How to Optimize Your Impact

This is a talk I gave at my 10-year Stanford GSB Reunion today.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what a privilege it is to have gone to Stanford, and all the gifts that being an alum of the Graduate School of Business continues to give us. And also about what we are all doing to honor that gift.

I want to talk to you about what we’re all doing here. And I don’t mean just sitting here, in this room. I mean, here we are, we went to Stanford 10 years ago, and now, we’re together and we’re having a conversation about Changing Lives, Changing Organizations, Changing the World, the Stanford GSB tagline. That showed up after we had all graduated, but when I first heard that phrase, it really inspired me and resonated with what I experienced at Stanford.

If you were at Stanford in 2003, you couldn’t escape the endless ways to do something positive for the world. Maybe you graduated with a PMP certificate in hand, or with fond memories of your SMIF or Board Fellows experience. Maybe you raised money for a great cause, or volunteered, or came up with the idea for a new kind of business that would improve the lives of the poor, like Matt Scott did with Ignite. I look around, and I see Colleen James, who is helping to make Knoll furniture more sustainable, and Carl Palmer and Robert Keith who are using innovative financing models to protect and restore wild areas with Beartooth Capital. I see friends who went into corporate social responsibility, global health or international development, school reform, or social enterprise. We’ve given in ways visible and invisible, when we were asked and when there was a need that we couldn’t ignore.  

Whatever our experience here or where it led us, we always knew that our development as leaders and professionals would be inextricably linked to how we contributed to the world around us.

But now it’s ten years since we graduated. We’re all somewhere on that journey, but are we doing enough? Have we just met the standard for giving back, or have we gone further to find our own unique capacity to make a difference in the world in ways that might be difficult, or impossible to achieve for someone else? Are we working on what we think is most urgent, or on what is most convenient?

How can you know if you’re doing enough, since everyone’s path is different? And we are, now, men and women of a certain age, building lives outside of our careers, juggling the demands of work, relationships, sometimes young children, and for those of us lucky enough to be part of the sandwich generation, aging parents. Is this really the right time to be worrying about whether we’re doing enough for the rest of the world?

Maybe this is an uncomfortable conversation. Wouldn’t it be better if we could all just pat ourselves on the back for everything we’ve already done? But I believe that even though we are at a moment in our lives when things aren’t nearly as simple and straightforward as they were ten years ago, that these questions are as important now as they were ten years ago. And what I want to ask each of you to do, since someone was foolish enough to give me this platform, is just to ask yourself the tough questions about how you are impacting the world around you, how you are, as Carl and Robert say on their quite awesome website, leaving the world better than you found it.

As Rilke said, “Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” Everyone’s journey is their own, and there is no one way to have an impact. But here we are, and I see who is in this room, and think about what the world needs, and I think it is a powerful combination. I don’t have the answer for how to optimize your impact, because it depends on who you are and what you are best able to contribute, but I think the answer for each of us has two parts. The first comes from asking ourselves these tough questions, and the second I’ll get to in a moment.

2 years ago I learned something that sort of blew my mind. I’ve worked for no fewer than 5 Stanford MBAs – I guess it’s like a rule I have, you can’t supervise me if you didn’t get an MBA from this place. But two years ago I learned that the three most important of these were actually in the same class. The class of 1991. Jacqueline Novogratz, who I work for now, started Acumen to change how the world tackles poverty and has actually succeeded in changing the face of philanthropy; Derek Brown, the former Senior Vice President of Ashoka is now the Executive Director of Peace Appeal, which develops peace processes in some of the most violent and conflict ridden parts of the world. And Charles McGlashan.

Charles took a big bet on me when I was just a few years out of college, putting me on a plane to Mexico two weeks after he hired me with a binder and a pep talk, all set to train the managers of an auto plant outside Mexico City on environmental management systems. He taught me about waste management economics and about holding my head high when we were mocked by plant managers in Detroit for believing in a greener world.

Charles personally advocated for me when I applied for my dream jobs at Ashoka and Acumen, and what I didn’t know was that he was reaching out to two classmates, encouraging them to take the same big bet that he had. Charles changed my life a few times over, and changed the world around him in profound ways. A bicycle path in Marin County was just named for Charles, who raised $2 million to improve it and served on the board of supervisors there for six years as a champion for sustainable transportation.

They also named this path for Charles because he recently passed away. Charles died of a heart attack two years ago at the age of 49. It was a tremendous loss for his friends and family, and for the world. But Charles gave everything he had and helped others, like me, on their own path. His life was far, far too short, but his legacy of impact is undeniable.

I think of him, Derek and Jacqueline. One class. And I think about what we will do. Class of 2003. Maybe asking these hard questions is daunting when we think that we’re in this alone. But this is the second piece of how we will optimize we’re impact. By realizing that we are not alone. We’ve had each other’s backs from the beginning, giving each other advice, encouragement, and just the knowledge that what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it, is bigger than ourselves. Let’s not be afraid to ask if we can do more, but imagine if this question was not just about we each do, but about the legacy we create, together, by supporting each other on this journey. And let’s never underestimate the impact we have on those that come after us, who are just starting to ask themselves those same hard questions, and who look to us. Whatever Changing Lives, Changing Organizations, Changing the World means to each of you, I’m just so proud that these are questions that we can come together, as a class, to ask ourselves. 

Blog rescues woman stumbling through challenging year

Everyone keeps saying how tough 2012 was, and my thought is always, c’mon, it wasn’t that bad. But truth be told, it was that bad, and for many, destructive and tragic and violent. And if it wasn’t that bad for me, it’s because I am ridiculously fortunate. For many reasons, but among them, because of the support and love with which I am blessed. And in some small way, because when I look back on this year, I can see not only the horrors that took place around the world, but also the victories – the lives saved, the discoveries, the commitments made to make things even better, for everyone. And personally, I can see not only where I fell short, but also where I grew. Where I learned, who I learned from, and where I shared my own voice on issues close to my heart. This blog is a testament to that part of 2012, so before closing out the year, I thought I’d look back on my year of blogging and thank all of you for being a part of it.

On January 3^rd of this year, I made a commitment on this blog to helping to celebrate the creative choices that people make to live a “whole life”, and over the course of the year had a chance to write about 3 amazing women who inspire me. There are seven more on their way.

Later, I pledged to honor my brother and all that he has taught me by loving more freely and building a “legacy of love.” That, I’m afraid, is still very much a work in progress.

I had my fist piece in the Huffington Post on the power of choice in childbirth, and the need to go beyond just survival in how we think about health among the poor. Shortly after that, I shared lessons here from the Op-Ed project, where I was given serious encouragement in my efforts to refine and share my voice and ideas with others, and I had a chance to put those lessons into effect when I did my first TEDx talk in San Francisco on the same themes as my Huffington Post blog.

I have written here about partnerships, about sustainable coffee, and about cause marketing, and I have imagined dozens of posts that I never wrote, but wanted to, and perhaps will.

So much is missing – the stories of other “whole-lifers” who inspire me and who will find their way here eventually. The story of Hurricane Sandy, and the amazing woman who took me and my children in when our apartment became unlivable.  The stories of my children and my endless revelations about how amazing these tiny developing human beings are, and yet how easily they get ill and how frequently I am standing directly in front of them when they throw up. Stories of individuals who showed me what is possible in times of crisis, and times of change, and times when good enough simply won’t do. Everything I learned throughout this incredible year of work, living, meeting up, and falling down.

This blog has been an outlet for me, and each time I’ve had the time (and more importantly, courage) to post, you have been my inspiration and my reward. Because let’s be honest, writing is not a solo endeavor, and when I write, I do it because I hope that something I have to say will occur to someone else as useful. You have made me feel that. You have made me feel that even if I am just starting on a journey of writing, that someone is listening, and that you are willing to include me in whatever journey you are on by considering my words, and sometime, even sharing them.

It makes the falling down so much easier, and the general feeling of “am I doing this right?” much less of a burden. Thank you for joining me here, and for sharing your stories with me. And with all wishes for a 2013 with just as much learning and reaching, and fewer moments of confusion, loss and self-doubt, Happy New Year!

TEDxSF – 7 Billion Well – Yasmina Zaidman

I’ve been invited to speak on the topic of global health twice in the past month, and both times I’ve said to myself, I don’t know anything about global health. That’s what comes from being exposed, in some degree, to the insane complexity of global health. I’ve seen health experts, health investors, and health corporations struggle mightily with the challenges of addressing the large-scale health issues faced by the poor. As a society, we’ve made incredible progress with some major issues like Polio and AIDS/HIV, and seen remarkable progress on issues like maternal healthcare and diarrheal disease, but there is so much further to go.

I won’t share all the numbers, but they evoke a feeling of profound shame that we still can’t resolve these imminently solvable problems. And that millions of people, mostly children, die as a result. I believe it is the shame of our age. But I’ve surrendered to the fact that I, and even my organization, do not have the answers to these big challenges.

But we know people who do.

I’m not talking about the brilliant scientists inventing the cures, or philanthropists who take generosity to a new level to make that possible. I’m not even talking about the heroic leaders who fight diseases like AIDS and cholera in the trenches, battling bureaucracies and apathy to provide healthcare in places that the world has abandoned. I am talking about the searchers, the entrepreneurs who are looking for ways to outsmart the most challenging and persistent problems that still hold us back on issues of healthcare – the tough questions of cold chain-distribution for vaccines and life-saving drugs, or the challenges of marketing to end-users who feel a fundamental mistrust of many institutions. The issues of pricing in the face of extreme poverty, and of building a business model accessible to all.

I am talking about entrepreneurs who want to bring their creativity and relentless drive to deliver value for customers to the issues of healthcare, focused on meeting the needs of the poor. And that’s what I talk about in this short TEDx talk for the TEDxSF event, 7 Billion Well. Not because I think entrepreneurs are the answer to an issue like maternal health, but because I think they are a critical part of the solution on a whole range of issues where we need a new approach to listening to and empowering the patients themselves. And we are just at the beginning.

The Magic of Partnerships

I feel like I hear that word so much more often now that I am in the Partnerships business. I was recently at a conference in Washington DC where I learned that helping major corporations partner with non-profits is a virtual industry. If that’s the case, then I am proud to say that once again I find myself a novice on a steep learning curve. And as is my wont, I will proceed without the benefit of extensive experience so much as a passion for finding the most direct route to doing something that has an impact. So, when I was asked by Andrea Useem to comment in an article for Devex on the subject, I was happy to share my experience in the wild frontier of partnership building. Here’s the piece, and I am truly honored to be quoted among peers who are making the term “partnerships” really mean something by focusing on impact and long-term strategic collaboration. http://www.devex.com/en/news/5-keys-to-effective-partnerships/79643

What’s in a Cause?

I had the chance today to join a Huffington Post Live discussion on the impact (or lack thereof) of causes promoted by for-profit companies. Having spent the past several years developing strategic partnerships with a range of major corporations from Dow Chemical to Ferragamo, I have a point of view on what it means for companies to take on the work of making the world a better place. The discussion had a great mix, from Jeffrey Robinson of the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development at Rutgers University to social entrepreneur Kesang Yudron,  Founder of Padhma Creation, and outspoken blogger Ruzan Sarwar, among others. A great group, an animated discussion, and some great insights for me on what makes people skeptical of these partnerships as well as what makes people hopeful about the impact they can have. 

During the live chat, I summed up my view on what makes for a good marriage between a corporation marketing a product and a good cause as follows. The partnership should be:

1. Strategic – Meaning, aligned with the brand and strategy of the company so that it grows with the company and doesn’t fade away as trends shift. Great examples are P&G’s Children’s Safe Drinking Water program and the Tory Burch Foundation, both driven by the strengths and values of the companies behind them, and as a result, built to last.

2. Impactful – today we debated what the standard should be for impact, but I admire partnerships that support and highlight the work of existing organizations doing great work. I’m a big fan of FEED, which has focused on issues where small individual gifts really do add up to change. FEED generates those gifts through purchases of bags that essentially sell at cost+charity. With a lean operation and powerful brand ambassador in the form of Lauren Bush Lauren, they have delivered millions of meals through 13 respected non-profit partners including the World Food Program and UNICEF.

3. Generous – again, though there is no perfect standard for what is generous, charitable giving should be considered an investment in the legacy of a company and in the creation of a more sustainable future for all. This is a far cry from viewing it as one small slice of a marketing budget. Companies may start small, but great partnerships increase their generosity as they grow, rather than cashing in on short-term marketing benefits. 

With each of these, the choice rests with the consumer. Which cause-related product will you buy and wear, what statement will you make? And more importantly, how will these choices lead to bigger changes, larger acts of generosity, and a deeper understanding of the ways in which the world is interconnected. It may seem like a tall order, but I am a believer that the tools of business and the informed decisions of consumers, combined in the right ways are ONE important tool in our fight to end poverty, injustice and environmental degradation. Please do check out the discussion. 

Michele Jolin – A policy shaper and lifelong mentor

Today I continue my series on Celebrating a Whole Life, which shares what inspires me about women I’ve met who live their lives creatively at a time when we often end up stuck in a conversation about trade-offs vs. having it all. Anne Marie Slaughter’s article on the topic from a few months ago again stirred the pot, yielding what I thought was a welcome flurry of conversations about the choices women make and the context in which they make those choices. I won’t dive into what I thought about the article, but I will say that I believe we are just at the beginning of a period when we are able to recognize versions of success that defy the traditional expectations of both professional and personal achievement. When we measure achievement based on things like meaning, fulfillment, purpose, and yes, happiness, and not only on title, position, or the ability to sacrifice all for family. Each post in this series is a celebration of women who are making bold choices and doing so in a way that is imbued with a true spark of joy.

Michele Jolin was perhaps the first woman I thought of when I decided to write this series. She joined Ashoka about a year after I did over a decade ago, and arrived just after having served as the Chief of Staff for President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors. It was the most impressive title I had ever heard, and I knew before I even met Michele that she was a star. Once I did meet her, she exploded any notions I had of what it means to be a very smart, very accomplished, very-important-person. She was ridiculously warm, accessible, and committed to sharing her own stories (of success and failure) to help women that were coming after her to navigate both professional and personal pathways.

I was working as the associate for Ashoka’s Environmental Innovations Initiative at the time, and her job was to lead a parallel effort in education, an issue about which she was passionate.  I immediately sought out an opportunity to work with her on a gathering of Ashoka Fellows from around the world all focused on education which would take place in South Africa. I saw it as both an opportunity to get out into the world and close to the Ashoka social entrepreneurs, but also as a chance to learn from Michele.

Throughout this project, and particularly during out time together in South Africa, I saw in Michele someone who was at ease with her own leadership – able to respectfully facilitate a group of strong-willed social innovators with diverse opinions about how to improve education and protect children,  and then take insights from those discussions and push them to the highest levels of policy change. She blended hard and soft, showing the patience required by this diverse community of Ashoka Fellows and the discipline to move things forward when needed.

I have tried to emulate these qualities since, but the greatest lessons I learned from Michele came not from a few months together planning a gathering of social entrepreneurs. They have come from having stayed in touch for over thirteen years, and being privileged to have watched her make choices about her life, career and family that have been a model and an inspiration to me. She is someone who truly deserves to be celebrated for building a whole life when at every moment she has been faced with tremendous opportunities and has chosen carefully and wisely in order to create a mosaic of priorities that fit together beautifully.

When I first met her, she seemed to be at a critical juncture, shifting from a period of prioritizing her career (which had obviously paid off) to prioritizing her personal life and her desire to start a family. At her wedding, and then later meeting her first child, I saw in her a wisdom to go after those things she valued with focus and passion, whether it was an opportunity to shape economic and social policy, or start a family. I observed with keen interest when she developed a flexible schedule at Ashoka, allowing her to continue to have an impact on an issue that mattered to her, while being present for her family the way she wanted to be.

When I had my first child, she came to see me with her three children in tow, and I was again inspired by her willingness to embrace the chaos of a large family while still relentlessly pursuing opportunities to shape policy and champion social innovation.

I was perhaps never more inspired by her, though, than when she told me she had decided to take one year away from work at a moment when the demands of her life made her feel like she needed to make a shift. Her clarity and confidence to do what was right for her and her family, trusting that she would pull all the pieces together again when the time was right, has stayed in my mind as a hallmark of what it takes to follow a unique path in life.

Michele is someone who has worked on both the domestic and international fronts at the highest levels to create lasting positive change. She has also stood as someone who fearlessly makes her family a priority, and she has been a friend and a role model that has continuously opened up new worlds of possibilities for me. For that and so much more, I celebrate her.

Below are Michele’s responses to my five standard questions:

1.       How do you define success?

One word: Balance.

2.       What is your greatest struggle?

Guilt:  Feeling guilty about never having enough time for friends, kids, family or work.

3.       What are you proudest of?

My 3 children.

4.       Who inspires you, in terms of how they live their life?

My 3 children. My oldest because she is determined, big-hearted and brave; my middle because he is imaginative, free-spirited and fearless; my youngest because she is strong, resilient, fun-loving, uninhibited and hilarious.  Also, Ashoka Fellow Sister Cyril Mooney (and many other social entrepreneurs around the world) because she is optimistic, effective and passionately focused on making life better for the most vulnerable children.

5.       If you had a free 8^th day of the week, what would you do with it?

Sleep.

When do you know enough?

During a recent workshop with the Op-Ed Project, a program launched by Echoing Green Fellow Katie Orenstein that is bringing more women’s voices into public discourse, I struggled with an exercise designed to help the participants talk about our areas of expertise. In the workshop with me was a stunning array of women with tremendous accomplishments under their belts.

The exercise was simple, I thought at first, just a fill-in-the-blank exercise. My name is Yasmina and I am an expert in _______ because _________. The only instructions were to make it narrow, specific and short. Little did I know that I would struggle so mightily with this simple task, even after watching over a dozen women go through the exercise before it was my turn.

Make it narrow. Sounds simple enough, but I couldn’t do it. I was so worried about not communicating the breadth of my knowledge, that I picked an area of expertise that was both hard to communicate, and far from unique. It was something about helping entrepreneurs solve major global challenges. Huh? One by one, each woman struggled to state one area of expertise that was narrow, and in which they had more expertise than others in the room.

An expert in International Affairs? No, try “I’m an expert in backpacking across Kyrgyzstan as a journalist.”

An expert in children’s literature? No, try “I’m an expert in Free to be You and Me.”

As I listened I found these new answers painfully narrow. Yet the revised answers made me far more curious to learn from these diverse accomplished women. And of course, one can be expert in lots of different things. But why bother figuring out how to describe a narrow expertise? Because someday, you may need to share what you know with someone else, and it they will probably want to know something specific. But as I try to think about what I know that makes me some kind of expert, it seems impossible to think of anything for which there aren’t 5 people I know that have deeper expertise. So maybe there’s another way to get at this. In the past few weeks several people have asked me to speak to them to share my expertise (who knew?). All of these people are working on projects with real social impact with organizations I deeply respect, and I haven’t hesitated to share with them what I know.

I have a momentary pause – do I know enough to be of assistance? And then I decide I’ll let them decide. I’ll share what I know, no more, no less, and they’ll decide if it’s helpful. They may not reveal to me whether it is truly useful, but worst case scenario, they’ll know I tried to be helpful. And I’ll learn a little more about what I know. Because whether or not I ever figure out what I’m an expert in, I do want to learn how my knowledge can help others.

So, after my recent conversations with people who seemed interested in what I know, here’s take two:

My name is Yasmina and I’m an expert in how to tell the story of a social enterprise because I’ve been working with social entrepreneurs on 5 continents for 15 years, helping them share their stories at events, through media and in academia.

It’s a start.  What’s your expertise? Remember, narrow. specific, short.

Beyond survival — Could Access to Maternal Care Transform a Woman’s Life?

This first appeared on Huffington Post

Childbirth was the moment in my life when I felt the most vulnerable. Physically, emotionally and mentally pushed to my absolute limits. Feeling like everything was at stake, and that despite the support of loved ones and medical professionals, I was alone. It was up to me to stay focused, stay strong, and do what was needed. And what was needed meant pain, blood, and hours of hard work.

It was also the moment of my life that I felt the most powerful. I was joining the ranks of the mothers of the world, about to meet my child for the first time, and I was doing it exactly how I wanted to. I chose the doctor, the hospital, the approach, and who would be by my side. I wasn’t able to decide how long it would take, or what position my baby would be in as he emerged. But I knew that I was the driver of this process, and it gave me strength and a sense of calm. And afterwards, as I recovered and reflected on what had happened, I felt tremendous satisfaction. That was a feeling I know is a great privilege. I was lucky, I know, that everything came together for a safe and simple birth.

Here in the developed world, lack of information or a patient-centric medical system can limit women’s choices around childbirth. Our litigious society often dictates what doctors advise, as they face the risk of lawsuits and tremendous malpractice insurance costs. It’s not uncommon for women to go through birth without feeling a sense of agency. Among my women friends, I’ve seen frustration arise not from what happened during birth — vaginal or c-section, fast or slow, painkillers or no painkillers — but rather from those experiences where they feel that they were treated dismissively or excluded from key decisions. My friends who have positive birth experiences are those that had their wishes respected, whether that wish was for minimal medical intervention or for an epidural, stat!

Of course, all of this is typically overshadowed by the joy of having a new child, and knowing that at the end of the day, everyone involved was working towards a common goal of having a healthy baby delivered.

In the developing world, the option for poor women to have medical assistance of any kind is often absent and this leads to the death of 800 women each day from pregnancy and childbirth. In India, two thirds of women give birth at home, not because it’s their choice, but because hospital births are not available, or because the public hospitals that are available have such abhorrent conditions that they don’t really feel like an option.

So instead of feeling powerful, women feel powerless. About 78,000 women die in childbirth every year in India alone, which is an unacceptable tragedy. Millions more women survive birth, but I think of what it means for so many of these women to go through this experience with no choices around how they gave birth, and often, no support. Many face long term health issues as a result of inadequate maternal care. And beyond the physical aftermath, how might their experience of birth be impacting their lives in more subtle ways?

I believe, as do my colleagues at Acumen Fund, that choice and dignity are inextricably linked. But this became real to me when I gave birth. How can you feel dignified when you are physically reduced to a sweating, trembling aching mess? How can you feel empowered when you are vulnerable to infection, blood loss, and I hate to say it, incontinence? Becoming a mother can be a rite of passage, a moment where you discover something about yourself and about your new capacity to love and care for another human being that you didn’t know. The sense of responsibility that comes with motherhood can be frightening, but can also bestow a deep sense of purpose. Choice in birth often boils down to women being able to do the right thing for their child, even in the hours and moments before the child is born. During my two births, I learned that you can feel dignity even in this moment of uncertainty and vulnerability when you know that you have some control.

It’s why I can’t stop talking about LifeSpring hospitals, a company Acumen Fund invested in in 2007. Because LifeSpring believes that no matter what your income level or what neighborhood you are from, that as a woman, you must have the option to give birth in a safe environment. Not only one where medical attention is provided, but where each hospital is designed to create a sense of comfort and security, with pink walls and smiling personnel. With loved ones who can visit and stay with the mother during her recovery.

LifeSpring is a chain of maternity hospitals in Andhra Pradesh that provides affordable high quality maternal care to low-income women, and they have seen over 200,000 women patients and delivered over 11,000 babies since Acumen Fund invested in them.

I think of the women they’ve served, and wonder if they had a similar sense of being powerful from experiencing childbirth with a sense of control, and a sense of choice.

Who knows how that experience could alter the course of a women’s life? But I can imagine that for a woman, perhaps in her early 20s or late teens, giving birth in a place that lets her know that she matters, that her body and her life and her feelings matter, could make all the difference. It certainly changed my life. Could an empowering or at least secure experience of childbirth transform the lives of women experiencing it for the first time? A woman has a right to survive childbirth, but so should she have the opportunity to go through this experience, with all its vulnerability, and emerge confident, aware of all the power she has to make choices that will lead to a healthy and prosperous future, both for herself and for her new child.

Antonia Bowring – Inspiring on many dimensions

In this, my second profile in the series “Celebrating a Whole Life,” I am privileged to write about Antonia Bowring, a woman who has inspired me for many years and who truly deserves to be celebrated. Antonia is someone who I have admired for her thoughtful choices and honesty, but what first amazed me about her was something I discovered in a freezer.

I was impressed by Antonia from the moment I met her. She was facilitating the first staff retreat I attended with Acumen Fund nine years ago, and her approach to guiding us through complex and sometimes delicate conversations was both intimate and commanding. She had the complete trust of our CEO, and I was so curious about her story – who was this woman who could pop into our three day meeting to help us as we shaped some of the key elements of our strategy as a freelance consultant.

So I was already curious about her when on our second day at the offsite retreat I opened the freezer to find ice cubes and found small frozen pouches of milk and naively asked what they were. She was nearby and told me she was pumping milk for a baby she had at home. The whole concept was foreign to me at the time (though it is all too familiar now) and I suddenly had to replay the past 24 hours. In the past day of marathon working sessions, interspersed with the kind of intense social time that was possible for a team of about 11, she had been finding time to fulfill this commitment to an infant somewhere hours away.

Antonia became somewhat of a beacon for me as I thought about having a family years later. Wondering how it would all work, I would think of her and know that it was possible to achieve tremendous professional respect even in the midst of nursing a baby.  This may seem obvious to the many many women who do this every day, but to me, at that moment that I peered into the freezer, it was a revelation.

It had a big impact on me years later when I was nursing my first child and returned to work. Rather than aim for subtlety in managing the oh-so-fun process of pumping 3 times a day at work for months, I decided to be relaxed and open about it, wondering if perhaps some younger woman might make a mental note, as I had, that this was something that people do, and it can work.

Antonia has stayed in Acumen Fund’s orbit, and I have continued to watch her career and life with fascination, moving from success to success, now the mother of two beautiful boys and the COO of the Open Space Institute. The Open Space Institute (OSI) protects scenic, natural, and historic landscapes for the public as well as for the sake of environmental conservation. She manages the systems and finances of an organization that has protected more than 116,000 acres and made more than 70 loans and grants for nearly $80 million to protect 1.6 million acres valued at over $530 million. From her work in women’s microfinance internationally to serving as a portfolio manager at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation – one of New York’s most innovative education philanthropies – and now serving on the board of ioby, a grassroots environmental organization, she has found so many ways to make a difference on so many important issues.

When I decided to write this series of posts I knew I would reach out to her. In part because I already owed her a tremendous debt for cracking open the idea of combining mothering and contributing professionally in such a powerful way, but also because I wanted to better understand her story.

We had dinner together recently and I was able to form a more nuanced picture of her work at the Open Space Institute, balancing the needs of two children a few years older than my own with her leadership responsibilities. She was refreshingly honest about tradeoffs she had made, but I saw that the same art that I had observed when I first met her to put the pieces together was still in full effect. She agreed to answer my five questions, and I had one more for her before we parted ways after our dinner. “What is the bottom line, when it comes to work – what can’t be given up?” Her response – “Making a difference.” I was so glad we’d stayed in touch and that I would have a chance to celebrate Antonia, and thank her, in writing, for helping show me a path I could learn from.

Here’s how Antonia answered the 5 questions I pose to all of the women I highlight in my Celebrating a Whole Life series.

1.     How do you define success?

When I “started out”, I defined it as “making a difference”.  By that I meant a difference in resolving the inequalities faced by many people – my focus was economic inequalities faced by women in developing countries.  I still want to make a difference….but my tableau right now is more local.  I can’t work if it doesn’t have a positive benefit for society one way or another.  But my definition of success now also includes raising two strong, capable, thoughtful, adventure seeking young men.  Oh yes, I’d love to define success by winning a tennis tournament. I know it will happen ONE DAY.

2.     What is your greatest struggle?

It’s such a cliché.  Its feeling like I don’t do much of anything well because I’m so scattered.  I do “ok” work; I’m an “ok” mom; I’m an OK athlete, I’m an ok board member; I’m not sure if I even rise to the ranks of “ok” life partner.

3.     What are you proudest of?

Hands down, my two boys.

4.     Who inspires you, in terms of how they live their life? 

I don’t recall her name.  She is the publisher of Julia Child’s cookbook series. (I can look it up.)  She was a pioneer in believing in the book and its impact.  And now in her 80s in VT, she is still a pioneer raising organic cattle.  I love that she still has a sense of adventure, creativity and she hasn’t just stopped “thinking” and watches TV all the time.

5.     If you had a free 8th day of the week, what would you do with it?

 I’d cook, I’d have friends over, I’d eat and drink with them, and we’d all have scintillating conversations because I’d have time to keep up on news and read books about philosophy!  (And I’d listen more to my boys in a non distracted way.)

A Gift on Many Levels

I went to Harlem this weekend with some friends who live there. We went for the food, and we stayed after to play in Jackie Robinson Park with my two kids. It was an idyllic day, and though I could see that it was different in some ways from being in my own West Village neighborhood I was mostly noticing how it was the same. Same clusters of kids making playgrounds boisterous, same slightly weary moms or dads keeping an eye out, same couples trolling for a place to dine. But all neighborhoods have their histories, their own journeys, migrations towards the future – and particularly, threads that weave through a neighborhood of local leaders and institutions that can shape what the future looks like for the children of a neighborhood.

These local leaders and institutions are evident in little things – are the playgrounds safe, is the equipment freshly painted? In the playgrounds I visited, they were. How are the schools, the crime, the availability of nutritious food? How’s unemployment, college graduation rates? Now we start to talk about the big things. But these things are less dictated by history than they are by the local leaders and institutions that claim the neighborhood as their own. HEAF, the Harlem Educational Activities Fund, and its VP of Programs Merle McGee, are exactly the kind of institution and leader that are shaping this neighborhood’s future, and in truly incredible ways.

It’s not something I do very often, but today I am compelled to ask my friends and family to give to a good cause. The cause is a service learning trip by a group of young people from Harlem that are part of HEAF, a program designed to give them an opportunity to fulfill their potential through enrichment programs and support in attending and graduating from 4 year colleges. I met the VP of Programs, Merle McGee, several months ago and she is a dynamo of passion and dedication to the young people she works with.

Every year, a group of students goes on a service learning trip, and this year they’re going to do a cultural preservation project with the Garifuna. According to Merle “The Garifuna are descendents of Africans bound for slavery and indigenous Carib Indians of St. Vincent. Never heard of them? Well, despite being named a Masterpiece of Intangible Human Heritage by UNESCO, the Garifuna way of life and language are dying. HEAF scholars will partner with Garifuna youth to develop an interactive cultural preservation website for children throughout the Garifuna Diaspora.”

Giving should be about the receiver, and I am often critical of giving that centers on the giver, but this is really about both to me. The project that the HEAF Scholars will undertake with the Garifuna and the value it will have for them as young leaders is incredibly worthwhile – I have no doubts about that. But when I got the note from Merle asking for $50 to support the trip and project, I had this feeling that I was the lucky one that I would have a way to participate in some small way in this inspiring endeavor. This is not just about a good cause, but about a vision of the world where young people who have themselves been confronted by challenges are reaching outside of themselves, their community, their country, to connect with, learn from and honor another community that has faced even greater challenges. In a time when people everywhere are pulling inwards, driven by fear and anxiety, the picture I have in my mind of the HEAF Scholars on this trip fills me with hope.

I find this project inspiring in a way that is irresistible, and this is a gift that will make me feel connected to that sense of hope. Some gifts are like that, and I guess that’s OK. For whatever might motivate you – the desire to support high potential Harlem youth, the desire to help preserve a precious and unique culture, or the desire to be part of a beautiful story of what’s possible in the world – or maybe just the desire to follow the lead of a very enthusiastic blogger – I hope you’ll consider giving $50 to this project.  If you do, I hope it gives you the same lift that it has given me to tell you about this beautiful initiative.

To give, click here and select Learning for Social Impact as the program you’d like to support. And then just enjoy that feeling. It’s not always this easy. In fact, it rarely is.

HEAF’s Mission:

The Harlem Educational Activities Fund, or HEAF, is a comprehensive, non-profit supplemental education and youth development organization that helps motivated students develop the intellectual curiosity, academic ability, social values, and personal resiliency they need to ensure success in school, career, and life. HEAF identifies students in middle school and supports them until they have successfully graduated from four-year colleges through a variety of after-school, Saturday, and summer educational and youth development programs.