Doing Nothing - A Succession Success Story

Between late last week and early this week a minor crisis took place at Theodora in Ghana. Our new trainees were not paid. 

The problem came about because of a mistake where 800 Cedis (local currency) were sent rather than 800 US Dollars. The Cedi is worth about 10 Cents at the moment. I understand that it was an error by one of the banks involved though I don't actually know this for a fact. 

The process for the Grant money that is funding this is convoluted. It is sent from the U.S. Rotary Club, to the Club in Ghana. They, in turn, send it to the organization which recruited the women, Muslim Family Counseling Service. Finally it gets to M at Theodora who distributes it to the women being trained in the program. 

I am on the WhatsApp group that includes everyone from the four entities that are engaged in this Grant. I watched the frustrated communication go back and forth for days. And here is where, I suppose, I show myself to be selfish. Because I am repeating my gratitude mantra. "How cool is this"  and feeling very happy and grateful. Because I am TOTALLY not involved with it. It is the responsibility of others. And I know they will take care of it because they are competent people who care. 

How Cool Is This. 

Theodora & Other African Social Impact Program Update - Part Four

This is the last of the four-part series on the status of the African social impact projects. In Parts One and Two, I laid out the status of two primary projects, Theodora and Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking Economic Development Initiative (Gad that's a mouthful. I wish I could find a shorter way other than an acronym to get it across). In Part Three, I set out the specific goals I have for the coming year. In Part Four, I am going to let myself stretch a bit from what is clearly doable, to what I am hoping to pull off.

As I sit here, 78 years old, I see one project (Theodora) that is getting really close to true sustainability. I see the other project (EDI) getting close to proof of concept. If we hit the short-term goals, Theodora has a real opportunity to survive and continue even if I am gone. EDI has a bit further to go. If even Theodora alone becomes self-sustaining, that would be quite the win. 

However, I think there is a possibility I can take what has been accomplished so far and use it to build something that has longer-term potential even without me. That is what's critically important. It has to work without me. 

It's too early to go into specifics, but I find I am in the hub of a number of situations that would be much more powerful working as one than working independently. The critical two are led by people who have similar personal situations as me. They don't have forever to take what they're doing and turn it into something sustainable.I need to slowly and patiently start building bridges between the entities and individuals so that the case for joining forces becomes more obvious. 

So my long-term goal is to see if I can pull off this merging of resources and create a social impact entity, based on the principles I've developed at Theodora and EDI, which has sufficient size and funding to become an on-going entity, an entity that will be able to afford professional leadership. 

Theodora & Other African Social Impact Program Update - Part Two

Economic Development Initiative (EDI) Today

 Engaging with the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking in 2020 brought a much greater exposure to the issue of human trafficking than my small slice of experience in Ghana. As I learned more, and compared what I heard to what I was experiencing with Theodora, I became even more convinced that economic opportunity, the availability of jobs, was critical to reducing the number of people vulnerable to trafficking. 

This led to my presenting to Club leadership, a proposal that we should get involved in grassroots economic development. To my shock, they were Gung-ho. Fortunately, I was almost immediately able to find a couple of resources, experienced at doing just the kind of economic development I envisioned who liked what I proposed and offered to make available their services on a volunteer basis. 

This program was based on providing pragmatic, hands-on entrepreneur training combined with on-going business coaching. It aimed at populations that would never be able to do a Theodora type of program. And we were going to offer it for free! With great enthusiasm we sought out organizations to partner up with us. 

We immediately hit a wall. Our program required local mentors to be trained to do the actual coaching of the start-up entrepreneurs. What we found was that most people we approached, didn't have the surplus time to do the training and mentoring. So we languished. 

This year, however, through local contacts here in New Mexico, I found a group that was supporting a school for orphaned children in Zambia. They'd been operating for 25 years and had great concerns about what was happening to the children once they finished school. After a number of months of exploration, they made a decision to adopt the program. It made great sense as they were already paying teachers so could dictate to the teachers the additional training and coaching. This has resolved the finding of mentors problem. 

They had their kick-off meeting for the teachers and staff with 25 people participating. Our goal is to get the 90 children in the Senior and Junior classes in the entrepreneur training by the second quarter of the year. 

I am absolutely positive we will find unforeseen obstacles. Hopefully we will overcome these and see some degree of successful business creation. If we do, we will have our model for expanding this program.  

Transit, Arrival, Settling In, Difficulties Of Inter-Cultural Networking

Truly by Magical Unicorn Pony God of Travel standards it wasn't all that bad. Going to Ghana I flew from Albuquerque to Denver to Washington, D.C. and then on to Accra, Ghana. I knew the last flight was going to be late because I got a notification. Unfortunately, even with the late notification, the flight was even later so we all stood there waiting to board for an hour beyond the announced time. 

For those affectionados of business class flying, there is quite a wide range of quality between airlines food offerings. United made a big Hoo Ha when it unveiled its special Polaris cabin, seats, and lounges. Initially the food quality took a big jump up. But lately it has become decidedly 'Meh'. In particular, there seems to be a ban on salt. Everything is very bland. And the salt shakers on the individual trays don't seem actually put out any salt. Then there is breakfast. Breakfasts on flights, even business class, tend to be very 'meh' as well. This flight took that to a new level of insipidness with the introduction of the Egg White Bite, little like blobs of tasteless egg whites. Why the airline has decided that we need to be conscious of our egg yolk intake is beyond me.

As we took off late, we of course arrived late. This meant that instead of us being the only flight arriving, that there were four other large international flight arrivals so the small Accra airport was packed. However, as the experienced traveler I am, I got off the plane right away, bounded to the health and passport check-in, got the shortest line and was through in about 15 minutes. Amazing...

....only to wait over an hour for my bags to finally show up. 

I was picked up by my people. It was so late we went out to get something to eat. I had some stir-fried noodles that were mercifully full of flavor. 

The weekend was mostly about shopping for food and doing food prep for the week. On my agenda this trip is making rounds to various Rotary Clubs to increase the visibility of Theodora and Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking. It has been awhile since I did this and I had forgotten some of the cultural differences. 

In the U.S., people like to talk about themselves. In a networking environment, it is not hard to get a conversation going. In Ghana, nobody trusts anybody, so they give out as little information as possible. This leads to your white American asking a bunch of questions and getting one word answers in response. The better technique is to just wait until the meeting is over and you've given your promotional blur. Then those who are interested come over to you.

On Friday, we did have a virtual meeting on the grant where the Muslim Family Counseling Representative put his actual signature on the application, making it official. We're hoping we have everything we need to submit it today, Monday.

Musings On Social Impact Start-Ups In Cultures Very Different Than Your Own

Two Posts ago, I went on a tangent and began musing on perceived prospects of the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking, Economic Development Initiative versus the Theodora Project. I made the statement.

"This isn't because I think the concept is bad, unworkable, or have the potential to make it. The problem is I don't have the time and the energy to make the start-up work."

Daughter #3, who has spent much of her recent career in the business start-up space, commented on her observations related to the massive amounts of time and energy that start-ups take, She further related that in the past she never questioned the costs that extracts on other parts of your life, but now she does. And she asked me to go into more depth with my related to my statement related to EDI. So here goes.

I would start by observing that not all start-ups are equal. For example, the start-ups that #3 has mostly been involved with - technology based, aggressively funded, with massive expectations for success are a special kind of artificial pressure cooker that can totally consume and grind down people. On the other hand, the kinds of small business start-ups that I have dealt with over my career, that often relate to the livelihood of those involved, have a different kind of pressure. Most that pressure is self-generated and relates to the need for the business to succeed in order for the founders to avoid financial disaster!

All start-ups take a lot of time and energy. I have always equated it to the laws of physics. If we think of Newton's First Law of Motion (special shout for extra credit from R in Madrid for using a physics reference), an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted on by an external force. Think of the start-up business as an object at rest. It has no customers. It is not producing a product or service. There is no cash flow. The external forces that start to change this are the time and energy of the entrepreneur / founder (or plural as the case may be) and capital. In the tech rapid growth world, much more capital is used to hire lots of bodies to do things. In the small business, it is the entrepreneur / founder who applies energy and time in lieu of capital to do things. 

In both cases, there will be a steep learning curve. No matter what one has thought the model will be or the prior experience one has, there will be lots of changes and adjustments along the way until a dependable model is moving along and the amount of energy, time and money can be backed off. In the small business start-up that almost always takes about 5 years.

Now look at the kind of social impact models with which I've been working. These have all the characteristics of the small business start-up but with the added complexity of simultaneously requiring complete culture attitude change. This takes the challenge to a substantially higher level. 

As I have slogged through all the learning necessary to get Theodora to a level of sustainability, I have begun to realize why most attempts to build new sustainable business models in less developed worlds fail...people simply are not willing to put in the massive amounts of time that are necessary to change the inertia of the existing cultural models. In my personal case if I had not been so 

a) determined, 

b) obsessed, 

c) crazy, 

d) stubborn, 

e) a & c, 

f) b & d, 

g) all of the above, 

I certainly would not have gotten us to where we are today.

Hence my comments related to EDI. It is a different model. The nature of the cultural challenges and change that must be overcome are different. I can see the energy and time that will be required. And I don't have it. And even if I did, I doubt I'd be willing to make that kind of commitment again. I will try to do somethings that involve more people to see if I can get at least a prototype started. But I would have to say overall, I'm not optimistic this one is going to happen.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Rotary Event

A week before I was to head out to Ghana, one of my fellow Board Members of the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking, E, sent an email out to me and the ladies of Theodora who are in our club. E's brother, Mark, a prior President of Rotary International, and now a Trustee of the Rotary Foundation was doing a tour of Africa. He was stopping in Ghana. They would be giving him a gala dinner just two days after I arrived. Our club President asked if any of our people would be willing to go as it would be great if our little Ghana contingent could be seen at such an event.

Much to my surprise, virtually our entire team with the exception of the one who is a recent mother decided to go. 

I had my own thoughts as to what would happen and I tried hard to tamp down expectations. There would over a hundred people. All would be clamoring for attention from such an important personage. Since 'E' was speaking to her Brother and Sister-in-law, I was sure we'd get a small shout out. Mainly, I wanted to show the women how one works a room such as this as none has had any kind of experience such as this.

Despite all my years coming to Ghana and experiencing "Ghana-Mahn-Time" which is like "Manana" on steroids, I cannot shake my American punctuality upbringing. So we arrived when the event was supposed to start. First thing we encountered was a classic case of Ghanaian petty power. In a very hierarchical society where those with more lord over you, many with any authority have a tendency to lord it over those they can.

At the reception desk, they didn't have a name for our reservation. We had a copy of our payment receipt but no, the person in charge said if there was no name on the list we couldn't get in. We had to go over to the side and wait until we could contact the person who'd purchased the tickets for us. I was close to pulling an 'African World Airways Meltdown' but I kept it under control and we in due course were allowed in with apologies from one of the staff leaders and glares from the petty tyrant.

Of course no one was there. The room wouldn't fill up until almost 45 minutes after the official start time. We were by ourselves.

 My team cooling our heels waiting for things to happen

I decided some alcohol lubricant would lighten the mood which it did.

 

As more Rotarians arrived, some of the people I know got me into conversations. Then as we got close to the time the unexpected happened. The District Governor, a woman who had met one of woman when she went to a club meeting with my main Ghana partner and benefactor Jonas, came to our table. Past Rotary President and Trustee Mark wanted us...All Of Us...to come to their table. 

So off we went through the room go meet PRP (Past Rotary President) Mark and his Wife Gaye. And they greet us so warmly. And Gaye insists on taking multiple pictures...all while the MC is trying to get the meeting started. 

 

 

 Me hobnobbing with the PRP

 

As we returned to our seats, I saw a couple of our women make eye contact with the lady who'd given us such a hard time and grace her with a some malicious smiles. Our women have spent a lifetime being disrespected so I can't blame them.

Then Mark was called up to do his presentation.He starts talking about how important it is for Rotary to be innovative to get new members. He talks about the move during his term to creating different kinds of clubs. He talks about his Sister's journey, she who had no interest in Rotary at all until the unique Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking came to her attention. Then Mark said,

"And we have members right here in Ghana who are members of that club."

 

And he had us stand up for recognition, the only club so recognized.

 

We were all blown away!

 

Our Rotary event experience.

Back From Kumasi -Winding Up Trip

Everything went smoothly in Kumasi. My flights with Africa World Airlines were all on time. Weather was fine. AND, I had a really great meeting with the young man who heads up the Muslim Family Counseling Service's street children advocacy program. TM is an impressive person. He's energetic, with a positive attitude. He and his small team spend a lot of time out, in the environments where young people are ending up living on the streets because of lack of economic opportunity. As such, he and his organization are ideal partners for the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking's Economic Development Initiative. 

We spent most of the time I was there visiting actual environments where people are living and the different populations. This meant me getting out of my comfort zone and going rather deep into parts of the city I would never go on my own. But it was necessary in order to get the real picture.

Listen to TM in one of those environments, the Central Market

 We were able to reach a consensus on the specifics of demographics and modifications to the programs we want to approach. Hopefully, I will be able to have this second Pilot Project ready to kick-off by the first part of next year.

I was back in Accra on Thursday for a full day and evening of meetings both here and back in the U.S. Today I'm working from my apartment, wrapping things up and will be heading back to the USA on Saturday.

 

 

Empress Pu In Ghana Photo Spectacular

Seeing is believing!

Signing Ceremony at the Rotary Club of Tamale 

 

 

Distribution of Rotary Swag...Always Appreciated

 

 Mandatory Group Shot

The Local Assemblyman warming up the crowd before de-I makes his first ever Economic Development Initiative talk to a Ghana local village. Thank you fellow Rotarians for the 5 minutes of prep time to prepare.

At Theodora Ghana Virtual Assistants

Meeting with Rotarian Jonas (who has probably done more than anyone in Ghana to help this program move forward and succeed)

 

Presenting three of our women with Certificates for passing the Advanced Virtual Assistant certification

Theodora Team

On The Road Again And Back To Ghana

I leave tomorrow for Ghana and back to my normal business routine. 

 Accept things are not really normal. In a good way. 

With Theodora, through a number of separate situations we are in solidly profitable situation for the first time in...well forever! There is still a lot to be done to get this to a fully functional, independent business, but it is well on its way. And if the goal was just to set up this small group as successes, we'd be fine. But, our ambition is much greater, to use this model to help many, many more women. So we will be working on lots of projects to both solidify our current success, and to build the basis for expansion.

But on top of this, there is the development of the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking (RCEHT) Economic Development Initiative (EDI). We have our first pilot project ready to be initiated in the northern Ghana city of Tamale. In addition we have another potential partner in the city of Kumasi. So, I will be visiting both of those cities during this trip. 

AND, to make things even more interesting, daughter #2 who is a co-President of my Rotary Club and on my own non-profit's board as well, will be visiting with a whirlwind four-day visit. She will be checking out Theodora first-hand, meeting all the key people, and will be joining me in visiting Tamale and the members of the Rotary Club of Tamale for a formal signing ceremony of our Memorandum of Understanding on the project. 

So lots happening. It has taken a lot of effort to get things in place both for the trip and business at home. So I'm tired. But I actually look forward to my long international flights where I can unplug and just let my energies renew.

Transition 8.5.3.b238.Alpha Version 2024

While researching this post by going back over all the posts I've made labeled 'Transition', I was a bit overwhelmed by the number of times I've proclaimed (like Star Trek) the 'Final  Frontier' of transitioning had been reached. Actually the last year or so, I've gotten much better at understanding and accepting that I never really 'transitioned' from one state to another. What happened is I left a steady state as a working adult and entered a state of near constant transitioning, hence the recent exposition and acceptance of de-I and Wife's life as a telenovela. So with our telenovela imagery firmly in mind let's delve into the latest plot twist.

I exposed in my most recent post the 'Other Project', the work I've been doing with the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking. This project, the Economic Development Initiative (EDI), has energized our club like nothing I've seen since I joined the club. Here is the kicker. When I put together my initial ideas, I made a bold statement. I said, "For Economic Development in the areas we are targeting to truly work, we have to take a long, long term perspective. We must think in terms of generations." And I made an analogy of how long it took a tree sprout to become a mature giant. 

So with our club and its outside supporters buying into this, I began thinking, "How does one actually pull this off?" Well, one has to have an organization that has institutional memory, and a solid set of values that are lived and not talked about. You have to have all this institutionalized so it is not tied to any one individual. 

OOPSIE. This is where I realized that something was going to have to change significantly within my social impact efforts. To be blunt, up until now, I've had what might be called a lifestyle or vanity social impact enterprise. It was based on me without much thought as to what would happen after me. The evolution of Theodora Ghana Virtual Assistants and women in that program started to change that. But his new EDI program with its promises totally changed that. Now I was faced with the reality that for this program to fulfill its promise, there would need to be a managing entity that could survive without me.

In essence it means changing my 'lifestyle/vanity' non-profit into a genuine organization that can operate and promote the vision for many, many years to come. Not something I've ever done before. Sounds like yet another whole set of transitioning requirements.

Transition Bullet Train I am getting on board. 

Meanwhile At The Other Project

Other project you say?

What other project?

 

As I perused my blog posts over the last few years I noticed a rather interesting gap, a lack of posting related to another project I have been working on in parallel with Theodora Africa. This is the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking Economic Development Initiative or EDI for short.

 

The story behind EDI is a classic tale of ‘Be Careful What You Ask For. You Might Get It!  😱

 

Let’s start at the beginning.

 

Once upon a time there was a cynical man who wanted to use Rotary for his own half-baked scheme to give back. He successfully got a small local club to not stop him from running off to Africa in the name of the club pursuing a dream which any one of thousands upon thousands of prior social impact Westerners could have told him was grounded in all the wrong assumptions.

 

But as fate would have it, the powers that be had decided to use him instead! And thus the crazy ride that became Theodora Africa was launched. But it was clear that this project didn’t belong in the small club where he had started with. The Rotarian who first had me join Rotary told me of the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking. I joined and was quickly tagged to be on the board.

 

But, I was frustrated. I saw our founders had a great vision. They saw this club as a force motivating the power of Rotary International behind this one mission. However, there was no clear pathway to action. There was a lot of talk and focus on Awareness. Awareness is certainly important. But awareness by itself will not overcome a problem. There needs to be tangible action.

 

In my mind, based on my Theodora experience, I was convinced that lack of economic opportunity was one of the most significant root problems enabling human trafficking. I had a bunch of ideas how, we as a Rotary club could build a program. Partnering with one of the members I’d recruited who was an entrepreneur facilitation expert, I began doing research and wrote a White Paper to present to the board calling for us to develop our own economic development program.

 

We have very, very few people in our club who are business people. I was pretty darn sure that the board would smile politely and shelf the whole thing. I would have made my attempt and could go back to being a backbench member. It was to my shock and horror that our founding President LOVED IT! She said it was going to be our foundational effort.

 

Damn.

 

Fast forward one year. We held our kick-off meeting last Thursday. We had one of the largest turnouts of any meeting since I’ve been in the club. 37 people from four continents were there. We had 8 non-club members from Africa alone. We have our first pilot project MOU in Tamale Ghana to be signed in August (I will be there in person). We have another Ghana organization, the Kumasi Central Mosque, interested in partnering with us, an NGO in Lusaka Zambia, and another organization in Jos, Nigeria.

 

As I said in the beginning, be careful what you ask for.