← Nonprofit Leadership Podcast
Nonprofit Leadership Podcast
How to Use Innovation for Positive Change
00:25:58
In this episode, Rob Harter speaks with Scott Key, the founder of Every Shelter, a nonprofit focused on providing innovative shelter solutions for refugees. ...
Loading summary
Transcript29 lines
- [00:02]
Dr. Rob Harder
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 nonprofit organization, but to hear from effective leaders who are successful 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. Well, welcome to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in, wherever you are. Thanks for joining us again for another great episode. Before we jump into the episode, I want to let you know that many of you know that I provide leadership and life coaching. And it's been so much fun working with clients who are leaders just like you, looking to grow personally and professionally. In fact, I know many of you who have reached out to me and found out about my coaching was through my podcast. So that's been fun. Now, what you may not know is that I also provide consulting services. In fact, currently I'm working for an organization to help them create a clear strategy and plan to raise $3.5 million to expand their organization. And so maybe you're an executive director or maybe you're on staff at a nonprofit organization, whether it be small, medium or large, and you sense your organization has hit a lid on growth and you need a strategy as to how you can scale your nonprofit. Or perhaps you have a culture that you set out to create, but it's not the culture you have currently and it's impacting your staff retention. Or maybe you're facing a major resource challenge and you don't know what to do. That's where I can help. I come alongside leaders and organizations to create strategies to grow their organization and maximize their impact both personally and professionally. So if your nonprofit needs help with fundraising strategy or operational effectiveness, reach out today. You can simply email me@roberto robharter.com again, it's robharter.com you can also call me my number, 4357-7651-7343-5776, 5173 can also go to my website, robharder.com to find out more. Okay, we've got Scott Key. He is the leader of Every Shelter, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing shelter solutions for refugees. I don't know how much you've done research on the Refugee crisis across the world, but it's huge, and it continues to grow. And Scott really has this huge heart to want to do something about this massive problem. So we're going to talk a bit about what he does at every shelter and how he manages the huge need that's out there, and then what he can do without having mission drift, you know, to be able to effectively impact the people that he's able to serve at this point with an eye to growing his organization. So he's based out of Houston, Texas, but a lot of his work is in Uganda, specifically Kampala, Uganda. And I think you're going to enjoy hearing a bit more about how he's going about leading his organization. And this is an organization that has obviously both roots here in the United States, but also has an impact internationally. Well, I think you're going to really enjoy all that Scott has to say. As always, thanks for tuning in. Now on to the show. This podcast is sponsored by Donor Box. Donor Box, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business. Well, welcome to the nonprofit leadership podcast. Scott, thanks so much for taking time to be on the show today.
- [03:33]
Scott Key
Yeah, really thankful to be here, Rob.
- [03:35]
Dr. Rob Harder
Absolutely. Well, I have found it's always helpful for my listeners to get a real quick overview as to what you do and what every shelter is all about. So maybe just start with that. Let's give a quick summary of your mission and your organization.
- [03:48]
Scott Key
Yeah, so I always start with one statistic, and it's. And it's actually what got me into this work in the first place. But refugees, on average, will stay this place for about 20 years. And if I had your listeners close their eyes and just imagine what a refugee shelter looks like, it probably doesn't jive with 20 years. And so that was really what drew me in when I got started with this. Every shelter is all about helping refugees create home for themselves. You know, and we're a little bit ambiguous on purpose with that, because 20 years you are creating home. You know, referring to them as shelters is not maybe fully descriptive of what, you know, kind of the charges.
- [04:24]
Dr. Rob Harder
Yeah, well, with the work you're doing, there are many aspects, I understand to it. What would you say are the top one or two things that you're really trying to solve because you're working with refugees. That's a huge. There's so many different layers to that. But. Yeah. What are you really trying to hone in on?
- [04:39]
Scott Key
Yeah, so really specifically, we work in refugee camp settings, refugee settlements, you know, so when I talk to An American audience. When I say refugee, often what people are thinking of is resettlement. You know, refugees who have the opportunity to come live in the US or Western Europe. And that is not what we're talking about. What we're talking about specifically is refugees who have crossed the border and are living most often in a camp or a settlement. And so a lot of our work focuses around kind of the local ecosystem around refugees shelter. So we ultimately want refugees to have safe, stable housing. The way that we do that is by investing in product development, local supply chains, and then refugee led markets in those camps. And so we have a few products that are kind of our origin. We have a flooring system, we have a roofing tarp. And in both cases, the goal is for those to be made locally so that the local economy can benefit from the production of those things. In addition to that, we have our hardware stores, have shelter depots, we run hardware stores and refugee camps so that refugees have more agency over what it is they are meeting for their homes. So if you juxtapose that to the way that aid often works in our context, in kind aid distribution, it's very neat and preference blind. It relies 100% on philanthropy to underwrite it. And our stores are an ability for refugees to be able to actually choose the things that they need and not need, tell them what they need. And so the stores ultimately need to reflect back the needs of the community. Well, and those stores become really a platform for us to develop increasingly precise solutions for those communities. So the stores ultimately become a place for us to serve that community in their very, very specific needs.
- [06:20]
Dr. Rob Harder
Well, and yet it is such a big issue. I'm glad you narrowed that a little bit down. And one of the things you talk about when I looked into your website and some of the work that you're doing, you talk a lot about localization in the context of what every shelter does within the humanitarian system. Maybe you could talk a little bit more about that because I think that's unique and I want to make sure my listeners understand what you mean by localization.
- [06:41]
Scott Key
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I'll start with the kind of the counterbalance of that, which is the way that we've globally historically attempted to serve refugees is really through kind of a global mindset. You know, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has a catalog of products that are relevant globally, or at least in theory, those are made in a factory somewhere and then brought in when a need is there. That may be an appropriate solution during what's called the emergency Response phase of a rare refugee crisis. But when you consider that 20 year statistic, it just really doesn't work long term. And so, but when we say localization, we mean that very literally. We want, well, let me say it like this. The communities that surround refugees have the resources and the solutions to the needs that refugees have. And so sometimes we feel like our job is often connecting dots that are just desperate to connect. Our stores are a really great example of that. We're making a platform or an access point to a local Ugandan business to the refugees needs. So we really want to see, yeah, that economic benefit live close by. I'll give one specific example. In our store in the northern part of Uganda and the Bidi BD refugee settlement, the second largest refugee settlement in the world, our customers there have a, have a hard time acquiring certain products, grass poles. There's been really rapid deforestation. And so at that store we have invested in a model home which looks exactly like the homes that they built for themselves in South Sudan. But it's substituting in products that refugee led organizations or Ugandan rung businesses actually produce. So treated bamboo, you know, a palm leaf product, et cetera. So when we say local, oftentimes we do mean hyperlocal. We mean these are South Sudanese refugees, which has different preferences than maybe a refugee from the Congo. And we want to make sure that those solutions are relevant to them. But even in the context of that camp which we talk about, you know, a subject like scale, there's 270,000 staff, Sudanese refugees living in this camp. So if you solve that problem in a local context, you're ultimately able to serve quite a few, quite a lot of people.
- [08:44]
Dr. Rob Harder
And so yeah, wow, that 270,000 and just in that one camp. Talk to me about how you sort through just the immensity of it and feeling overwhelmed by all the needs of just that one example of one group. And you, I know you serve more than that, but talk about how do you sort that through as a leader.
- [09:04]
Scott Key
Yeah, it's pretty relevant question right now. I mean there's so many things that we could tackle. You know, it's. And we, and we've got a relatively small team and so, you know, filtering and deciding what to pursue is ultimately, you know, a question that we always have to answer internally. We talk about, you know, the three Rs. Is there a ripple effect with this product? Is there something about this pursuit that can kind of have an outsized like leveraged impact? Is there a revenue opportunity? And by that we don't mean to us, but does this pursuit have the ability to potentially self sustain itself financially if we pursue it? And then the other one is reputation. If we're successful in this pursuit, does that somehow build the credibility of the project and the team? And so we try to use that as a filter. Our team and the work that we do, it looks a lot like a studio in the sense that we're, we're taking in the needs of the community. We're turning them into pilots. If those pilots are successful, they're ultimately they find their kind of final form in the form of the store. And so yeah, we are constantly confronted with what do we take on. And we try to use those filters. And then we literally have a position in each refugee settlement that their job is effectively to be listeners. They're refugees themselves and so they ultimately provide a huge voice into hey what, what truly are the needs of this community and how can we respond?
- [10:30]
Dr. Rob Harder
We'll be right back. Are you looking for an easy and effective way to boost your nonprofits donations? 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 donorbox.org hey friends, thanks so much for listening to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. Many of you know that I provide leadership and life coaching. With my 30 years of nonprofit experience. I know firsthand how hard leaders like you work. I also know how important it is to have someone you can call on and to get help with the barriers and leadership challenges you will face both professionally and personally. I really want to help people thrive and become all they were meant to become by providing coaching and consulting services. And it's been so much fun working as a coach, working with clients who are leaders just like you, looking to grow personally and professionally. What you may not know is that I also provide consulting services currently. In fact, I'm working with an organization to help them create a clear strategy and plan to raise $3.5 million to expand their organization. So perhaps you're an executive director and you sense your organization has hit a lid on growth and you need a strategy as to how you can scale your nonprofit. Or perhaps the culture you set out to create is not the culture you have currently and it's impacting your staff Retention. Or maybe you're facing a major resource challenge and you don't know what to do. That's where I can help. I come alongside leaders and organizations to create strategies to grow their organizations and maximize their impact. If your nonprofit needs help with fundraising strategy or operational effectiveness, reach out today. You can simply email me@robparter.com you can go to my website, robharder.com or you can call me 435-776-5173. I would be happy to provide a free sample coaching session or a consult to see how I can best be of help to you and your organization. Well, thanks again for listening. Now back to the show. Well, I appreciate you answering that. I know mission drift is such a challenge for every nonprofit. And I'm guessing the bigger the needs and like what you're doing can be such a temptation to sort through what is really our mission and how much can we do sustainably with the staff you have and the resources you have? Now, one of the things I really was impressed with when I looked into what you do is innovation. You're a big believer in innovation for positive social change. I think it's a great focus. In fact, I have heard others in the nonprofit sector gently criticize the nonprofit sector as a whole that we're not as innovative as we could be. And I think there's some, probably some fair, you know, argumentation to that and we can get better at innovation. So talk about that. Why are you so motivated by innovation for positive change? And give us an example of how you demonstrate how you're going about putting that into practice.
- [13:44]
Scott Key
You know, I think it starts with understanding the space that you're working in quite well. So, you know, I've referenced a 20 year statistic for a long time. You know, there's an emergency response phase to a refugee's journey. There's a resettlement, a pathway to citizenship somewhere else down the line. We really exist in a space where we refer to it as the gap. And so it's a space that doesn't have many solutions given kind of the political context in the hosting countries, a lot of existing development and aid strategies just really aren't relevant. And so all that to say we're in a space that doesn't have a lot of answers and you know, if we're going to solve these problems, we have to try new things, you know, and so that that's probably the impetus of the motivation for us. And I'll just kind of speak again kind of to the contrary, traditional philanthropy doesn't reward risk taking. And we definitely confront that on an annual basis. You find a lot of what I call vending machine philanthropy, where it's like, I put a dollar in, I want a bag of chips to fall out. You know, hey, what are my guaranteed outcomes out of this activity? And I want to fund that. And to be sure, we have those as an organization, but we're often trying to attract funders who, you know, want to take risks and understand that risk taking is necessary to solve the problems in our. In our space.
- [14:57]
Dr. Rob Harder
Vending machine philanthropy, I love that phrase. I think there's a lot of truth to that. I think it's something that people do deal with and struggle with. What have you found to be successful in, you know, without just saying it outright, but to work around donors that maybe do have that mindset when they come to support your organization, how do you work around that and not also make people feel bad about, you know, they're trying to do something, but you're trying to move them away from that into a bigger idea of what philanthropy really is? What's been working for you when it comes to development?
- [15:29]
Scott Key
You know, I think if you thought about our typical donor profile, oftentimes they're business people. They're people who have probably taken big risks. And so you can speak that language to them. It's like, you know, when you started or built your business, obviously there's kind of inherent risk taking in that because you're seeing an opportunity that you wanted to serve. And so that that tends to be a good donor profile for us. But then two is we just have a track record of success that we can kind of lean on. And so even with people who may not be as accustomed to funding uncertain outcomes, you know, our track record really speaks for itself in the sense that we really are kind of subject matter experts. We know our space really well, and then we've got a body of work behind us that kind of points to maybe smart risk taking versus moonshots that aren't worth taking.
- [16:21]
Dr. Rob Harder
Well, and that's good to hear and how you've been navigating through that as you think about your nonprofit. I have a lot of people on this show that lead just local or community based or US based nonprofit organizations. You've obviously have this big international output of what you're doing, and your scope is larger than maybe your typical non profit. What led you to just make that decision and what have been some of the challenges to make sure that you're able to manage that? Obviously you're you're based out of Houston, Texas, as you mentioned, but yet you are impacting the world. How do you manage that? Well, on a leadership side and a management side.
- [16:57]
Scott Key
Oh, leading. Leading two offices. An international office, you mean? Yeah, it's a challenge. You know, we, you know, one, we have incredible staff and we try our best to take care of them. You know, we desire continuity and, you know, we want to make sure that our leadership over in our other office is just well taken care of. That's part of it. But, you know, we make it a point to be together every 60 days somehow. That's a big part of it. It does. I'm very transparent with my team. It sometimes feels like building two organizations at the same time, and so trying to create a culture that's shared between the two offices, as far as an organization goes, that's part of the strategy is just trying to spend a lot of time together as an organization and just naturally leading an office in East Africa, leading one in the States. There's definitely some distinctions there, but making sure that we spend a lot of time as a leadership team, being on the same page and leading with transparency and honesty and vulnerability. Prior to this, never led. I've never had this many, many people on staff and never let an organization like this. And so we do have a culture, at least among the leadership team, of, of grace. And we're figuring this out together and we're all working really hard and, you know, hopefully the mistakes aren't too big when we do make them, but inevitably there will be some, so.
- [18:18]
Dr. Rob Harder
Well, I've read that you are guided by the idea that true fulfillment lies in giving back to society. I really like that phrase and that sentiment even more. Tell us more about why this is so important to you and why is it true in your mind.
- [18:31]
Scott Key
Yeah, so I'm a Christian. It's, it's. It's part of why I got into this in the first place. I mean, my worldview from that faith perspective is very much that. That we should be about fixing things that are broken in the world and, and specifically with the skills and education and the resources that we have doing that. I mean, I. I had early on in my adulthood, people that. That kind of pointed to. To a path that, that used my construction management background, my architecture background as a way of, you know, writing wrongs that existed in the world. And so, you know, I was just really infatuated with the idea of leading a life that built solutions for things that needed mending. And. Yeah, so it's A huge source of motivation for me in an ongoing basis and I've found also for my team as well, is that, you know, it's just, it's a blessing to be able to participate in this work on a regular basis.
- [19:19]
Dr. Rob Harder
Yeah, excellent. Okay, so as you look at the next couple of years, maybe even three to five years, where would you like to be? Where would you like the organization to be? What kind of impact do you want to have?
- [19:30]
Scott Key
Yeah, so we work under the UN umbrella, so UN High Commissioner for Refugees. And so I follow me down this rabbit hole in under that umbrella. The next strata down are what are called implementing partners. There's 3,048 organizations registered with UNHCR to provide direct services refugees. 3,048. We don't want to be 3,049. You know, we want to be, you know, kind of the yeast and the bread, you know, seen really as the R and D, you know, for our sector. A lot of the partners that we work with in these settings, they have a presence in maybe 20 different countries, 24, 30. They already have kind of the infrastructure laid. We want to build the products and solutions that they scale across their platforms. And so we don't want to be a giant charity, but a lot of our work right now, in addition to the literal work that we do, is really trying to build that trust and credibility within our sector. As I hate the word thought leader, sorry if anybody, you know, is offended by that. But as good do leaders, as one of my board members says, you know, we want to be, you know, seen as a group that can be a resource, a trusted partner to build solutions that may be a bit out of the box. A lot of the organizations in our space, you know, going back to an earlier point in the conversation, they're not really built for innovation and not built for risk taking. And we really want to be seen as an organization that can partner with those large organizations, develop solutions that really work that then have the potential of scaling across their platforms. So, you know, building that credibility. You know, we publish a lot of currently self published books, but a lot of our work is really trying to disseminate our thinking and the activities that we do with the hopes that it builds credibility and then also maybe finds new partnerships. But then we want to be transparent and open source about the work that we do so that others can approach the work in a similar way.
- [21:19]
Dr. Rob Harder
I love that approach of trying to be more the R and D, as you said, to multiple organizations that then can turn around and scale that I think It's a cool vision that I don't hear often. Most people want to grow their own nonprofit and continue to scale it. Okay, so as listeners are hearing this and maybe they're interested in finding out a little bit more about it, what do you need most right now in terms of your organization? What kind of support do you need? What would be most helpful?
- [21:41]
Scott Key
So we have a program called the Haven, which is our monthly donor community. You know, some. Some people give as little as $10 a month, $30 a month. We have people who give thousands a month. But, like, I know a lot of your non. Your listeners are nonprofits, but, yeah, I mean, I'm preaching to the choir. That level of kind of reliability and funding is, you know, is huge for us. And so supporting the work in that way. I hope that as your listeners come away from this, they have maybe reformed the way that they understand the refugee context. You know, what is a refugee? What is the more typical context? And so I think spreading. Spreading awareness. There's 117 million people displacing the world every year. That number goes up by a lot. You know, we need. We need good solutions. And so even just participating in some of that, you know, Sharon, you know, what. What is. What does it mean to actually be displaced? What does it mean to be a refugee? Kind of. Hopefully, at the end of this conversation, they've at least reformed their thinking a bit on that front. So.
- [22:36]
Dr. Rob Harder
Well, it's important. Work and development, obviously, is the lifeblood in many ways for many nonprofit organizations. If you don't have the money to fund your mission, you can't really stay in existence. When you look about just the time you've had with every shelter, what would you say? Has the. Does the landscape changed? When it comes to development and fundraising, particularly, you've got this international application of your mission. How has perhaps, if at all, development changed for you and the way you approach donors?
- [23:05]
Scott Key
So we're five years old, so to say that it's changed for us, it may be more accurate to say, you know, we're still learning the most effective strategies as it relates to funding our work. We've always had a really strong connection to individuals, so, you know, major gifts, annual giving. That really forms kind of the bedrock of a lot of the work that we do, you know, in our world. In that sector, primarily, the funding comes from institutional donors like the U.S. government, UNHCR, new, you know, but you're really not eligible for that funding until you. You've kind of baked the program into a level of Sophistication at scale. And so that. That's really the pursuit. Our stores are starting to be eligible for that type of funding, which is great. But you know, for us, it's, you know, telling the story well of. Of the work that we do trying to bring people into, you know, like all nonprofits, trying to bring them into that story. And, and you know, there's a lot of things to care about in the world, and we hope always to find new people who might form a new passion like we have about refugees and helping support them for the long haul we have.
- [24:07]
Dr. Rob Harder
For my listeners, I always like to ask this of my guests. How can people find out more about you and more about your organization? Where would you send them?
- [24:14]
Scott Key
Yeah, I mean, if you're Houston based, we have kind of a series of events. We're starting to do more and more lectures with Rice University's Baker Institute, for example. You know, so if you're local to Houston, which I'm sure most of your listeners may not be, you know that that's a great resource. Sign up for our newsletter list. We. We try to not make that a spammy thing. You know, it's. There's always interesting things that we include in. In the newsletter that might be, you know, interesting for you. But yeah, signing up for the newsletter, participating in our events, kind of maybe, maybe the standard course for a lot of nonprofits.
- [24:44]
Dr. Rob Harder
Um, but yeah, no, it sounds good. Well, thanks for all you're doing. I. I think you've got a really big task in front of you, but boy, trying to serve ref. I've been completely displaced. Their world is upside down in many ways. Thank you. Thanks for what you're doing. That's. That's a really noble task and best of luck with all you're doing.
- [25:03]
Scott Key
Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on again.
- [25:06]
Dr. Rob Harder
Hey, friends. Well, I wanted you to know that this podcast can be found 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 leadershippodcast.org. well, thanks again for listening and until next time, keep making your world better. And don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. Go to YouTube and look up Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. We'll see you there. This podcast is sponsored by Donorbox, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business.