← Nonprofit Leadership Podcast
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This is Dr.
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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 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. 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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Welcome to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast with Rob Harder. I'm Lena Larew, 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.
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Hey, everybody, this is Rob Harder, and I'm the host of the nonprofit leadership podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If this is your first time, I just treat it as an honor. Thank you so much for turning the dial, so to speak, and finding us on your favorite podcast platform. You're in for a treat today. We've got a great guest, and for those who are regulars and tune in every week, thank you, honestly, for the honor of having you on a regular basis. Whether you're working out and listening to this, if you're driving back from work or driving to work and you're listening to this during your commute, whenever you're listening to. Just thank you for being a part of this community, and thanks for tuning in. Okay, so today we've got Suzanne Ehlers. She is the executive director and CEO of USA for unhcr, which is the fundraising partner of the UN Refugee agency. And I give that background because what she's doing is really powerful work. But I want to kind of set a different context. That, in a sense, is the foundation of some of the work she's doing. And here's a couple of stats I want to share with you about some of the work she's doing. And you may be surprised to learn this. Did you know that when it comes to women making decisions, when it comes to philanthropic decisions, that studies have shown women control 85% of philanthropic decisions? And when it comes to inheriting global wealth and then making the decisions of where to use that wealth, 70% of the global wealth will be given to the control of women. And yet, here's what's really interesting. A lot of traditional fundraising models weren't always built with the idea of having women in charge of making decisions. Not not only are they underrepresented when it comes to board members and people making decisions, but also as beneficiaries. And so what Suzanne's doing, I think is really interesting is she's launched this campaign called Building Better Futures. Now, her goal is a $15 million women led campaign. It's already been seeded with $3.1 million in gifts so far. And so what she's planning to do, she really specifically has in her mind. Because she works for the UN Refugee agency, she's focused on refugee women and girls. So she's wanting to create this campaign to really focus on that as the end goal. But she wants women to help make the decisions, shape the priorities, and really be involved from the very beginning to the very end of this process through the unhcr, again, the UN Refugee agency. So it's really an interesting conversation about how she's really kind of coming up with a new model, if you will, of how to do philanthropy. But she's also shares some really interesting insights in terms of how they've had to pivot and change their strategy, how they've had to be really creative and flexible when it comes to applying their model of support for education for refugee women and children. And so she'll talk about that flexibility in order to improve the access to the education support they're providing. It's just a really interesting conversation, both of how she's going about it from a different perspective, but also the implementation side of how she's gone about implementing her leadership decisions with this organization. I think you get a lot out of it and you're going to really enjoy it. Well, as always, love having you here. Thank you so much for tuning in. Now onto my interview with Suzanne. This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox. DonorBox, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business. Well, hey, everybody. Welcome back to the nonprofit leadership podcast. Have a wonderful guest today, Suzanne Ehlers. Suzanne, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join me on the show. Thank you.
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It is a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
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Absolutely. Well, people that listen to my show all the time know I always like to ask the first question is just tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your background. How did you get to do what you're doing now, which we're gonna spend the majority of our time with, but give us a little bit of the Background of your story.
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Okay, well, I'm a South Texas girl, born and raised, actually not born in, but shortly thereafter relocated to San Antonio, Texas. My parents are from small towns a little south of that. Grew up in a family that was very social justice oriented, mostly through the church. My parents did a lot of mission work and outreach and so kind of grew up with this notion that you just behave in charitable ways. Right. You are just generous when and where you can be. And even with a family with a relatively modest sort of income, we were charitable all the time. I never aspire to do anything but nonprofit work. That is true. I didn't know what issue it would be. I didn't know global domestic. I didn't know my role within it. But I just always sort of imagined doing good through my job. And I have had the enormous privilege to have sort of lived out that dream at a couple of different really incredible global nonprofits with a real focus on fundraising later in my career, because that giving back is something I really love, helping donors kind of align their values with issues that matter to them. So I'm not exactly where I thought I would be, but I'm in a really perfect place for me.
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I love hearing that and I love that you've just kind of been wired and raised in a home, that doing good is what kind of you expect to do. And I think that's fantastic. I mean, I think when we were talking just before we hit record, you know, doing this has been so fun for me because I get to meet people that that's their mission, their miss Driven in their life and their work. And it comes together in a nonprofit context, which is fabulous. Okay, well, this is great. So let's talk a little bit more about your work because I think my listeners are going to be really interested to learn about some of the things you're doing. So let me give you a little background. And just in addition to what I said at the very beginning of the show, you're cutting edge in many ways when it comes to particularly getting women involved more with philanthropy at a different level, with decision making and whatnot. So here, let me give some stats. Those who are listening to the show, you may be surprised to know about this. First of all, that women control and 85% of philanthropic decisions. Now they're also set to inherit 70% of global wealth, which is interesting. We're going to get into that a little bit. Yet when it comes to traditional fundraising models, they weren't always built with women in mind. And this data shows among Other things that women both drive the majority of philanthropic decisions, and yet they're often underrepresented as beneficiaries. And that's part of what you're doing as the executive director and CEO of USA for unhcr. You're really trying to respond to that and provide additional different way of using those philanthropic dollars to really impact, specifically in this case, refugee women and girls. So you've launched this program in this campaign called Building Better futures. It's a $15 million women led campaign and it's already been seeded with $3.1 million in gifts. So congratulations on that. So how is Building Better Futures in this campaign that you're leading, how is it aiming to correct this imbalance that we talked about specifically when it comes to refugee women and girls?
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That's a great question. You're hired. Right? That was like a beautiful.
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There you go.
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Totally summary of some of the data that we're confronting and some of the literature that we're reading, like you are, and just trying to always better understand our donor audience, our partners, our stakeholders, those who are supporting. So I'll first start off by saying, the group that I lead, USA for UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, we are one of 11 national partners around the world and we work in the US market and we fundraise for the global work of the UN Refugee Agency, which is not hard to do. They do a number of just amazing programs and initiatives, not to mention emergency response and humanitarian crisis. So we have a panoply of things from which we can fundraise and select from. So as we began to look at donor partners, began to look at, you know, frankly, the tens of thousands of people who are interested in the work of unhcr, we see a disproportionate number of women donors. We see, again, what the data reflects, that those women, heads of household or not, are really driving charitable decisions within the household, within the family foundation, even within sort of small and medium business enterprises where there might be a corporate social responsibility exercise. So if that's the case, what do these women want to do more of? What do they want to see more of? So we established a women's advisory committee. And I know we'll talk a little bit more about the nuts and bolts of this, but really asked, you know, like, if this is the case, right, that you're driving these decisions and yet somehow you're underrepresented not only in how philanthropic models are built, but also how those philanthropic models benefit women, what can we do to change that? And we settled on this idea that we had women in mind from sort of soup to nuts, from beginning to end, women as donors who were really deciding on a set of initiatives and a program that would allow them to have direct impact on the lives of women refugees. And believe it or not, there was a lot of good things that we could do with that energy and with that drive, but it was about really centering the voices of our women donors and partners to say, you're at this table. You are driving the decisions. What do you want it to look like? What do you want the impact to be? And how do we get money from your hands into programs that benefit other women around the world, almost in sort of a solidarity and sort of sisterhood movement. But that's how we look to sort of, like, take that data, have it drive some decisions for us, and then bridge the delta that we were witnessing.
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I love that. Okay, so you're breaking the mold a little bit. You're going against traditional fundraising. Tell me about what's been the response so far. How have you succeeded? Kind of overcoming some of these maybe even subconscious barriers that may be there still with women who want to make these decisions or want to really make a difference, but maybe they're just not used to it. So have you had to overcome a little bit of that, or maybe even imposter syndrome, you know, when it comes to donors, what experience have you had?
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Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I guess I would sort of pick out a couple of things that I think are unique. And if some of your listeners have done similar things in their work, my guess is that they'll nod their heads when they hear this kind of thing. Number one, kind of like the way that we sort of disrupted that model is this idea that it really is. It begins and ends with relationship. And I mean relationship in all different ways. Right? I mean, the donor's relationship with my organization, our relationship representing UN Refugee agency and making sure our donors feel a part of that global movement. It's the relationship between our women donors and the recipients of the scholarship money in this case, which, again, I know we'll talk a little bit about these refugee scholarships we're providing. So if everything begins and ends with relationship and in relationship, that is a disruption to a more transactional approach to philanthropy that I think we were trying to kind of move on from and move into something that had sort of imbued with more meaning and more substance. There also is this idea of shared purpose. And again, I hope your audience is like, Nodding their head. You know, I hope that my purpose in this campaign is exactly the sort of same as some of my women donors and that the women refugee scholars on the other side of the world who are now in four year university programs. Our sense of shared purpose, frankly, is pretty much the same. We want to see communities thrive, we want to see households, we grow healthy and be wealthier. We want to see, you know, the economic productivity of countries improve. And we know that happens with an educated workforce. So this idea of shared purpose is one that I think can intimidate people. It feels sort of too big and too much to, to put everybody under one sort of single song sheet. But if your shared purpose is really about, you know, improved dignity for women students and scholars around the world and all that that contributes to, it wasn't hard at all, frankly, to sort of bust up old models that weren getting us there and build a new one did get us to that sense of shared purpose.
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Yeah, I like your approach to that. And maybe another question I would have is, how do you measure success? In other words, how do you ensure that women are not just, you know, part of giving the funding, but really part of shaping the decisions and priorities where philanthropic daughters actually go to refugee education. Like, how do you measure that success?
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Yeah, I think that there's, there's a few things we've, we've sort of talked about this model that we've built around, around relationships and around sort of shared purpose. And there's, there's a coup of words that come to mind and germane to this kind of question of measurement. One is that we're trying to be, you know, at the same time that we're inclusive of women donors and women scholars and sort of everyone in between, we're also trying to be effective and impactful. I will say that I think that sometimes is sort of a misnomer, you know, when you start to think, well, this is all about relationships and not about like, you know, transactional and metrics. You can't really get your impact. Oh, you can get your impact. You just have, frankly, a broader and richer and more energizing story to tell about impact. And one, frankly, that I think is more effective and has more sort of lasting power to it. So, you know, if you're thinking about investment in four year scholarships at the university level, and then you're making sure that those scholars are going back to their households and their communities and sort of giving back in ways with higher education and with professional opportunities and with real knowledge and skills that are applicable in today's workforce. I mean, the metrics, frankly, are kind of off the charts. Right. The effectiveness of this is almost hard to kind of like to quantify in how it can propel communities and countries forward. So that's one way that we're doing it, is that we really are being rigorous with the data and sort of telling the story and the through line, you know, from the beginning of the journey through the university education and then where that investment takes us, you know, sort of over time, that requires ongoing involvement. I would say that's another way that we're really trying to sort of shape and inform what our impact is and that it's only just started. So right now, of course, we're still involved, but we really have wrought from the beginning, like the long view on how. What the journey will be among this group of donors and scholars together. I mean, I already. I was at the Global Refugee Forum in December in Geneva with some women who had been a part of this campaign. And we already are beginning to run into women refugee scholars who we've already met. We only launched technically in September of last year. So in sort of four or five, five months time, we're already at the global level rubbing shoulders with these women, seeing the way their lives are progressing, hear about the advances they're making in education, learning about the advocacy that they're doing on behalf of these university scholarships for other refugee students. So that ongoing involvement feels to me like also kind of a backbone principle, if you will, of what we've built, and that the onus is on us as the kind of partner and interlocutor to make sure that the investment stays strong in that involvement equivalent so we can keep telling these incredible stories.
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Well, okay, so let's talk about some more of those specific things you're doing for my audience. Again, let me explain a couple more things. If you're in the space when it comes to refugee scholarships and education, you probably run across the Daffy Spot Scholarship. The Daffy Scholarship is D A F I. It actually stands for the Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative. And it's the world's largest and longest running higher education scholarship program for refugees. And so far, just to give you some numbers, it supported more than 26,300 refugee students. And this is over a period of 32 years. So they've had a tremendous history. And yet it's. We're starting to lose some steam, as I understand it. And that's where you've kind of come alongside the success it's made and done so far. So talk a bit more about the legacy of the DAFI scholarship and how specifically you're trying to utilize this Building Better Futures campaign to build on that legacy and expand it so there's even more access to education for refugee women and girls. Maybe you could speak to that.
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I love the question, because I think sometimes we have this impulse that sort of new is better, and you have to recreate the wheel. And a new campaign has to be about a new program. And here we are with really, some of the most like, innovative and really creative women philanthropists who did not feel compelled to build something out of whole clothes if, in fact, a program existed that was delivering the kind of value that they were interested in. So when we brought together that initial advisory committee, I mean, we threw everything on the wall. We really, you do have to, you know, as sort of a brainstorm or, you know, sort of aficionado, like, no idea is a bad idea. Like, initially, let's put everything up there that we might want to intervene in, get involved in, have impact on. And after a variety of sort of iterative processes, we landed on education and we landed on these scholarships because they are, on the one hand, so ultimately quantifiable. Right? Like, it costs this much for these many years to get this degree from this kind of university. It's a competitive process. So that part was sort of amazing. And yet it also had this sort of relational meaning about, like, ongoing roi that, again, I think you can measure, but you will never capture all of the ways in which this very sort of structured program gives back to communities, households, and to the world. So we then put forward in front of these donors, the Staffi program, and said the UN Refugee Agency actually has something that has been delivering this kind of value funding levels around the world. As many of your listeners know, it's been a very challenging moment for sort of charitable organizations. So can we use the Staffie Program as the vehicle through which we will make this impact on our campaign, which we called Building Better Futures. But that's not too far afield from a refugee scholarship program that is doing exactly that. And so I think that is the way we sort of married something that was existing, longest running, world's largest, incredible legacy that was seeing a moment of real funding crisis. And how do we bring a campaign with new energy, new leadership, new voices, new juice, if you will, to say, hey, what Rafi's doing is as relevant as ever, maybe more relevant given the number of people who are displaced and given how much the workforce is requiring really High level skills and education to advance and be successful. So the marriage, if you will, of Building Better Futures, our campaign name on top of a long running refugee scholarship program. It felt like the best of both worlds. And the response has been incredible. We've been able to sort of kind of slide right in to a whole community of donors, frankly, who have been supporting Daffy for a long time with our kind of refreshed and updated take on why this is so critical.
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Well, I know the numbers already speak for themselves a little bit, but you can maybe talk about this just to give you the context again for my listeners. The number of scholars dropping from about 9,300 in 2023 down to 7,800 in 2024 because of funding cuts. So tell us a little bit more. How have you raised that back up? How are you getting the right people in there? How is the funding continuing that momentum and actually now growing that give us some numbers that so far you've seen.
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Yeah, well, let's, I mean, so that number from going to like 9,300 scholars down to 7,800. We'll see what the final numbers for 2025 are. Let's hope we go back into kind of an upward trend. Let's begin. Be clear though, to your listeners that that drop in number, as you've already suggested, has nothing to do with sort of lack of interest on the part of refugee scholars.
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Right, Right.
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We could fund tens of thousands of these scholarships at the annual level if in fact there were resources available for it. The only thing that is holding us back is lack of resource and lack of charitable giving, philanthropic investment in education, which is one of the greatest investments you can make. When you again, think of kind of the return on, if you will, across all spectrums, you know, we know that educated mothers have healthier, wealthier families, that their children survive until the age of five at much higher levels. We know that they are earning more annually after only a few years in the workplace in a way that totally outpaces women who have not had tertiary education. And it certainly in this instance more than makes up for the investment that we've made through DAFI in that four year university degree. So I think what we've tried to do is, is amidst a funding crisis and amidst a whole sort of set of questions around accountability and impact and what's happening at the global level. Is it too much to fix? Should we just give up? We've said, oh no, not at all. This is not the moment to put the foot off the gas and if you really want to make an investment that you know will deliver superlative results, we have just the program for you. This is the one that can be measured. This is the one that we can tell an amazing story of impact. And so if you're sort of careful about where your philanthropic dollars go, which be, we've got the campaign for you that can bring, you know, really incredible results and impact back to community. So we've got our eye on the funding crisis at the global level. And we're trying to put as many workable solutions in front of our donors as we can to show how far the dollar can go.
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We'll be right back. Are you looking for an easy and effective way to boost your nonprofits donations? Well, look no further than Donor Box, 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.or. Well, I love both the resiliency with that and the creativity, right? You're just being resilient, but you're also being creative with different options. You're trying every different thing to bring to donors to say let's try this, let's try that, love that heart. I think that's what really makes average nonprofits to really good and effective non profits. Another thing you address is really this gender gap, but particularly again, we've been talking about refugee women and, and girls. And just again, another stat from my list listeners. I've learned that for every 10 refugee boys in secondary school, there's only seven girls enrolled. How have you tried to close that gap between girls and boys with your work there at the Build Better Campaign?
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Well, so let's, you know, just like I said in that last answer, let's not be fooled by the numbers. You know, don't think, oh, well, there's 10 boys and only seven girls. So girls just must be less interested in education. Not the case. Right. So much happening that is keeping girls out of school. And that's either parents have limited options and so they say, well, if I'm going to send something, I'm gonna send the boy, not the girl. Parents have limited resources. I only have scholarships or school fees for one. So I'm gonna send my boy and not my girl. Because we know that violence against Women and girls is unfortunately quite elevated, if you will, in emergency and humanitarian crises. We know within a refugee context there are. There's teen pregnancy, there are girls who are staying at home to be kept safe, frankly out of school, but at least under the parents careful watch. So there's a lot of things that make that number what it is. And having worked for a global girls education organization just before I joined you, for you, this has been a problem that I've had my eye on for many years. And what DAFI is doing with the support of our campaign is saying, listen, we want every refugee scholar to have access to this education. Our particular campaign, for the time being is trying to sort of balance it out, right? That doesn't mean that we will always have this exclusive focus on refugee girls, but for now we do because they are behind and they are underrepresented in, we know, in these tertiary education opportunities and scholarships. And that was again, something that is metrics driven, that's measurable. Our women donors really wanted to know that they were making a demonstrable impact on the girls representation within these university degree programs. And so building better futures. That's where we're focused because we know we can bridge that gap with the support of philanthropists and certainly with the focus of UNHCR at the global and country level level.
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Well, good stuff. And as I think about some of the other things that you've been particularly successful with as part of that has been your storytelling ability. And I talk to a lot of social impact leaders all the time. And of course, I've had people on this show talk about the importance and the power of telling a really good story that communicates the mission of what you're all about. So talk a bit about your storytelling approach. How has your campaign storytelling approach specifically designed by and for women? How is it different than more traditional narrative approaches about refugees? And why have you found that that difference has been really strategically important for you?
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You know, I think that, I mean, for those of us who swim in these waters of global development and humanitarian crisis and emergency response, I think it's very easy for us to lose sight of the average person. I mean, I'm here at my home office looking out over my beautiful neighborhood in Washington, D.C. and I am sure that many of the houses that I'm looking at right now have no real idea of how underrepresented refugees are anyway in tertiary education, much less refug. So this idea that you can just sort of like start midstream and sort of throw data at people and Move them. Just because it's the right thing to do is not effective. We all sort of know that. And the effective antidote in my mind is really storytelling, because it's not just asking you to give money to a program that has great roi. It's about sharing stories that inspire others to do more, to help empower, to walk through other charitable door opportunities, to think about having a greater impact in the world. And to do that storytelling, frankly, you have to have authentic voices. You have to have stories told by refugee women themselves who have been through the experience. And who can say, I'm living proof that this kind of experience changed my life? And that's, I mean, I think of, again, I mentioned earlier some of the women that we have met along the way and that our women donors are already building relationships and rapport with. We have a woman named Monica. She joined us at the UN General assembly for a special reception. In the past years, she fled conflict in South Sudan. She lost her father. She was facing huge pressure to marry young. But she earned a Daffy Scholarship to study at University of Nairobi. And as she has told our group quote, by empowering us through education, we can break the cycle of hardship and create a better future. I mean, that's Monica. There is Christa from Nicaragua, who's also a refugee youth advocate. I mean, she's so clear about how education transformed her life and having those quotes and those stories from women and girls who've lived through the experience. I just don't think there's any substitute for it in terms of the impact and the inspiration it can provide for donors who are looking to do more.
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B
You're 100% right, I think telling the stories well. And I think you just gave just two of many examples. I mean, you've got a non profit that's really impacting people in a very unique way that just even hearing bits of those two stories, stories already were like, I want to support this. You know, like, there's so much there already. So good for you to really get those stories in front of people and how empowering it is for them to tell their own story. So I love your approach with that as well. Okay. You also have a pretty unique approach when it comes to access specifically. Let's talk a bit about the flexible modalities of access that you provide. This could be studying in host countries. It could be virtual learning. What kind of role does that play in making higher education more viable for refugee women facing cultural, legal, and let alone economic barriers? What are you doing to kind of adjust and make sure it's more available.
- [28:27]
A
We are working with one of the best partners in UNHCR and this Daphne program that's had such a long legacy and quite effective history, if you will, to really meet refugee scholars generally where they are, but particularly women refugee scholars where they are. And so that's all sorts of flexibility, as you've suggested. You know, I think when people hear kind of college scholarships and they fly all over the world, the fact is a lot of these scholars are not flying all over the world. They're either studying in the country to which they've been displaced, maybe sort of adjacent to a camp. And I think of having been in Jordan just at the end of last year and talking to scholars in the camp, Syrian refugees, many of whom have grown up inside of these camps. The Syrian civil war, although officially over, stretched on for the better part of 12 or 13 years. I mean, kids were born in camps, kids went to all of their school within camp situations. And so now we find them, some of them at the university level, earning these scholarships and able go to school right, right there in Jordan, not having to travel, not having to leave family far behind, waiting for the opportunity to return to Syria when safe and when secure. So certainly flexibility around geography, partnerships at the university level, so that we are always encouraging and cultivating a community of support among university leaders so that they are not only investing and helping us kind of co invest in making sure that these refugee scholars can come, but that they can come and be successful. I mean, can you imagine leaving a refugee camp situation, finding yourself at a competitive kind of polytechnical university in Germany and expected to figure it all out. Like there is a whole program of how we accompany refugee scholars on this journey so that the investment in four years of education and housing actually finds us then at the end of those four years with a human being who has also been loved and supported through a pretty monumental journey, digital learning. I mean, I think we have so many tech and corporate partners who are interested in making that sort of technology available to refugees all over the world, even at the primary and secondary school level. But for tertiary, if that's what's needed to keep a student safe or keep a scholar safe in their household or community while they're pursuing DAFI is also making those accommodations. So I think the name of the game there is what are we trying back to shared purpose? What are we trying to to achieve? We're trying to get refugees through these four year programs so that they can make really outsized contributions to the world. But hopefully also to their home countries. And the way to do that is to be flexible in how that's achieved, kind of scholar by scholar, each on his or her own journey. And so I appreciate that you pulled that part of it out, because I think that's. It sounds kind of in the weeds and it's around kind of program design, but it's absolutely at the heart of the impact that we're able to have.
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B
Well, I think I liked. I wanted to pull that out because I feel like a lot of nonprofits kind of goes back to something you talked about a bit earlier. Just you're trying to be creative, you're trying to do workarounds. You try to say what. What's effective? Okay, that doesn't work. Let's try this. And I find sometimes nonprofits, they're too stuck in one way of doing things and not open to be flexible and nimble to try something else to, you know, because our world is constantly changing, and sometimes our challenges are constantly changing. The fun fundraising landscape is certainly changing all the time. So I think you have to be creative and nimble and try different things and really think about with education. Yeah. How can you maximize the modalities that you have put in there that really allow people to stay, you know, close to home, even if it's in this. These camps, but they're with their family. You're still accomplishing the mission, but you're just being super creative and how to deliver that program service. And so I love that. I think that can be applied to anybody's number profit just by being creative and thinking outside the box with the ultimate goal of what the shared purpose is, as you mentioned.
- [32:15]
A
Well, there's just sort of like an impatience sometimes from donors that things don't proceed exactly as you laid out in a proposal? And I will sometimes diplomatically and respectfully say, all right, let's look back at your last week. You thought you were going to stop at the grocery store on Tuesday or then stop at the library at this day. And then a snowstorm came, or the grocery was closed, or the library book didn't arrive as it was expected to. Like, you are constantly navigating things, not turning out exactly as you wanted them to. And then imagine a refugee's context over which she has very limited control, limited movement, limited mobility, limited options for protecting her health, limited options for pursuing her education. So the flexibility has to be the name of the game. It's the context in which we're working. And if we're not adaptable and flexible, we again, we lose steam on what we're trying to achieve in terms of shared purpose. And so I do that with all respect. I mean, I do want to be able to always chart a course, but I want to make sure that I've built the trust with my donor that when that course starts to veer to the right a little bit because an unexpected barrier came in our way, they trust that we are doing the right thing to get to the same end point in terms of. Of impact and purpose.
- [33:29]
B
Well, you really have an exhibit of to me what really separates nonprofits in a good way that, that really. Why can nonprofits sometimes get to a problem quicker than say, good government or sometimes even corporations? We can be a little more nimble if we're willing to. Right. We can be a little more creative. We have a little bit more freedom to change our method and our methodology in order to accomplish the same goal. Sometimes harder for govern to make those changes just the way government's set up. And even corporations, there's certain things you have to jump through red tape. And so I love nonprofits that are nimble and creative and quick to shift and change based on the shifting market and or what you're trying to do to accomplish, accomplish. And I think, you know, after Covid, we really saw a lot of that A lot of people had to shift very quickly to a brand new world that we're living in and but you've certainly. What a challenge. I can only imagine with all the different work you do in all these different countries and the challenges that refugees face, let alone you trying to bribe those services for them. I mean, that's a big task.
- [34:26]
A
Yeah, I appreciate that. Reflection on flexibility. I do think it's kind of the name of the game. I think you have to evolve with people's needs and you have to respond to the context and the sort of changing sort of scenarios. Have to read the kind of geopolitics, political winds. You have to look at sort of like the economy in places. And there's a number of host countries around the world that have literally hosted tens of thousands of displaced persons for years. It's never the countries we hear celebrated, places like Jordan, places like Turkey, places like Bangladesh. You know, we have to remember that we're all like the shared purpose is what guides us. But the road along the way to that sort of ultimate purpose is sometimes a complicated one. And so we keep a North Star. I mean, we always try to think about agency and human dignity and human rights and what really keeps an individual sort of safe and secure on a journey that's otherwise pretty unpredictable. And I think that kind of compass can. Can. Can lead you to the right place.
- [35:21]
B
No good stuff. I would agree with you completely. And, and I was wanted to share one more question for you and, and to give the context. So a couple of months ago I had a guest on that talk about some of the trends and. And those specifically the nonprofit fundraising sphere. And a trend that we don't talk about a lot, but you really highlight this in the work you're doing is that women are projected to inherit 70% of global wealth. I mentioned at the very beginning. And their influence over philanthropy, of course, continues to grow. Now, as we said, traditional philanthropy often doesn't really maximize the influence of women making choices and shaping decisions and priorities in the.
- [35:57]
A
Like that.
- [35:58]
B
But it's changing. And you're one of the organizations that's really changing that. I think it for the good. So how do you envision campaigns like the Building Better Futures, reshaping the broader landscape of refugee education, number one, but also just, I would say across the board with other nonprofits. How is what you're doing really helping maybe others create a path for them to follow as well?
- [36:18]
A
I love that. That's. I mean. Well, I will tell you, I'll start with sort of a. This may surprise you as a place to start, but it gives a little bit of insight into a philosophy that I have as a fundraiser. Fundraiser. I've been a nonprofit executive for many, many years now. And of course, everyone knows that your number one job as a nonprofit executive is fundraising. You always have to be willing to make those programs work. You have to be willing to make the tough asks. You have to be willing to leverage your board in ways that brings greater eyeballs to your mission and greater hearts to your bottom line, if you will. So one of my philosophies is that the table is big enough. I mean, if you look at capital flows in this world, there is more than enough to go around. We could fund this 15 million doll tomorrow with a single check from a single individual. Right. Like I had. There's no scarcity mindset. I do not have a scarcity mindset. So if that's the case that Building Better Futures is on to something, then what a gift that we would find other models, campaigns, efforts, initiatives, sort of start to take the lessons that we've learned and replicate those models within their own community of donors against their own mission and set of issues. We certainly aren't the first to try this. I can think of so many colleagues from whom I've learned over the years. And so I just think, gosh, imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Like, if this model really does deliver meaning and metrics in the way that we think it will, in fact, are already showing that it does copy away. You too leverage your women donors. You too disrupt philanthropic models that are around transaction and turn them to models that are around relationship and long term outcomes. Outcomes. So that would be my answer to that, is that I really hope the Building Better Futures campaign can actually become a model that's replicated and that women donors the world over are really taught about this sort of loop of empowerment that like giving back, it brings so many gifts and so much gratification in return that it simply fuels itself across generations. That's what we should be working toward.
- [38:21]
B
I love that. Vision. Vision. Well, this has been great. Such a fascinating conversation. And for my listeners, again, how can people find out a little bit more about you, find out more about your work. Where would you send them?
- [38:30]
A
Well, certainly to unrefugees.org that is the website for USA for UNHCR. And as the national partner for the UN Refugee Agency, we represent their work, we represent their programs, their emergency response, their incredible team of humanitarians around the world. But we have our spin on it, right? The campaigns that we are moving forward, the issues that we're most invested in. And frankly, that that's a reflection of our donors and our supporters. That's what our donors want to hear about. They want to learn about these efforts around the world. So unrefugees.org, i'm also in LinkedIn, Suzanne Ehlers, and I do obviously a number of reflections about great programs like Building Better Futures. But I also do a lot of reflections around leadership and around the future of philanthropic giving. I mean, I, like I said, I started my life in a family and a household that was dedicated to charity and dedicated to always giving back. Somebody says, buy a Girl Scout cookie. Somebody says, I'm running a marathon. My mom said, never say no. If it's only $10, just never say no. Skip a coffee drink one day and give somebody a little bit of fuel for the marathon they're running on behalf of a charity. So follow me on LinkedIn and I would love to have you be a part of that leadership journey that I'm trying to chart with a bunch of really amazing partners and followers.
- [39:43]
B
Oh, good stuff. Well, thanks for sharing that. And again, she didn't say, but she has her own podcast. She has one season now under her belt, which is great. So check out her podcast. And so for my list listeners, again, I encourage you to check out, there's a bunch of things in the show notes. There'll be some links to what Suzanne's doing. We'll put your podcast up there and just other things you can connect and find out more about what you're doing, particularly to impact again, refugee women and girls. It's really important work and I know it's difficult work. And so I appreciate your resiliency again and creativity to continue to come up with new solutions with the ever changing world that we live in. So thank you again for taking time to be on the show.
- [40:16]
A
Oh, it was really an honor to be invited and to give the opportunity to so many leaders like me who are really taking advantage of an incredible, incredible platform you've built over many years. 10 years. I think you said 10 years.
- [40:27]
B
That's right.
- [40:28]
A
It's a delight to be a part of the guest list now. So thank you for that.
- [40:31]
B
You bet. Suzanne, thanks again. Really appreciate it. For all my listeners, thanks for tuning in. As always, it's a great show. Again, make sure you check out all the different things in the show notes and we'll see you next week. 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 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, nonprofitleadershippodcast.org well, thanks again for listening and until next time, keep, keep making your world better. This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox. DonorBox, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business.