Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 465. The Founder's Journey: Transforming a 100 Year Old Organization with an Entrepreneurial Mindset - Maya Ajmera

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465. The Founder's Journey: Transforming a 100 Year Old Organization with an Entrepreneurial Mindset - Maya Ajmera · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm John.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: And I'm Becky.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: And this is the we Are For Good podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: 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
  Speaker 1: 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
  Speaker 2: So welcome to the Good Community.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So let's get started.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Hey Becky, how's it going?
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Wow, what a guest we have today on the podcast.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Seriously, oh my gosh.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: And we got to thank Brian Funk for this introduction.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: It is just our honor to talk to Maya Ajmera today on the podcast.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: She is the CEO of the Society for Science and the publisher of Science News.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: You know this incredible magazine that's been around and here's the deal.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Maya has this incredible background that I've alluded to.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: But before coming to Society for Science, she founded this global fund for children.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: It's this nonprofit organization that invests in innovative community-based organizations working with some of the world's most vulnerable children and youth, and in her 18 years of leadership, gfc grew from a vision to one of the largest networks of grassroots organizations working on behalf of vulnerable children.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: And so she's taking that experience, that entrepreneurial mindset, her incredible academic background, and she's pouring it into this organization that's more than 100 years old, a Society for Science.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: And so we are here today to talk about this playbook, talk about some of the frameworks and the mindsets that we can influence the organizations that we're all part of.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, come on.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Y'all know the nonprofit world tends to move really slow, but Maya is going to come into our house and teach us all the things.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: She has served as the inaugural social entrepreneur in residence for Duke University, a visiting professor for the practice of public policy at the Stanford School of Public Policy at Duke, and her work and life story have been profiled on media outlets such as CNN, oprah Winfrey Show, my goodness, financial Times, npr and so many others, and now the we Are For Good podcast.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Maya, we're so delighted to have you in our midst today.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: I'm honored to be here today.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Well, you know if you've ever listened to our podcast, we cannot just sit with a bio like that and not know the human behind the story.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: So please take us back to a little bit of your journey growing up.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: What informed your work that you're pouring into today, maya?
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: So I am the daughter of Indian immigrants.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: My parents immigrated from India.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: My dad came to get his PhD at the University of Iowa in electrical engineering.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: My mom followed and as an entrepreneur, I grew up in Eastern North Carolina and science was sort of a big part of my life.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: I did science fair, I did science research and went to a boarding school called the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, where I geeked out, as they say, and went on to college, to Bryn Mawr College, and majored in neuroscience and women's studies and did scientific research.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I was on my way to get an MD PhD, but I was awarded a Rotary International Graduate Fellowship that allowed me to travel from Thailand to Pakistan for a year and I had wonderful professors who said Maya, if you really want to understand people and their aspirations, get a backpack and start traveling.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: And that's what I did for the year.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: And it was in India that I say I had my moment of obligation.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: As a mom of a daughter who, at three years old, said I want to be a scientist and declared that, and has been unwavering that she's coming up on 10 pretty soon, I want to thank you for the way that you stand up and model why science and humanity so greatly need each other, and so I'm very curious, in this obligation that you talk about, can you go into that just a little bit more for us?
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: So I was in a town called Bhubaneswar in the state of Orrissa in northeast part of India, and it was in 1990, it was a train station and if you've ever been on a train platform in India, they're very chaotic places, I was stressed when I see them.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: You have to run, right, you have to have space.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: It's insane.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: But among that chaos were 40 kids sitting in a circle learning how to read and write.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: There was a teacher in the middle teaching these children with incredible, you know, with flashcards.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: He was wearing a colorful sorry.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: And I had a friend who spoke the indigenous language of Aurya, the regional language, aurya, and I asked her what was going on and she said well, these kids live on around the train platform.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: They work, they play, they beg, they sleep, but they don't go to school.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: And there was a wonderful teacher every day who went back and forth from getting off the platform seeing these children working on the train, begging, you know, playing, and she said instead of getting these, getting these kids to school, I'm going to bring the school to the children.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: And this woman in their cheat, karana, is no longer alive with us, no longer with us today.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: But she brought a basket of magic and she brought chalk and puppets and, you know, games.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: And one kid appeared, and two, then four, then eight, and then she had a classroom and I asked the teacher, I said what does it cost to run one of these schools?
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: And at that time, in 1990, it cost about $400, with two teachers, a hot meal every day that it cost for the year, and it was there that I said I had that moment of obligation.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: It was very simple.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: I was only 22 years old.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: But how come I don't see more train platform schools all over India?
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: And two, how do I help?
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: Now, if you fast forward into the sophisticated nonprofit language it is, how do you make the train platform schools scalable?
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: And two, how do we invest small amounts of capital into really innovative grassroots organizations?
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: So that is where the dream of the Global Fund for Children began.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, man, what a story.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you for taking us back.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I feel like I can feel ourselves right there alongside you in just the way that you described.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: That I just wonder.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: We love talking to founders, and that's one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you, because I think you come at the world with just a different lens of the opportunity and especially something that's so community based and just how you started with the solution that was right there among the people.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Talk to us about some of the core lessons you learned when growing an organization like this and what you're taking forward from that experience.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: So for me, what was so important was really turning for an aid upside down on its head.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: You know, I went with this moment of obligation and I went back and I unfortunately did not do the MD-PhD to my parents, shagrim.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: But I got my master's in public policy from Duke and I started taking economics courses, international development courses, education courses, social marketing courses, and it's there that I learned about this top-down approach, about how we help people.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: We go in and plan for people, versus really looking, as William Easterly says, finding the searchers.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: We need to find proximate leaders who are grounded in their communities, who understand what the needs are and back them.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: And frankly, I found those organizations undervalued and undercapitalized, I believe it.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: And so that's what I did, and it was a great risk.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: I didn't know if I was going to be able to raise money, but I went to a group called Equing Green that supports social entrepreneurs around the world and I got seed capital of $25,000 a year for the vision.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: But they supported me for my children's book publishing venture Global Fund for Children Books.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Growing up in Eastern North Carolina, I never saw books that talked about where my parents were from or that I didn't see myself in books.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: So I created the first book called Children from Australia to Zimbabwe.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Like A is for Australia, john B is for Botswana.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: B is for Brazil, C is for China.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: There's even an imaginary country called Zanadu, Based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: In Zanadu did Kubla Khan a stately, pleasure-domed decree.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: So it's a journey across the alphabet Children from Australia to Zimbabwe.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: And nobody wanted to publish it.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: I wanted to make millions of dollars, like JK Rowling of Harry Potter, I used that money and spread it to these grassroots groups.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: The interesting part was no one wanted to publish the book.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: I was turned down by every publisher in New York so I self-published the book in 1996.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: I was able to convince philanthropists in North Carolina.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: If you give me money to self-publish, I'll donate three copies to every public school.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: I was able to get married and write the president of the Children's Defense Fund to write the forward.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: We self-published the book.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: We donated three copies to every public school and then I sold whatever I had left through a local distributor.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: Those books sold out and I had the same publishers who had said no to me come back and said we want this book and all your others Take that publishers.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: But guess what my answer was?
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: I said well, I don't think I want you.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: So I went and found a publisher named Charles Bridge in Boston, which is an independent publisher that does a lot of multicultural children's books, and I believe in this work.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: There is luck in this because I picked up the phone, dialed and the man answered and I made my sales pitch of Children from Australia to Zimbabwe.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: I self-published it.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: I need a national distributor, a national publisher.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: Do you think he'd be willing to look at it?
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: And the person on the other side said Maya, this sounds very interesting, can you FedEx it to me?
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: I said sure, are you the attendant or something?
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: He goes no, I'm the publisher.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: I said well, what are you doing picking up your own phone?
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: And he said Maya, it's President's Day, it's 4.30 and I thought you were my wife.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: So, literally, I FedEx the book.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: And a week later he made a deal, not only a deal for this book, that book, but all my other children's books.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: We made our first check I'll never forget and we made our first grants one, two, the train platform schools.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: The second two and AIDS prevention network for young people in Thailand and the third of building libraries in the continent of Africa.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Those were three grants we made with that first check.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, we did not become Harry Potter or JK-Roy In a social impact sense you did.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the books became incredible marketing tools.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: They were in libraries and schools and several philanthropists ended up getting those books for their children and started reading in the privacy of their bedrooms and then would call me or email me and they became major donors and they liked the bigger vision of the organization and that's how we started investing in all of these groups around the world.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: I'm just so awestruck by this story One because I feel so much connection to it.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: I love children's books and, John, you lived in Thailand for a year You're especially connected and I actually have a pet charity that I love so much in New Delhi called the School Under the Bridge, and it reminds me so much of what you're talking about.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: But the fact that you, as a founder, took your vision in this completely unique and entrepreneurial lane to tell your story in a way that bridges the gap between ages, between countries, between lived experience, between donor to mission, it is so interesting and fascinating.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I'm just rooting for you over here on the end and I just think that what you've said here is that this organization grew from this vision.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: You put it into the book, you put it into the way you socialize, you put it into your work.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: You made it bigger than just the school by the train tracks and now it's one of the largest networks of grassroots organizations that's working on behalf of vulnerable children anywhere.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: So I'm curious about what are the core lessons that you feel like you've learned while launching and growing this organization in such a unique way.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Well, one, just from the experience of building this network, is about the network that we build is about extraordinary leaders and how we need to support them and trust them and provide the capital that they need.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: That's one.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Two is how do we build the network, the ecosystem of these organizations, so they can learn from each other?
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: This is hard work.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: A lot of these individuals and organizations are working on the edges of society.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Many are putting their lives on the line in countries that have major human rights issues.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: How do we build an ecosystem of support for these organizations?
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: And then, third, you just hire really smart people to surround you and you let them go right.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: I was just so privileged to work with some extraordinary human beings that went out into the field to look for these incredible organizations and said, and they would come back and pitch the organizations they wanted to support and I would say, yes, can we do more?
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: And they say, my, we really want to do more, can we do more?
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: Like, yes, let's make it happen.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: And then the last piece I would say as a founder was after 18 years, I decided it was time to let the baby go to college and it was time to to let go and if this organization was really truly going to survive, it needed to survive without its founder so it could be around for a really long time.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: Feel really strongly about that and I'll just say there's nothing better than to revel in the joy of the person who's leading the organization now, john Hecklinger, and seeing the organization get bigger and better and even more creative than I could have ever imagined.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: That, to me, is joy as a founder, like, okay, you know, it's like you raised your child and now your child has gone on to do incredible things.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like, yeah, and it's an incredible feeling because sometimes I'll walk down DC and I'll walk around the corner and see Global Fund for Joy you know where their headquarters is and I'll go.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Dag, I was 22 years old when I found that organization Whoa.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: And look at it now, all grown up and thriving like that is the hallmark of a beautiful founder.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: The organization has now invested over $60 million in over a thousand community-based organizations, touching the lives of over 11 million children and youth.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Wow, I mean Maya.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: What a legacy and what an experience from your early adulthood that really has put you in this position now, as you're watching your organization child go off to college and grow up, and now you're stepping into a 100-year-old organization.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Talk to us about that transition.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Talk to us about what you saw and what drew you to your new role at Society for Science in the public.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: So I transitioned out and I was.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: There were a couple of things I wanted to do.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: I wanted to have some time to reflect and think about what I had learned.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: So I went to the Polynesian School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, as well as to Duke, and I was very lucky to have a visiting scholar appointment as well as being a social entrepreneur in residence.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: And I ended up writing a book called Invisible Children Reimagining International Development at the Grassroots.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: So I had time to just think.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Second, I had a child.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: My husband and I had a baby.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: We had been trying for quite some time and I needed to de-stress and just say this is what I want to focus on.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: And we have a beautiful daughter named Talia, joy of Our Life.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: And the third was what was next?
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: And so one day I got a call and they said Maya, there's an organization called the Society for Science and they're very interested in talking to you.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: They're best known for their world-class research competitions, the Science News Media Group, and they're looking for a new CEO.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: And I said well, you know, I haven't done science since college.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: My last, my senior thesis, was published in brain research.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: But I haven't done science, like we know.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: But as a young person and throughout college you were about.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: You know you did science.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: You've built a nonprofit organization.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: You know how to raise money.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: The board would really like to talk to you.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: And so I went in and here were seven elderly gentlemen interviewing me.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: The chair was Bob Horvitz, a Nobel Prize winner.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: He and I had read his papers in college and when I went into that room I thought there's no way they're going to even entertain me to be the next CEO.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: But I said you know, I've got to meet Bob Horvitz because I read his papers, so at the very least I could do that.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: You know, they listened to my story and the word on the street was Craig Barrett, who is a former CEO and chairman of Intel, was in the room and I guess the word on the street was she said let's hire her, let's move on.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: But they waited for me.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: I was still teaching a course.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: They waited six months for me to come to lead the organization.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: When I came there were a couple of things going on.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: One, like all media companies, all magazines and newspapers, science news was like going down.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Their subscribership was lessening, they didn't have enough advertising dollars.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: And then our sponsor, intel, was pulling out of the Science Talent Search.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: They had been the title sponsor for 25 years and before that it was 50 years with Westinghouse.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: The Science Talent Search is the most prestigious science competition in the United States for high school seniors.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: It's oh, there are Nobel Prize winners, macarthur Prize winners, people who founded companies.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: I had a huge challenge in front of me.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: I'd also told the board if I was going to take this job.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: I wanted to make sure every young person in this country could become a scientist or engineer, if that's what they wanted to be when they grow up.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: So I tackled each thing.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: So the Science Talent Search is America's crown jewel.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: It has created some of the most extraordinary scientists and engineers in the world.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: I said to the board.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: I said, instead of me putting out my tin cup and asking people for money, I'm actually going to do an RFP.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: I'm going to make the corporations and philanthropists apply to us.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: But why do they want to be the title sponsor of the Science Talent Search?
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: You flip the script.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: We already love you and then you go and do that.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: What choice did I have?
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: So we had a really big media campaign and what really got a lot of media attention was that New York Times wrote a story that got on the front page that Science Talent Search was looking for a new sponsor and there was a big article about why science was so important.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: This was during the Obama administration and we got 50 philanthropists and companies interested and then we had 10 that actually put in letters of interest and we had five who put in full proposals and we selected an extraordinary biotech company called Regeneron.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: The two founders of Regeneron are Westinghouse Science Talent Search kids like me.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I'm a.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Westinghouse Science Talent Search kid myself and they invested $100 million.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: I should got goosebumps.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: What a full circle on so many levels.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, my goodness.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: So I want to move on to just talking about mindsets, because when you come in after 18 years of founding and scaling this incredible organization over at Global Fund for Children, and now you're taking on this role of society for science in the public, talk to me about how your mindsets have to shift.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: This is something we hear about a lot with our founders and nonprofit you know is how do I have to shift my thinking to again evolve with not only who our audience is, what the mission is, but how to make this sustainable and scalable?
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: The thing for me was when you went into a nearly 100-year-old organization, the board was very clear we wanted your entrepreneurial mindset to come in right.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: They wanted to see things shaken up right, and I think organizations need that, frankly, to need some outside sort of vision, but also having a respect for the legacy that the society was founded by EW Scripps, the journalism publishing magnet, and William Ritter, and so they had founded Science News.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: And you know why they founded Science News 100 years ago?
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: It's because in the media they were reading about three-legged Martians and things that didn't make sense from a scientific perspective.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: They're like what is this?
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: He created a new cadre of science journalists in this country and Science News.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: I came into the society.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: I wanted to save Science News because every newspaper and magazine was dying.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: I said we have to make sure that Science News stays and that it's a core to our democracy, that scientific information is absolutely core, and so we were bleeding a lot of money.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: We were in the red.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Our board basically said make it sustainable, sell it or shut it down, and you have about 18 months to figure it out.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: So I ended up thinking teachers need excellent content.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Textbooks are old, they don't have great material, so we created something called Science News Learning.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: We started with 200 schools in 2015 and we're now in over 6,000 schools and that has now saved Science News in three ways.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: One, people can sponsor it for their school.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: For $575 a year we get 10 copies.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: A curriculum guide, teacher becomes part of our 20,000 teacher STEM community.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: Two, it markets to the next generation of young people, who most likely will read Science News, hopefully.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: And third, it's providing excellent content.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: Because science is changing so rapidly and that has pulled us out.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: It's given us a breathing room to really dream.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: We just put out a new middle school magazine called Science News Explores.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: So that's for the middle school population.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, we talk about lock arms, for impact is one of the trends that we lifted on the podcast and I just can't not hear your story and just think, like you are so good at that and I think a founder's mindset is seeing those collisions that could happen before they actually happen, and so I don't know.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I want to kind of go off script and ask, as you think about these partnerships and partnering with schools, what did that look like?
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Finding the partners and starting those conversations?
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Because it feels like it's just magnetic for how your organization is thriving today.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: It's very grassroots oriented.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: We wanted teachers to use it.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: We never went top down Teachers in the classroom used it and what was fascinating was creating those relationships.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: And then what would happen is the STEM district coordinator would hear about it Like what is it that you're using?
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: Like, I applied for it, it's free, what you know?
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: And so the STEM district coordinator would call our education program officer and say how do we get all the schools signed up for this program in the Dallas City school system or the Los Angeles Unified Public School System?
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: And it just grew.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: You know, it just grew.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: And we don't.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Teachers have to apply to us.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: They have to tell us how they're going to use it.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: We're not dumping it into the classroom.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: They have to tell us.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: And then we have these.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: It's just a big learning opportunity for us.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: So I hope I'm answering your question.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're answering it really well, because I actually think the secret sauce that I think is just percolating in me is you saying that they have to tell you how you're going to use it, because I think as a nonprofit you could get 25,000.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: You could buy a list of email addresses you know or addresses to direct mail, but unless somebody intrinsically believes and is bought into the mission and can see alignment, that's not going to translate.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: And right now you're showing that you already have believers who are saying, yes, I want this content and, by the way, it's creating a two-way conversation so you can understand what the needs are, what's happening in the schools?
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Where is it getting lost in translation?
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Where are their gaps in content?
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: To me it creates this beautiful symbiotic partnership.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: I want to kind of get back into that empathy piece because we can't have a founder's conversation without talking about compassion, fatigue and burnout, and we hear this a lot from people in our organization about founders who have birthed something and they're so proud and they're so deeply entrenched in it.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: But it can truly burn you out at times and it's hard to let go.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: And you were able to work past that letting go piece and I wonder what kind of advice you would have to the founders in our community right now who might be suffering through some founder fatigue.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: It's really important to take care of yourself.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: It's important to have a fabulous partner, like.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: I couldn't do what I do without a great partner my husband.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: I also am on other boards other boards that I serve on because I learn a lot about how organizations kind of tick on the other side and figuring that out.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: Taking breaks, taking vacation, is good.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: I'm not that great at it, but I take vacation I do, but I still look at my email first thing in the morning just to make sure nothing's up, and then I'm totally free for the day.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Right, reading great books and finding something you really enjoy doing.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: That's not work-related.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Frankly, I think that's really important.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: I also believe founders at some point this is just me need to move on.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: You cannot be with an organization for so long.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: I think it can get stale.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: Like I've been at the Society for Science now for nine years right, that's a long time.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: I not only saved a couple of our programs, but I started a whole new group of STEM outreach and equity programs, making sure every young person can become a scientist or engineer.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: That's what they want to be when they grow up.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: How do they become sustainable without that?
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: You know, without me, yeah, how you're really smart people to surround you, folks who are visionaries themselves, and you let them run with great ideas right?
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: I love it when my team, team players, teammates, come to me and say, hey, my, I have this idea.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: I'm like?
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, go for it.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: And it's hard raising money Year after year after year.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: It's exhausting, I won't mince words with it.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: It's hard.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: We have been so, so thankful for our partner with Regeneron, who's given us long bandwidths of time to really help scale our work.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of funders need to do that.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: So many funders keep doing these strategic plans every three years Like God knows, come on, like we can't fund you right now.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: We're in a strategic plan, and then when you go back to them, like, well, we kind of know what we want to fund now.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: So I mean, it's just it's.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: There's some sort of insanity sometimes with philanthropy that I'm not completely sure about.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: We feel extraordinary, blessed to have some big partners with us, but also a major philanthropist, that are backing us, including the family of our co-founder, ew Scripps.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: They have now come and become wonderful supporters of our work and for that I'm eternally grateful.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: It's really like the long game pays off with an organization that's had a history like this.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: It's like you've got the Regeneron folks that have come up through your program, that know the power of it, that are now powering it, Like it's just a beautiful thing of just the.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: You know the power of philanthropy and I got a transition to philanthropy, Just the side of it that really moves our hearts and I see your face light up my these different moments that you're taking us back to in your life.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: But I wonder if you'd take us back to one, a story of philanthropy that's happened, that stuck with you after all your incredible experiences.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: They're true and they're generational and I will do this quickly.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: The first one was I was 24 years old.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: I was bumped on to business class.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: I sat next to this older gentleman and he said what do you do?
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: I said just started a non-profit.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: I'm writing a children's book.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: And he said well, what's the name of the children's book?
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: I said children from Australia.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: It is in Bob Wayne.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: He says, oh, like ace for Australian, like right it goes.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: B is for Botswana.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: I'm like no, brazil.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: And we start guessing countries down the alphabet and he said I said what's?
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: The country starts with oh, because I don't know.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: He said think of a lot of oil.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: And he said oh, man.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: And then when I looked at him I said well, what do you do?
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: He goes I work for Morgan Stanley.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: I'm like oh, that's nice.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: Are you one of those diamond dozen brokers or VPs?
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: He goes no, maya, I'm the chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: I'm a VP, for sure.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: And and I was like oh, okay, didn't care.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Like I was like what's?
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: The country starts with P.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: I'm making guests down all the countries.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: He gets to X and he said Maya, don't tell me the country starts with X.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: I said be a six year old, be a child, think about it.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: And he looked at me with a big smile and he said it's Santa too.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: And I said, and I said, and that's why you're the chairman of Morgan Stanley, mr Fisher.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: And I got off the plane, he gave me his card.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: He said if I can ever help you, will you promise to call me?
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: I was like sure.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: It took me two years to call him because I had to self publish the book.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: I had to get it out there.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: But I finally wrote him a letter saying the book has been published and I would love to come and give it to you personally.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: And I heard from his assistant and he said she said Mr Fisher would be honored to see you again.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: And I went to the top floor of Morgan Stanley in Midtown Manhattan.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: I walked to this big office with Frank Stella's on the wall and it unbelievable.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: And here I was, 25 years old, 26 years old, and I said well, here's the book.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, mr Fisher, it's really nice seeing you again.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: And he said Maya, sit down and talk to me.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: And I said OK, and he listened and he looked through the book and he said what's the what's tell me what the vision I told him about the Global Fund for Children.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: He became a major angel investor in the organization by six figures.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: That first gift and I felt such a huge responsibility when he gave that check to me of such trust with me.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: He's no longer alive, but I'm in touch with his wife and I will never I will always be internally grateful for that.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: On the flip side, quick story, I got a letter on Pick Stationary and it said in Scrawly Letters Dear my Ashmera, my name is Mary Hewlett, I'm eight, you know I'm.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: I love your children's books.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: These are the reasons why I put it in my fan letter box.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: And then, two months later, three months later, I get a letter and said Dear Ms Ashmera, on the recommendation of Ms Mary Hewlett, she'd like to recommend giving you a grant.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh my God.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: So I called the name the Flora Family Foundation.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: The CEO picked up the phone.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: I said hi, my name's my Ashmera.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: The Global Fund for Children is like yes, maya, we've been following your work.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: I said who are you?
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: And he said well, have you ever heard of Hewlett Packard?
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, my printer's a Hewlett Packard.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: Well, mary is the youngest granddaughter of Bill Hewlett.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: And this is a family foundation and this is Mary's first gift and I was like how old is Mary?
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: She's like she's eight years old and that she and her extended family, including her cousin Juliet Gimone, who unfortunately is no longer with us but became my chair, and it became a family thing for the Global Fund for Children.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: But it started with Mary, so two generational stories here and you know what's so powerful about that Story is clearly not your target audience, for donors and people on airplanes are not your target audience but when you live and you breathe this mission in a way that people can feel it and Mr Fisher, that was personal to him and that connected and we have so many stories about me meeting people on airplanes that have connected to me, we are literally just talking about it this week and I just think when you live your mission with joy, with passion, with purpose, people are going to gravitate to that.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: It's like a magnet, and so I thank you for sharing that.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: I thank you for this book that started a movement and for most people who are listening to this episode.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: You can't see behind Maya, but there is books all behind her and it just feels like knowledge and in story have been such a hallmark of your journey and I love that you have poured that into your mission and so bravo.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Thank you for those two stories.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: We will not forget them, and I want to shift to kind of our last question, maya, which is what is your one good thing?
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: We ask all of our audience this this can be a life hack, maybe a quote, a mantra that you live by.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: What's a one good thing you could leave with our audience?
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: The?
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: one good thing I would leave with the audience is engage with people.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: We're in a time of real disengagement.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: Engage and tell stories, because stories is how we connect with each other.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: I felt like we were kindred spirits from you on that train platform and centering community in your work.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: But from the tail end of this conversation, just love how you see people, how you uplift people, how you encourage us.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: This has been an incredible conversation.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you for your work.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: I know people listening are going to want to connect with you, maya.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: So where do you hang out online?
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: How can someone follow you?
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: How can they find the work that you're doing and tell us about the books that we can get to?
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: I'm googling.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: I want to get this book for my kids, oh my gosh.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: So first they should visit wwwsocietyforscienceorg to learn more about the work.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: They want to learn more about me?
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: It's wwwmayahajmeracom, and if they want to tweet about me or whatever, it's at mayahajmera I believe it's X now this week and if they want to go and look at the children's books, it's on my website, but also on Amazon or any major, in all the bookstores, but I've got nearly over 25 children's books now.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, what a love letter to.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Talia, and a mighty legacy that you've left in this world.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: I thank you for such a heartfelt conversation.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: I thank you for just regenerative energy to pour back into these passions.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Founders, we see you, we see how hard you're pouring in to your nonprofit and you just have another mighty human in your midst right here that is changing the world.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Keep going.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you, my friend.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Friends, and 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.
• 39:55
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• 39:58
  Speaker 2: It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Sign up today at we're For Good dot com.
• 40:04
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• 40:06
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• 40:10
  Speaker 1: It means the world to us and your support helps more people find this community.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, friends.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Can't wait to hear our next conversation.