← Nonprofit Leadership Podcast
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- [00:03]
A
Students in the Luminos program were learning in just one year, 90% of what the average adult in the same country knew.
- [00:12]
B
Oh, wow.
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A
And learned in their lifetime. 90%. And that is both an enormous testament to our students and our teachers. And it's also really stark reminder of exactly how many adults as well as children have been left careful out of the landscape of educational opportunity.
- [00:33]
B
This is Dr. Rob Harder with the nonprofit Leadership podcast, Making youg World Better. What does it take to be an effective nonprofit leader today? What are the biggest challenges? What are the biggest obstacles? How should nonprofits fundraise in an economy that is constantly changing? All of these reasons combined led me to start this show and it's my hope that through this series people can learn not only what it takes to be an effective non profit organization, but but to hear from effective leaders who are successfully making a positive impact in their communities. We hope you enjoy the show as together we hear how they are making their world better.
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A
Welcome to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast with Rob harder. I'm Lena LaRue, based currently in Mexico, and I'm a listener just like you who cares about the nonprofit world and the people leading it. If you're looking to learn and grow as a nonprofit leader, you're in the right place. Thanks for listening. Now here's Rob.
- [01:33]
B
This podcast is sponsored by Donorbox. Donorbox, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business. Well, welcome back everybody to the show. We're so glad you're here. I've got Caitlin Barron on the show here. Caitlin, thanks so much for being on the show today.
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A
Rob, thank you so much for the kind invitation to be here.
- [01:50]
B
Thank you, absolutely. No, I always enjoy having a variety of guests and you're going to talk about a lot of interesting things with the work that you're doing with Luminas. But maybe I always like to start with this. Give the listeners just a bit about your background, give us a bit of your story and particularly what led you to work now with what is Luminas? And yeah, how did you get there? Tell us a bit about your mission journey, if you will.
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A
Yeah, no, absolutely. I guess everyone's story begins somewhere and mine begins in Brooklyn, New York. So I, I was born and raised in Brooklyn and way back in the dark old 1970s, which was an amazing place to grow up and a rich and stimulating environment, but very much an environment where it was very clear to me from a very young age that education made a life changing difference in the landscape of opportunity before children. And I think it's sort of, it might be unusual, like as a young child for you to have that stark kind of discrepancy in different levels of educational opportunity. So, so clear and in your face. But that was a big, that was a big part of my growing up. And I think, you know, when I look back on that now, it's a, it's sort of, it's not an accident that I wound up in, in the business of expanding education opportunity for children around the world.
- [03:06]
B
Nice. Excellent. Well, obviously you're continuing to do that, so. Okay. So for my listeners who are new to Luminass, give just a quick overview. What is the primary problem or mission you're trying to focus on and what inspired its initial funding?
- [03:19]
A
Yeah, so Luminos is in the business of creating second chances for children who have been denied the chance to go to school. So it's hard to believe, but even today is still one in five children in Africa never get the chance to start school, never get the chance to really grab that first rung of the educational ladder. So still a really, really large number of kiddos who are missing out on even those first foundations of education. What we do at Luminos is we design high impact, high engagement, catch up education programs that help older kids who've missed out on the chance to go to school to cover three years of learning in one year, and then mainstream with kids their own age. The origin of our work is a truly unique one. Our work was incubated by a foundation called the Legatum Foundation. Legatum is the Latin word for legacy. It's the foundation of a, of a New Zealand investor, Christopher Chandler and his colleagues. And essentially what the Legatum foundation does is every five years or so they pick a new kind of intractable global issue which has sort of captured their imagination. And they do a bunch of their own grant making in the space for a couple years. And when they feel like they've sort of honed in on a real opportunity for impact and scale and they actually spin that program out, they create a standalone 501C3, kind of endow it with a substantial upfront gift, but really create an invitation for other philanthropists to come around the table and grow and scale the work. And so that is really the origin story of where I come in to the mix. So I was living and working in South Africa running the overseas operations of the Michael and Susan Dell foundation. And the team at Legatum had incubated this amazing transformative program with community based organizations in Ethiopia and Reached out to me and said, you know, would you be interested to come on board and help us think about how to turn a program into an organization?
- [05:30]
B
Wow. Okay. What an opportunity. Now that's interesting. We briefly talked before he record you're working with the Dell family Foundation, but you were in South Africa at the time. Was that a difficult challenge to decide to leave there and start with something brand new, or were you drawn to something that was like brand new and really excited to start something from scratch?
- [05:48]
A
I have to say, sort of the. And I suppose if there's any philanthropist who's going to support its entrepreneurial endeavors, it's. It's probably Michael and Susan Dell and I. I definitely felt I spent 10 years working with a family helping steer their international giving in India and then later in South Africa. And I think I always took that inspiration from, from Michael, that there were like truly transformative things to be done by, like, digging in and bringing that same entrepreneurial spirit that, that he brought to building the company to the task of social change and social reform. And so I had been living and working in South Africa for the Dell family for a number of years. Much of our work was focused on creating holistic support programs for first generation college students in South Africa. So South Africans who were the first in their family to get the chance to go to college and again had this huge potential open door of opportunity, but without the right kind of support, you know, for far too often would wind up falling out of school before completing their degree. And I think that that really set in my mind the degree to which education really has these kind of threshold events. Right? Like the difference between getting a college degree and not getting one is so life changing and profound. And it really sort of captured my imagination. Like kind of what are those key kind of the educational threshold events in a child or young person's life? And then how can philanthropy kind of hone in on those critical make or break moments to ensure that more and more young people kind of make the leap to the next level? And so my work in South Africa was with first generation college students. My work at Luminos is with first generation readers. So the vast majority of the students we serve are the first in their family to learn to read. And you can imagine what that means for them individually as children, but I mean, indeed, what it means for their whole family to now have someone who can read a text message or voting ballot or a prescription or fertilizer instructions, you know, any one of those, like basic fundamental things that can be really make or break for a family's life. And so I think I've always felt like there's a real, there's a key link between that kind of first gen college work and the work that we do at Luminos, which is really first generation readers.
- [08:15]
B
Yeah, love hearing that. And you've obviously been there from the very beginning with Luminos. Is there anything that really stands out as what you're most proud of when you look back so far at the work you've done?
- [08:25]
A
Well, you know, Rob, one of the things that's tricky about education is that on the one hand, like cognitively, children everywhere learn to read in very much the same way. We all have a version of the same basic brain, but they do so in entirely unique linguistic and cultural contexts. And so transformative education has to both bring what we know as the best in class kind of global learning science to the fore, but really has to then shape and combine that with local communities, local context, history, culture, so that the education that's presented to children is a natural on growth of the world that they spring from. And to be honest, in global education, that's often where we go wrong. Like we'll veer to sort of one side or the other. The magic is actually bringing those two things to the fore. And I think that's really a critical part of what Luminos gets. Right.
- [09:24]
B
I love that. Well, okay, so we talk a lot on the show with different nonprofit leaders that are trying to scale their impact, scale their organization. It can be a real challenge and not everyone can do it well. Right. They want to, but they don't always know how to do it well. Or they try it and then it kind of self implodes. How have you been able to scale effectively? Because it seems like what I've learned about your organization, you've done this well, plus you're doing an international context. What could you pass on to my listeners when it comes to scaling their organization that you've really learned at Luminos when it comes to not just again expanding your organization, but you've worked across countries and government systems and still been able to grow and scale your work and your impact. Maybe you could talk a bit about what you've done. It's been so successful.
- [10:08]
A
Yeah, it's a great question, Rob. And you know, for the kind of work that we do where you're working in incredibly high need contexts. Right. Like 9 out of 10 African children fail to learn to read by the age of 10, which is a critical benchmark. I mean, you're dealing with kind of almost overwhelming need and overwhelming numbers. It's easy to make the mistake of focusing on what you lack. It's easy to fall into that sort of deficit model mindset. But what we find is when you're looking for scalable solutions, you actually have to focus on what you have. You have to focus on the assets that you have. And so for our work at Luminos, we saw a massive shortage of qualified teachers on the African continent. So we created a program model that was equally effective with what we call community teachers. Essentially young people drawn from the community, trained and supported to provide foundational literacy and numeracy work. You know, we saw a shortage of, of highly effective teachers in government school. But then we developed a model of actually training those very same teachers to become extraordinarily effective with the right support. And we work in incredibly high poverty contexts. But what we came to understand was that the core principles of play based interactive learning could be brought to life with very modest resources, but used in creative and different ways. And so I think that's always been kind of the mindset of my colleagues. And I sort of like see the need. Absolutely. Because that's what we're there to address. But, but don't be overwhelmed by that. Like, don't fail to, in recognizing the need, don't, don't fail to recognize the assets and the strengths.
- [11:51]
B
That's helpful. And you know, talk about scaling. Another thing that most nonprofits want to do, but they don't always know how to do it well, is this idea of collaboration and building the right partnerships. And of course that goes hand in hand with scaling, often is developing the right partners. Again, that's another thing it seems like you've done a really good job of and that's how you've been able to really grow and scale is by building the right partners, really doing collaboration. Well. What have been some of the key things you've done that again, other people can learn from? Your example of how you've been able to really successfully do that consistently over a period of time.
- [12:22]
A
Yeah, I mean, partnership is fundamental to our model. So our team at Luminos designs high impact education programs, but then we fund African led community based organizations to actually run those programs and take them to scale. And again, what that means is we're not necessarily building up an enormous Luminos team that's kind of coming in as a sort of parallel school system. We're really working within organizations and assets that are already present in the community and activating them to carry the work forward. And what that means is then those organizations are continue to deliver the program with Luminos and are funded by us, but equally they mobilize outside funding to deliver that program. And that's yet another way that kind of by focusing on building capacity in African led organizations as opposed to building our own team, really creating, you know, essentially a community of like minded organizations who all share the same capability. The reality is there's 80 million children who still miss out on the chance to go to school. So no matter how fast Luminos grows, like we will never reach every one of those children in time. Right. And so we've always taken a completely open source approach to our materials. All of our teacher guides, readers, et cetera that we develop are available for free to everyone. And we find that that working in collaboration with community based organizations, I mean, first things first, makes the program far more impactful, but ultimately sort of sets us up for much more of a long term, sort of sustainable scale journey.
- [14:03]
B
We'll be right back. Are you looking for an easy and effective way to boost your nonprofit's donations? Well, look no further than Donorbox, the online fundraising platform that streamlines your fundraising efforts, maximizes donations and simplifies giving for your supporters. With Donorbox, you can create beautiful donation forms, accept digital wallet payments, track donations and send auto receipts. And the best part, there are no setup or monthly fees and no long term contracts required. So what are you waiting for? Visit donorbox.org today to get started. That is www.donorbox.org. You often talk about what you call the Luminos method. And I like that everyone, I think many nonprofits have their own method, but you've really gone to another level where you've really documented it, you've shared this publicly. This is really part of the culture that you've created there and a structure which you've built around to accomplish your mission. Talk about what is your Luminos method and why has it been so effective again?
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A
Well, you know, it's interesting. I often love to ask people the thought experiment, like what is the most scaled global model in education? There's probably a couple answers you could offer, but one of them is certainly Montessori. In every city in the US in Europe and elsewhere, you can find multiple Montessori. And where did that work begin? It began in a series of small classrooms in a low income community on the outskirts of Rome. And how was it captured and disseminated really through a book. In the end, right, there was no private equity money to scale the model across the globe. It was really a matter of thoughtfully writing down and capturing what it is one does in Montessori and why it works. When we thought about our own journey at Luminos, we're 10 years into our journey now. We have the gift of 10 years of impact data. We've done over 30 external evaluations and we have a raft of teaching and learning materials that we've created. I think we calculated we've written 20,000 pages of teacher guides and instructional materials. So there's a lot out there, there's a lot of evidence that shows that the work that we do works. But what we would find is that, you know, ministries of education and schools in various corners of the globe would come to us and say, we've heard about what you've done, we want to do something similar. And we would say, realistically, we're probably not going to make it to your country directly. We can give you all these materials, but what we'd really love to do is actually give a bit of a textbook. And so this is the Luminos method. It's designed very much like a textbook you might get in school. And it's that idea of capturing, like, what are the practical measures, what, you know, what does it look like inside a luminous classroom. Why does this model work? What evidence do we have that shows it works? And that really creates like a first stage tutorial for schools for departments of education and others around the world who might want to either adopt the entire program end to end, or actually just look over it and say, actually, I really like the approach of joyful learning. I really like the approach of phonics for first generation readers. I really like this element or that. And part of the rationale and kind of setting up the Luminos method book that way was also to just really empower people to like, pick up the pieces of this model that work for your school in your context and run with them.
- [17:41]
B
Well, you mentioned you've had some external studies done. Quite a few actually. And one of the things I thought would be interesting for my listeners to hear are the results from some of your randomized, controlled trial, you know, studies, if you will, because they're pretty striking. Tell us about some of the outcomes that you came up with and what did you find when it came to this model once it was implemented in your various places?
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A
Yeah, no, I'm. External evaluation is fundamental to what we do. So we do an external evaluation in every country every year because every year we're serving a new Cohort of students. Right. So it's not enough to say last year's evaluation was strong. We need to know that this cohort of students, this intake, is similarly benefiting. But, yes, we have had the benefit of conducting a randomized control trial, or rct, essentially sort of the gold standard of evaluation. And what the RCT data showed was that students in the Luminos program were learning in just one year, 90% of what the average adult in the same country. New.
- [18:45]
B
Oh, wow.
- [18:46]
A
And 90% lifetime. 90%. And that is both an enormous testament to our students and our teachers. And it's also just a really stark reminder of. Of exactly how many adults, as well as children have been left out of the landscape of. Of educational opportunity.
- [19:07]
B
What is interesting, the context where you are providing this education that's so critical. I'm sure it's difficult. It's not always the easiest of places. And some of these kids come from very difficult homes and just situations. Their environment can be very tumultuous. Often they come from trauma. And yet one of your key values is joyful learning. I think that's really interesting. That stood out to me when I read about some of your values and the things that mark your work. Where'd you come up with that? And how does that really show up in practice, the philosophy of joyful learning, particularly in some of the contexts where you find your students?
- [19:38]
A
Yeah. You know, I think, Rob, one of the things we've learned time and time again in our work at Luminos is that children everywhere learn best when they're happy. And that's true for my kids in school. And that's equally true for children who are displaced refugees in rural Ethiopia. If anything, it's more so the case. Right. So there's often like a kind of false dichotomy in education, the sense that, like, oh, we have to focus on academic outcomes. We don't have time to focus on this sort of emotional psychological development or vice versa. And genuinely, what we find at Luminos time and time again is that actually the single best way to accelerate academic learning is to make sure that children are learning in a safe and welcoming environment where it's safe to make mistakes. Mistakes are a part of the learning journey, and they're celebrated. And where children have the opportunity to learn with the head, the hands, and the heart, everyone learns more effectively when they have the chance to. To take what they're learning and put it to use. And so in a Luminos classroom, you'll see a teacher teaching you'll see children learning from each other. You'll see small groups, peer groups, and you'll see an enormous amount of learning with tactile materials, learning in ways that emulate the communities that children have come from. So we do a lot of marketplace based mental math. Like if you had to buy a bunch of bananas and you had a $10 bill, what would, what would that involve? And a lot of just like singing and dancing and high energy and the idea being like all the core concepts of the curriculum should be presented to children in multiple different ways. So whether you're a child who prefers to access learning one way or another, all of those fundamental elements are going to be there. And that's really where the magic of kind of this thoughtfully designed program and training comes to life.
- [21:37]
B
Well, when we think about organizations that scale and grow like yours has, often that takes a toll in many ways on the leadership of that organization. And typically leaders have to keep growing, right? And keep scaling. As the organization grows, they have to grow in their own leadership. So I'm curious for you, like, what are some of the things that, as you look back over these last 10 years, how have you grown personally as the organization's grown, as there's any stories or things that really stand out to you that were moments or inflections, points maybe where your leadership really took to another level?
- [22:06]
A
That's a great question, Rob. And I guess the short answer is I've grown a lot and I'm still growing.
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B
That's a good thing.
- [22:13]
A
Luminous began as really a handful of classrooms doing extraordinary work, and this year will reach over 100,000 children across the African continent. So our organization has scaled a lot. And I guess what that's meant for me personally is that, you know, in the early days I was truly like Jack of all trades. So I was intimately involved in program design in the classroom, seeing what was working, not working, iterating in real time and making like a million quick decisions myself, in essence. And you know, I think in the beginning I sort of succeeded by being fairly quick with a lot of answers. And then what you find as you build, build a bigger team is that in fairly short order there, I mean, there's someone better than me at every single aspect of our work in our organization. And so what I really need to be doing is building a community and a culture where those quick answers are not coming from one person anymore. They're actually coming out of the best people on the team. And so my role has changed a lot over time. I am no longer the person in the classroom, designing the program, Although that experience is alive and well for me. And a lot of my job these days is really holding strategy, culture, hiring. I still do the final interview for every single person we hire because hiring decisions are the most important decisions an organization makes. And then, you know, and then I guess the risk management work, you know, both financial and child safeguarding, that never goes away. And I think the bigger your organization gets, kind of the risk. Risk of stumbling is that much greater. So kind of holding. Holding those risks is a. Is a key part of the process, too.
- [24:00]
B
So interesting to hear your process of knowing that you can do a lot of things. In fact, you've done almost everything early on, and yet you knew you had to let go some things, hire people that are smarter than you, better than you at different areas, but then really holding on to those key things like culture, child wellness, and a couple other core things that you need to be responsible for. I think that's really good leadership advice, actually, for anybody who is growing in their organization. You can't do it all, right? And you have to really decide what only you can do and what's critical to you specifically, and then really empower good people that you hire to take those on and even take those areas and maybe departments to another levels because they're even better than you were. So, anyway, I love hearing that. Okay. Another thing that social impact leaders specifically struggle with, I think, particularly when you're growing an organization, you have so much pulling at you, right? The. The typical thing for an executive director or CEO of a nonprofit is you wear so many hats. It could be fundraising, it could be working with donors. Of course, it's managing your team. It's a little bit of hr. There's so many things that are pulling from your attention for you. How have you balanced all the different things that are on your plate now? You've been letting go of things, as you just mentioned, and really honing in on a few things. But even within that, my guess is there's always a temptation to get pulled off of mission by maybe because they're doing more funding or you're doing more work with outside the organization and working with other partners, perhaps. How have you stayed close to your mission and focused on your mission even while your responsibility list, if you will, continues to grow?
- [25:32]
A
I think, you know, inevitably for a nonprofit CEO in particular, a lot. A lot of your work at a certain point does take you outside the organization either. I mean, first things first, in managing board, which is sort of a part of the organization, but kind of outside, but then obviously in like in seating and then sustaining rich and robust funding relationships. And I think, you know, one of the most important things I've learned through the years is making sure as I, you know, as a nonprofit CEO, you're kind of in constant dialogue with the external environment. What are funding partners interested in? How do we need to be telling our story now? What aspects of what we already do can resonate in new and different ways? And it's really important for me to find opportunities to kind of play those insights back to the folks on my team because they are heads down, driving incredible impact at classroom level and, and that's exactly where we want them to be. But it's so much easier if the leaders on the team and I are seeing the same basic set of external information because then the choices I'm making for the organization start to make a lot more sense. And then the ability of other leaders in our organization to make choices that are aligned with kind of where is the external environment is just, it's sort of one of the, one of the best ways to keep that internal alignment, I think, is not to tell people what to do, but to show them what you're seeing and let them come to the same conclusions you do.
- [27:13]
B
Okay, well, as you get to now. Yeah, you said 10 years into it, is there anything as you look back now over these 10 years that you, if you would have known then what you know now, would you change anything the way you led or started this non profit or the way you continue to lead now, Is there anything you would change now, knowing certain things 10 years after the fact?
- [27:34]
A
Well, I think it's probably a good thing. I didn't know how hard it would be to start a new nonprofit.
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B
Yeah, there's yes, good blissful ignorance.
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A
It was really good blissful ignorance. And we, when we started Luminous, my, My youngest was 20 months old and I was, you know, just on an airplane like every other week. And when I look back on that, if I think if I had known what I was signing up for, I don't know if I would have done it. But obviously now I can't imagine, you know, not having had the opportunity to build this organization. I'm so incredibly proud of. So yeah, I think there was an element of ignorance as bliss, which is probably, probably a good thing. But a lot of the core values of the organization crystallized pretty early. Like we're bigger today than we were. But you know, at Luminous, we refer to our colleagues as lumineers. And like what Makes a great lumineer is very similar to what made a great luminaire 10 years ago. I mean, there are certain just inherent traits that are fundamental to our work and therefore like fundamental to, you know, the people who do that work.
- [28:42]
B
I love that. That's great. Yeah. There is, I think, for all of us, good moments where it's good to be ignorant on certain things because, yeah, you don't know what you're into and. But you may not have done it otherwise. Right. Once you know how difficult things can be. So I love that. Okay, so for my listeners who are listening and want to find out a little bit more about what your work is, Luminous, but also maybe get to know you a bit, what's the best place for them to connect with you? How do they do that?
- [29:05]
A
So please come check out our website, luminousfund.org also you can find all the chapters of the Luminos method available for individual download there. But the book's also available on Amazon. If you want a property proper paper based version. Then you'll also find a series of videos kind of capturing classroom practice. And it's really a part of our desire to, you know, ultimately Luminous wants to be at the center of a movement that's much bigger than us alone. So really encourage everyone to come learn more about the organization.
- [29:39]
B
Love it. Well, again, I'm really impressed with your work. I think you're doing some really interesting, intriguing things in the area of education and in some difficult situations. Right. And in the places you find yourself, it's difficult to provide what you're doing, providing. And so the fact you're growing and scaling is very impressive. So thank you again for taking time to share a bit of your insights. Looking forward to checking out the Luminos method and for my listeners, look in the show notes again. There'll be several links to what she just mentioned. So you can check out for yourself the Luminos method and just learn about this work that you are doing because it is pretty impressive. So, Caitlin, again, thanks for taking time to be on the show.
- [30:12]
A
Thanks so much, Rob.
- [30:14]
B
Hey, friends. Well, I wanted you to know that this podcast can be found in on itunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google podcasts and wherever you listen to other podcasts. I also want to encourage you to like subscribe and share this podcast with others. This will actually help us get this great content out to more nonprofit leaders just like you. You can also join the nonprofit leadership podcast community, find other resources and interviews of past guests, all on my website. Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. Well, thanks again for listening. And until next time, keep making your world better. This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox. DonorBox. Helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business.