social and all the other things?
• 43:36
  Becky Straw: Yep, you can go to the adventure project.org or, you know, we have similar profile names for Facebook and Instagram, and the other digital channels are on LinkedIn, please you know, or you can reach out to me personally Becky straw at the adventure project.org We'd love to connect with anybody, whether it's somebody who wants to get their company more involved or individually or become a monthly donor, we would would love that. Or if you you know want to be hired, we would hopefully be hiring against
• 44:05
  Becky Endicott: Oh, people, please check this out. And I just I mean, even on the if you go to the Giving page, which was by the way, very easy, I did it unless the viewer. So bravo. But the there's a beautiful woman named Charlotte on the Giving page who is has a stove again, to your point company in Kenya.
• 44:25
  Becky Endicott: And it's just the power in her stance. And just I love what you're doing the storytellers so beautifully. If you have 10 minutes today, go get lost on the adventure projects website or on their social channels. It is going to bring you so much joy and make you feel the promise of what could be if community could come together.
• 44:42
  Becky Endicott: And so I just really encourage anyone to check it out. And Becky, I just want you to be our friend for life. Because you're so extraordinary. You're so kind. I love your vision. And please give God our best and just keep going. You guys are doing the hard work and we're behind you and we just want to amplify it at every turn.
• 45:03
  Becky Straw: Oh, thank you, John and Becky. It's so nice to be here. I really am just grateful that you invited me on.
• 45:08
  Becky Straw: Absolutely.
• 45:09
  Jonathan McCoy: It's been an honor. Thank you. Hey, friends.
• 45:11
  Julie Confer: Thanks so much for being here. Did you know we create a landing page for each podcast episode with helpful links, freebies and even shareable graphics. Be sure to check it out at the link in this episode's description. You probably hear it in our voices, but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before. We'd love for you to join our good community. It's free, and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode.
• 45:32
  Julie Confer: You can sign up today at WWE are for good.com backslash Hello one more thing If you loved what you heard today would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review it means the world to us and your support helps more people find our community Thanks friends I'm our producer Julie confer and our theme song is sunray by Remy Boris boom