Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 442. Empowering Nepal: A Journey to Disrupt Poverty and Inspire Donor Engagement - Jehán Seirafi

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442. Empowering Nepal: A Journey to Disrupt Poverty and Inspire Donor Engagement - Jehán Seirafi · 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, Becky.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: what's happening today?
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I'm grinning from ear to ear and I've got to like, take everybody back before I introduce our guests to say how did we get to this point?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: And I was having a conversation with our dear friend, rachel Bearbauer and I said, rachel, you know, she's just the queen of small but mighty nonprofits And I was like we're really looking for some innovative ways that some of our smaller nonprofits are really revolutionizing donor engagement and stewardship.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: And she said, hold up, friend, because you got to meet my friend Jahan, and it was like we fell headfirst into the story of Sun Sermiah.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: It is an incredible organization that our friend that we're visiting with today has founded And I'm just so excited today to talk about what can be learned from radical stewardship that is highly organized, highly personal and really touches to the core of why a donor is connected to us.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: So let me start out by just introducing our guest, an incredible woman, mom and human, jahan Sirafi.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: She is the co-founder and executive director of Sun Sermiah And she's this amazing nonprofit professionally y'all.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: She's got the extensive program and project manager experience with this focus on international development and human rights And the story she's about to tell you about how she arrived in Nepal and what she saw there and how it changed her worldview is really going to open up your heart, because today she's just creating the holistic programs that are enabling disadvantaged women and children in Nepal to build their own pathways out of poverty.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: She is doing this through a variety of programs And I can tell you radical stewardship and donor engagement are a part of that equation.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: But I just want to give another shout out, because Jahan has just done so much in the international aid and human rights sectors.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Most recently she served as the program and development manager for the Human Rights Organization United for Iran, and she's also built an international network that provided educational and medical relief to underdeveloped areas in Nepal.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: So we're excited to have just a global powerhouse on the podcast today.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Jahan, welcome Welcome to the We Are For Good podcast.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Get In Our House.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Thank you, you guys.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: I'm so honored to be here.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: I'm so excited to talk to you both.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: I've been a fan of yours for so long and I just have to tell you, every time I listen, when I finish up an episode, all I think was that just felt like a big warm hug.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's what it should do.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Thank you, and this is not the first time we're meeting.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, the first time we met you, i think, was a community in coffee.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Thank you for coming in all the way from California.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: You're in San Diego, but we I want you to kind of tell this story and back it up just a little bit, because I think it's a powerful one.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Just talk about kind of where you grew up and how you fell into this work.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: I grew up in California.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: I come from a very large, extended family.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: I'm one of 12.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh Yes, not all full, so at least there was some haves in there.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: You know my mom always had a love for children.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: She was a preschool teacher.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: She had worked in children's ministry and continues to do so.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: So I think it was always just kind of part of our worldview of this care and love for children And it really led into my life.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: I was living and working in San Francisco.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: I had landed what I thought at the time was my dream job.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: I was working as a travel guidebook editor.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: That's my dream job too I cannot believe my luck Right I?
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: know, It would be years gone.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Every day.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: I walked in the door I was like they're going to find me out.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: But I don't know.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: I'm so happy to be here and was just living this wonderful, amazing life And then the recession hit.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: This was back in 2010.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: And our entire team got let go And I was heartbroken.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: I was like there it goes.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: There was my one shot and it's gone.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: So I spent the next six months doing some contract work, filling in the time, and it was not filling my soul, i think in honestly, it was having the opposite effect.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: So I sat down one night.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: I remember sitting on the couch with my husband We were newly married And I said what do you think if I go to Nepal and do some traveling?
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: And he was all for it.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: He was like that sounds like a great idea.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: You need to go.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: So I packed up my bags and I took off and I was doing some traveling.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: I was doing some volunteer work and a few weeks into my stay I was offered a job.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: So I called up my husband again.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: We've been married for four months at this time.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: He's like regret.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: Yes, and we had to figure out how we were going to make the first year of our marriage work and living on the other side of the world.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: And somehow we did it.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: And it was this amazing, incredible experience.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: I was facilitating medical camps, setting up education placements and just living this incredible experience.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: When people think of Nepal, the first thing I think of is Everest right, that's what everybody knows.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: But it's so diverse, it's so multi-layered, there's so much to it, but it's also one of the world's poorest countries.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: If you talk to anybody who's been there, i think their experience is probably the same as mine.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: And it is that.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: It is magical, it is beautiful.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: I just fell in love with the people, i fell in love with the place.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: There's just a generosity and a welcoming spirit that's just all-encompassing, it just fills your heart.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: So while I was there myself and three friends we just sat down and were like how do we give back?
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: This place has given us all so much.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: What do we do?
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: And so we started really small with Sunsarmaya.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: We just started by giving children backpacks and school supplies and uniforms just the things that they needed to get to school every day.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: But over some time, as we started to develop these relationships and working in the community.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: We sat down again and were like I don't know, is this really going to move the needle?
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: Is this going to have an impact?
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, these are things that children need, but this is really what's going to get them to where they need to go.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: And so we started with this idea of an after-school program and this kind of holistic program, and that was back in October 2014.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: And I remember the date exactly because, for some reason, we decided to open it up the week that I had my first born child.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Why not, let's do it.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: I was emailing from the hospital bed.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: My husband was like you got to put down the phone.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: It's like you had twins An organization, maybe.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Of course you would make a twin joke, John.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: It is, it's the joke.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: I had two babies that week.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: I had twins, and that was kind of that was the birth of Sunsarmaya.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, anybody that knows me knows that I'm eating the story up from multiple angles.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: But just love how you are just following these nudges and really trying to do it in a way that centers the community and trying to figure out the best, most impactful way to work with and support the incredible light of the people of Nepal.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: So I just love just seeing your heart explode as you talk about it And you know, sunsarmaya, i was really struck by the mission that I saw that.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I read that was said it was born out of a desire to help Nepali women and children break the cycle of generational poverty.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Like what a big, beautiful mission to pour into vision.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: You kind of walk through a little bit of like.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the after-school program, but I know you really have four pillars of work.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Maybe thread in a little bit of the connecting dots from launching to how you landed on these four programs and walk us through that.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: It's true.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: Our mission is to provide women and children what they need, right They for them to build their own pathways, and we're just here to support them and provide those things And we're really community-centered and holistic in that work.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: So our after-school program that it was our primary program, the one that we started with, and that once we really got into it it was really looking at what the need was.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: And in Nepal most children have access to school Legally.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Every child should be able to go to school.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: But that looks different for every child, especially based on your circumstances.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: You can imagine kind of the degrees and the quality of education.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: So but even if you're able to go to school, if you're hungry you can't learn.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: If you are experiencing mental health crises, you can't learn.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: If you're having medical issues, you can't learn.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: And most of the students in our community is they're living in orphanages, they're living in slum tenements, so you can imagine the things that they're not getting the support at home.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: So the goal of the program really is to provide children everything that they need but they might not necessarily get at home, to provide those opportunities and that healthy development.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: And so we have 300 students every day.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: We have three centers that they come to, and there's the three pillars of our program, which is the academics, the medical and the mental health.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: So when our students come every day, they get immersed in this like really cool hands on immersive curriculum where they're learning to.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: They're learning how to think, not what to think, and so they're doing these projects like they are making a working model of lungs out of bottles and straws.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: They're making battery powered cars out of cardboard One of our students they got a group together and at one of the centers they created this hang garden out of two liter soda bottles.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: Just this amazing, amazing work.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: And I give all the credit to our teachers.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, they are the ones who do this day in and day out.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: And then, on top of that, every student gets a daily nutritious meal.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: They're getting full medical and dental care twice a year.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: And then the mental health support, and that's a really important part.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: You know, in Nepal, mental health is not prioritized, and so you can imagine students who are living in these circumstances.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, when you are experiencing extreme poverty, oftentimes things that also happen are substance abuse, domestic abuse, things like that, and so we have a full-time mental health therapist on staff who is there to provide any needed therapy to any of our students.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: So we've been doing this since 2014, like I mentioned, and it's been amazing to kind of see the progress and see some of the students how they've moved through the program.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: We have this one student and she had come to us when she was little and she had moved through the program.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: She graduated a couple of years ago and in the time between her high school and college she came back and she interned with us, so she was teaching.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: She's now going to college, she's enrolled in college, which is amazing, right, just even to have come from those circumstances to get into college is such a huge feat.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: And then she's also working part-time now as a teacher.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: So she's making a salary to help support her education, support her family, and now she's giving back to her community because she wants to become a teacher when she graduates.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: So it's just this really beautiful full circle of the program that we're starting to see.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: I'm just like envisioning in my mind ripple, ripple, ripple, ripple.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, here you are coming up on the first decade and I think it just has to be so powerful for you to see that full circle moment come by.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: And you also have this amazing women's literacy program.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Talk to us a little bit about that.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: So our women's literacy program.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: It came out of this question of what else can we do for our students in our communities And in thinking about the impact I know you guys know this and I'm sure your listeners know this is how do you best support children and communities and you educate and empower women.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: That's how you lift up entire communities.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: So that was where it came from, but we chose to do it a little bit different.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: You know, the goal of the program is not just to have someone be able to read a book, which in and of itself is a magical and beautiful experience and something that everybody deserves But we wanted to make sure that these women were able to take these skills and go out immediately into their everyday lives and be able to use these, and so we're teaching things like how do you go to a local government building and find the office that you need to get to, or how do you read the label.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: One of our women has come to us and said you know, before I came to the program, i couldn't read my own prescription bottle, like I did not know how to take my medication.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Things you don't think about at all.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Exactly?
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: How do you go to a market and be able to calculate discounts or taxes?
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: one of our other students had said for years she had gone to the same local vendor in her community and for the fruits and vegetables at her for her family, And for years she just had to take what he was telling her as as truth.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: And this only happened last year and it was so powerful.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: She said that she had gone, got her stuff and he gave her the total and she pulled out a pencil and a piece of paper and tallied it up and showed him that he had been cheating her and taken advantage and demanded the payment back Right.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: So, like you said, it's things that we would never think about, we take for granted every day, but they're able to take these skills out into their everyday life and really just make an impact for them and their families.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I mean thank you for doing this.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I feel like when we talk to founders that are going after big vision that can't just be easily accomplished, that you're trying to change a cycle and systems like, I appreciate the audacity you know to go and say we're going to pour into this, because that's what I see in your programs And clearly it's changing the trajectory for families already, And there's more programs I know you could lead us into.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: We want to lift your teacher training and the emergency relief that you'll do also, But just what a beautiful mosaic of impact that you're creating in Nepal.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: And so I want to transition, because the way you came in the door Becky alluded to this at the beginning is that you're also disrupting the heck out of how to steward the donors that are surrounding your movement, And so we love this case study of a year of stewardship.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So you came up with this idea to really put more personalized attention and great care on your donors.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: So tell us the story How did you come up with this plan and how did you get your team rallied around it?
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: How did you pull it off?
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Because we'd love to hear kind of the results of this experiment you did.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: This was so fun.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: You know, for us, our donors and I think probably I know a lot of organizations feel this way, but for us our donors truly are a part of San Sarmaaya, right, like we cannot do this work without them And they are just as important as any team member And I wanted them to know that and feel that authentically.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: But at the same time, like Nepal is really far from here, we're here in the States, a lot of our donors are here, and so how do you find that connection?
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: I think we've done a pretty good job up to then of like communicating and sharing with our donors updates, things like that, but not really truly finding that connection.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: And we had come off a year that we had done pretty well financially, so this was not kind of motivated by needing to raise more funds, but it was really about sustaining the organization as a true community and fostering those relationships.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: So that's where we came up with this year of stewardship And we still did a lot of the usual things, like I tried to always write a handwritten thank you note to people when they donate to our board members, make phone calls, holiday cards, things like that.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: But what else could we do, right, not with an ass, but truly with building that relationship.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: And so we came up with a couple of ideas, and some of them were super fun and quick.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: Like in February, we sent out a Valentine's Day card and it just had a picture of our kids and some of their artwork and just was we're thinking of you, kind of thing.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: Super simple.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: We did a summer fun list for our donors.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: They got a Nepalese recipe that they can make a super easy one, some book recommendations by Nepalese authors We put in a Spotify playlist and some movie recommendations.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Super fun.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Right, just like.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Here's some ways to connect.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: So you know that this is the place that you, that you, are giving to.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: And then, in the fall, we did something that I thought was super special.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: I think when people think of Nepal, often, they probably also can think about meditation.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Right, it's the birthplace of the Buddha, so there is definitely that connection there, and so we were long gone from the days of pandemic zoom parties This is 2022.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: But somehow we got people all over the globe to come together And we did this meditation event one evening, and it was hosted and led by a meditation teacher from his place in Nepal, and it was just this really beautiful, small, intimate group.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: But it was also a way to like authentically connect as an organization.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: You know, meditation is the daily part of our programs and something that our students practice, and so it was a way to connect to our programs into the place for our donors.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: And then the last piece was this thing that we dubbed Chai with me, and this kind of happened throughout the year, and I have to tell you, this is the brainchild of Alicia.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: She's our director of development and she is my partner in everything that we do.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Way to go, alicia Yes, she's amazing.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: And what we did is we printed out these cards and these got sent to anybody, whether they gave $5, $500.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Again, it was all about just the relationship building.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: And they said something super simple, like I just want to hear from the people who make Sunsarmaya happen Will you have a cup of Chai with me?
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: And there was a little packet of Nepali Chai tea inside and a QR code And that code would link to my calendar online And people could set up a time to chat.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: So I had these monthly calls with people And some of these people had been giving for years.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Maybe I'd emailed with them or sent them cards, but I never got a chance to talk with them And I got to know them on a personal level.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: I got to know not only why they chose to get to Sunsarmaya, but who they were as people.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: I got to hear about their families, their hobbies.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: I remember one of them was in her art studio, so I got to see all of the art that she'd done And we had talked about that And I just got to know them as humans and just a way to say thank you for what they were doing.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, so much to double click on here.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Let's start with the compliments.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: I had to trademark that, that's right, i mean, because we can call this stewardship And that's a very jargon-y buzzword here in the nonprofit sector.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: But what you did was you connected, and you connected on a deep human level And it wasn't just about, hey, here's a tchotchke or here's your name on a wall or something.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: It was like, oh, here's our story, here's our people, here's what we're working on.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Let me educate you about Nepal.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: You also met them in the spaces where they're at, and I just have to ask you what was the outcome of the year of stewardship?
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: What did that look like to you and to your team?
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: I have to say, going through it, we just didn't know, right, especially with the chai with me, there was plenty of people that we never heard from.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: I had no idea if they even got the card.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Did it get lost in the mail?
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Were they like what is this thing And why are you sending it to me and spending money that I've donated?
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: So there was never a clue.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: But again, we just felt like this was authentic and it was true to who we were And just trying to foster that connection.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: And at the end of the year we always pull our retention rates.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: We want to see how we are doing with our donors And overall last year we had a really good retention rate.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: I was proud of it.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: We beat the national average and it was something that we had been working towards.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: But then when I segmented out the people that had received these cards and people that I had never talked to, people that never even told me that they got it across the board, that retention rate was 20% higher than our own retention rate And that's huge.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: It also speaks to attribution, because this is what's talked about a lot like in conversions for online marketing metrics.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: It's like it's not always one-to-one.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: They don't always click on the exact email that you sent that had the link.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: It's like you're lifting across the board.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: So I love that you looked at it kind of holistically And, of course, that led to more of that.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: It just makes common sense too and just knowing it's about people and building that relationship.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: So, knowing the kind of complexity, you all are still a very small team overall And you had to use some tech to stay organized And I've heard from Little Bird that you are like a tech wizard at using this to power these kind of projects.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Would you kind of talk about how did you use tech to help personalize at scale in the way that you did?
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: We are a very small team.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: I'm the only full-time member over here.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: We have tons of full-time staff in Nepal but when we set this out, we had to figure out how to make it work for a team of ours eyes and how to make sure that it again was personalized.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: I did not want to take that out, so we relied really heavily on Airtable Airtable And you called out Rachel Bearbauer.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: She helped me a lot with it.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: I do love tech And so we had to just set up these processes, especially with the CHI with me, because it was going out to so many people each month, and so we used Airtable to kind of track everything.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Each time somebody obviously the cards went out by hand.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Every time a card went out, we hit something in Airtable and it triggered a record to be created in our CRM So we know who got the card, what it said when they got it.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: And then we also used Airtable.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: So a week later right, you want to follow up?
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Maybe they didn't get the card, maybe it got lost.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: And so a week later, also through Airtable, it triggered an email that came personally from me, personally through Airtable, that said, hey, i hope you got our card, i'd love to still talk with you.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Here's a link to the calendar, and so that really allowed us to track this, automated it and to ensure that people were getting it, and obviously you don't want to resend a card to somebody, those kinds of things And so we really relied heavily on technology to make this happen.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: I'm just so proud of you.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I mean our small but mighty nonprofits are so freaking mighty.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: I mean this is the way that I think you can work smarter, not harder, and I think you had this initial goal of this increase in retention.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: but I just think the practice of this, the organization of it, gave you all these added benefits that you probably maybe couldn't have perceived would come as a result of it.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: So I'm like what can nonprofits learn about this?
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm thinking right now, johan is like, as they're planning their own donor engagement strategies, what were really the takeaways that you and the team felt lifted out of this little experiment?
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: I think the driving idea was to show up and be authentic.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: Relationships are not transactions, and so you have to find what's meaningful to you and your programs and your donors.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: Us being an international organization, a smaller one again, we had to find what really worked for us.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: What works for other organizations just wouldn't happen for us.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Like we don't have people come and visit, we don't have some of these other golf tournament doesn't make sense, things like that.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: So find what works for you, carve out the time.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: It's so well worth it.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: I know there's people probably thinking there's no way, especially smaller organizations like ours.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Like how can you find time, 30 minutes to talk to people throughout your week?
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: And it's so worth it.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: I mean to be honest with you.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: I probably would have wasted that time scrolling through Instagram.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: So it was such a better use of my time And it was powerful.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: It really filled me up And I'm so grateful for each and every one of those conversations I have to relate to it just for a second, because I have these two 30-minute slots held on my calendar on Monday afternoon and Friday morning to just meet people in our community, and that has been one of the greatest joys of my life.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: We have found so many people that have come onto the podcast.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: We get to have extended conversations with people that have been at Community and Coffee or DM me, and I just think there is something to that.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: If you have 30 minutes a week or maybe an hour a week to break that up, i think it could radically change the culture and the dynamic of the relationships, and I think it just starts one at a time And I love that you guys did that Brilliant.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Your story of just the people that have surrounded this work, but also your own personal journey.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Have you kind of poured deeper into this mission?
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I know that the story of philanthropy probably sticks out to you As you look back on your journey of your life.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: when's a moment of philanthropy that you would take us back to Jahan?
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, i love this question so much.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: I love all the stories that I hear from all of your guests, and if I were to pick one, i think back in 2015,.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: We were a baby nonprofit.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: We had just opened the doors to the afterschool program.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: The previous November, we had our first cohort of students, and one of those students was a little boy.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: He was a five-year-old little boy named Shekhar, and he had needed open heart surgery from the day he was born, and Nepal doesn't have a social safety net for children like him.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: There was no options for his parents, and so he had just lived day to day like this, and so we reached out to our small community of donors.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: Again, we were so small And I said there's this little boy on the other side of the world.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: You don't know him, but he needs you, and the outpouring of love and support was just overwhelming.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: They not only covered his surgery, they covered all of his follow-up treatments.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: They covered all the medication that he needed over the course of that entire time.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: His surgery was successful.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: He went on and is living a full and vibrant life, as every child deserves to do, and I think it was the first inkling of what this community can really do.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: I know I keep on saying community as we're talking, but internally and even externally, we talk about our SUMA family, because that's really what it is Like.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: These people surround us and uplift us and support us in times of need.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: There was actually a couple of years ago.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: We had a funding gap and we did not know if we were going to keep the doors open.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: We do really well in December, i think, as a lot of organizations do but this was the end of spring and I was like I don't know how we're going to make it.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: And I can remember sitting down one night and having to write this email and just being really vulnerable and transparent, excuse me And just saying like we're not going to make it, we need your help.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: And again they showed up, they got us through, they got us to a place just of stability and we were able to go on to plan to open up our next center And it was just again.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: It's something so special and I'm so incredibly grateful for this group of people who just encircle us and uplift us all the time.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Jehan.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, here's the thing You are literally telling the story as it is And that is what I want people to take away from that beautiful, heartfelt story We talk so often.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: It's like tell your community what you need And I think, because you have been and built culturally into your organization what we call like this is our core value number six, which is steward, relentlessly.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: You have built a culture of communication, of sharing the humanity of what you need and connecting people from across the world to a cause they would have never known about.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: And I just, i just applaud the way that you are seeing not only the beneficiaries of your mission but you're seeing your donors, not just the biggest ones but the smallest ones and everyone in between, and I think that's one of the biggest takeaways I'm going to take from this conversation.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Bravo.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: And you know, as a student of the podcast, we're going to have to roll up this conversation which we're sad about because I'm enjoying it so much with a one good thing, And I wonder what would be your one good thing you would offer up to the community today?
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, i think if it was to be one thing, it would be just stay laser focused.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Remember why you started, remember who you started doing this work for, and then make every decision, look at every opportunity through that lens.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: And for us it was our students, it's our children, and we've had to say no to some really incredible opportunities because of this, like opportunities that would have been really financially beneficial for us.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: But we had to stay true to our mission.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: But I think now, over time, you know, we've started to see the outcomes of that, like when you pour so much into these children And what it does for them, what, how it makes them feel about themselves, you start to see it.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: There's this little boy in one of our programs.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: His name's Manish, he's 10 years old And, just like all of our students, he has grown up experiencing extreme poverty, but he wants to be a writer when he grows up.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: And he recently wrote this poem.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Can I read it to you guys Please?
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: It's called the Nepal of my imagination And it goes of all the children in my school.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: I may not be the tallest of all the voices in the world, mine may be the smallest, but I can almost touch the stars if I stand on my toes And soon my words might change the world.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: So you better listen close And I think, like when I read it and I've read it so many times it's so beautiful, it's just not that.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: It's not that he knows like the potential that his teacher see in him or the potential that I see in him And I see potential in every single one of our students.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: You can hear the potential he sees in himself now, right, and that he can go out into the world and he can live holy and fully and with everything that he deserves.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: And I think that's all you could ask for for every child.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: What a beautiful way to round out this conversation.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Just thank you for the work that you're pouring into, thank you for the dignity that you do it in for the students and the women that you serve.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: So would you kind of tell us how to connect with you and your incredible mission?
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Point us to all the ways that you'll show up online and just for people to get connected, tell us what you need to, because I feel like this is something that I know listeners are going to want to get connected.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: And if this is stoking your passion, your personal passion, what are the current needs of the organization?
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we are.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: you know our website, sunsarmayaorg.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Everybody can find all of our information there.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: You can connect with me there at Sunsarmaya, on Facebook, instagram, linkedin.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: And, yes, we would love anybody who feels connected to our mission to join us.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: We're always looking for people to share the word, spread the work that we're doing.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: If we're always looking for corporate partners, business partners, people who may be interested in kind of supporting us in that way And, of course, always financial donors are, help us keep our mission going.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: What a mighty nonprofit, and you are assured that you're going to get some dang good stewardship when you come over there.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: So, johan, thank you so much for this incredible story.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: We are just truly rooting for what you're doing.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: We want to see this impact just compound and compound upon itself.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: You guys.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: thank you so much.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: Thanks for talking with me, for sharing your platform, for highlighting not only our work, but so many incredible organizations.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: I'm inspired by them and inspired by you, so thank you.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Thank you, my friend, keep going.
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: One more thing.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: If you loved what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review?
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: It means the world to us and your support helps more people find our community.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: Thanks, friends.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: I'm our producer, Julie Comfort, and our theme song is Sunray by Remy Borsbu.