The OCD Artist

When people look at my resume, the first thing they ask me is, how did you go from art to business? I smile because while it may not by fully apparent by my resume—as much as I work to tell my story through it—my path has actually been such a perfect progression for me to get to where I’m going. I earned my BA in Studio Art and Art History from the University of Virginia, a place so beautiful and historic, that I simply couldn’t help but studying those passions. I still feel that I learned more about politics, history and human nature from studying art than I ever would have studying political science or sociology. My time at UVA gained me one of the best hard skills that a liberal arts degree can—to think. That, and my OCD, did the rest to lead me to full time roles organizing things and people.

Get a Job

My first job organizing international internships for students going to Italy, Spain, the UK, France and Australia introduced me to a boss in whose footsteps I’ve been trying to follow ever since. He has now encouraged me into the two best decisions of my life: going to Rwanda on a 10-day service-learning trip, and going to Thunderbird for my MBA. My next job at the Case Foundation taught me about social media and the importance of the everyday philanthropist—another tie into Novogratz’s book—while also introducing me to a group of people with big hearts and big connections for change. Once I landed at College Summit, I was ready to use my skills to see real change in the everyday of my work.

Change at Work

My time at College Summit exposed me to what a well run nonprofit can look like. Like any organization, is it not without room for improvement, but it has done a superb job of hedging mission creep with clear goals and measurable results. Metrics, along with the strong relationships built with students and between staff members, paint a clear picture of what a small group of passionate people with achievable goals can do—send more students to college who might not otherwise go. Ask any College Summit Peer Leader, and I bet their experience was life altering in the best possible way.

I felt the same way about my College Summit experience. While I was there, I fed my passion for International Development by leading a board for Indego Africa. It is a NY based nonprofit working in Rwanda with cooperatives of women who make handicrafts, import and sell the crafts in the US and 100% of profits return to the women for education and business training—social enterprise at its best. Through my involvement with both of these organizations, it became apparent that if I wanted to progress and lead in the International Development and nonprofit fields, I would need some deeper practical skills and understanding of the global landscape. My Thunderbird MBA has provided that in many expected and unexpected ways.

Dream On

As I prepare for my time in South Africa at ThinkImpact’s Innovation Institute, I am also reading Change by Design by Tim Brown.  He started IDEO, a design thinking consultancy now expanding even further into the social sphere under the leadership of a Thunderbird Alumna (we’re everywhere, if you didn’t know!).  One of the first things Tim mentions is the need for more “integrative thinking” and design thinking throughout organizations. He puts forth that the most effective thinkers will be those that can pull from multiple disciplines—artists with MBAs, as an example—music to my ears. While I don’t yet know in what ways my time in South Africa will change me and the people I work with, I do know that I will be well used and deeply moved as I have been so much this week. Because when dreams start to be lived out, you can do little more than jump in, enjoy the ride and shed tears of grateful joy that you are finally getting to where you were always going.

Changing the World through Acronyms

Today I finished Jacqueline Novogratz’s The Blue Sweater, about her life up to and including founding Acumen Fund after many amazing experiences in Africa. In it, she makes the case for using the market as one of many important tools to address poverty. This summer, I get to participate in that very approach to development.

I leave for two months in rural South Africa in about a month. I will be working with an amazing nonprofit, ThinkImpact, and the book was part of our required reading. ThinkImpact has done nothing but impress me so far with their inclusive approach to social entrepreneurship in development. Our work as Advisors will be to teach ThinkImpact Innovation Institute Scholars (American undergrads—mine will all be from Northwestern’s Global Engagement Summer Institute (GESI)—go cats!) about social entrepreneurship. The Scholars use IDEO’s Human Centered Design Toolkit and partner with local villagers to focus on “Asset Based Community Development” (ABCD), building and improving businesses that serve the community. This approach is exactly what the book speaks about in focusing not on “need” which creates a cycle of dependency, but rather on the assets a community already possess to build the economy and keep community development in their own hands.

Blue Sweater Moments

Novogratz’s book title stems from a moment she had walking down the street in Kigali, Rwanda where a young boy walked by wearing a handmade sweater which she immediately recognized from her own childhood and she’d donated it over a decade before—solidifying for her just how interconnected our world truly is. I had my very own “blue sweater” moment on my way to the airport this morning. After a glorious week visiting my best friend, I was glowing with the deep gratitude of spending time with someone with whom you share your soul. Contentedly riding to the airport in the shared van, I read my book as the van filled stop after stop. For our final stop the driver told me we had a pick up of 7 people and I thought, “My that’s a large family.” Turns out, it was a large family—and I’m already a part of it. When we made the stop, in piled a jovial group chatting and joking about their time in Miami, and I looked up surprised to recognize more than a few faces in the car. My former employer, College Summit, had just finished training for their annual workshop season. I excitedly caught up on the news about the training and the national network of offices I’d worked with before starting my MBA at Thunderbird.

The Blue Sweater moved me story after story in reminding me of my brief, but life-changing time in Rwanda and inspiring me for my upcoming time in South Africa with an organization I can believe in with both mind and heart. Running into part of the larger College Summit “Family” reminded me of how interconnected my life is, too. I had the incredible privilege of growing up in a country that values freedom, in a family that values love and education and with friends that value each other. I have been both well taken care of and well loved. Not only that, I have clean water to drink every day, a malaria free shelter to sleep in, and a choice (to a certain degree) of what I want to do with my life. I am very, very blessed. What’s more, I’m gaining my MBA from a school that recognizes the interconnectedness of the world and values it just as much as I do, so much so that we are required to go abroad and learn a second language as part of our degree. And I am looking forward to many more “blue sweater moments” as I continue to expand my global family.

To be continued…

So, this post is not meant to depress you, but to show that there are people doing great things in the midst of incomprehensibly challenging hardship. Regardless, this is some pretty tough stuff, so be warned.

Yesterday I spent my morning catching up on the 700 articles from the 74 blogs I follow in my google reader. I had neglected it for a week due to the aforementioned week-swallowing job search. The better part of the morning I spent on two sites that you should visit:

First, The Places We Live is a site that has an interactive photo feature which takes you through some of the most incredible slums in the world. I use incredible in the real sense of, it is so hard to believe we live in a world where people have to live like this. Jonas Bendiksen has used his powerful images to show these slums with a stark beauty, dignity and truth. The exhibit is now on display at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway. Thanks to Patrick James over at GOOD Magazine for bringing it to my attention.

Second, click on “the story” section in Falling Whistles for a very moving PDF which is well worth the 5-10 minutes it will take you to read/experience. With beautiful, compelling design, Sean D. Carasso tells the story of meeting 5 boys who had just escaped from two of the rebel armies in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This story is so hard. It is not fair. It evokes anger. Hopelessness. Helplessness. Pain. But Sean does well what any advocate of peace and justice does well. He tells the boys’ story. He gives a voice to those who have none, and the voice that he lends is one of urgency, eloquence and love. Make sure you read to the end where he talks about the Congolese artists who are pulling boys like these into a community of rehabilitation.

The way these artists use these horrific stories to spread the truth and point others towards rehabilitation and reconciliation give me hope.

I spent 2 powerful weeks in Rwanda, a country that is a model of progress and reconciliation after the genocide there in 1994 in which around 1 million lives were lost in about 100 days. Even with much progress and healing, there is a long way to go. There will be many more posts here about Rwanda, my short, but clearly life-changing time there, and how it has shaped my world today. For now though, check out Indego Africa, another beacon of hope for me. They blog here. Their work is to help to create cooperatives of women who make handicrafts, import those goods for sale in the states and send 100% of profits back to the women for education and training purposes. Nothing helpless about that.

I give thanks for these tangible places where we can fight against these atrocities by building up strong communities turning with hope to their future. What places and ways have you found to address these issues?