August 25, 2025 • 48 mins
From starting a nonprofit at just 15 to leading a multimillion-dollar organization serving hundreds of children daily in Uganda, Sarah’s journey is one of vision, grit, and heart. In this episode, she shares the challenges of leadership, balancing personal sacrifices with professional passion, and the power of staying present through it all. We dive into the lessons learned over 18 years, the launch of a new campus, and how one boy named Shaki changed everything. Whether you’re dreaming of starting your own impact-driven venture or just need inspiration to believe it will all work out, this conversation is for you.
To get involved in Action in Africa: www.actioninafrica.com
Follow Action in Africa: @hollywould11
Follow Sarah: @sarahnininger
Follow Morgan: @webgirlmorgan
Follow Take This Personally: @takethispersonally
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Personally with Nan Duelsman.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
There are times I just want to do episodes with
awesome people without a series of mine, but knowing I
want to tell their stories. So last week I had
on Nate and Holly sharing.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Their amazing mother and son duo.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
This week, I have Sarah Nininger joining me to share
why she founded Action in Africa when she was just
in her teens. Anne continues to do the work over
a decade later. If you're someone who has ever wanted
to do nonprofit work or curious to how it all happens,
this is the episode that's gonna get you. She reached
out after listening to the podcast, and I'm so glad
she did, so let's get into it.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Joining me this week is Sarah Nininger.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
She is the found or an executive director of Action
in Africa.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Sarah, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm awesome. Thank you so much for having me today.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, it was so cool you reach out to me
on an email and I was like, wow, I love
what she's doing.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
This is so new to me.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I was learning about it through your email and the
stuff that you had sent over and you guys this
Instagram page. But I'm so curious you've started this when
you were a sophomore in high school.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Tell me how why? What does that look like when
it happens?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, I will preface this by saying this was never
a part of the plan. So it's been a really
wonderful organic journey over the last eighteen years. But Action
in Africa started simply as just a school project with
a group of other students. My high school history teacher
had showed us a film about kids in Africa, and
(01:52):
fastward eighteen years.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Here we are, but out of all of the students
and you guys start this. So you start this in
high schoo school, but you're sixteen seventeen years old at
the time, and you're like, yeah, I should do something
with this, or does it pause? You start this in
high school, it pauses, and then you get to your
adult life and kind of visit it again. What is
(02:13):
the transition that happens there?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, it has been a part of my life since
I was fifteen. So we started as a group of
kids just raising money for already existing organizations doing really
interesting different things throughout the continent, and one happened to
be based in Uganda, so we had helped them build
I think then it was a widow shelter or a
library or something. And my senior year, they invited us
(02:41):
to Uganda to see the project we had helped fund.
So that would have been two thousand and eight and
we are still working in that very community today. The
more time we spent there and the more work that
we were doing, the more clear we got about our
mission and our purpose. And we've sent transitions from funding
and soup other organizations to building our own model of
(03:03):
what we think is really impactful, important, meaningful work in
a country like Uganda. But it's been many years of
refining our model and who we are and what we do.
We're really proud that we're celebrating our ten year anniversary
of our current community center right now. So that's been
an exciting year in celebration for us, and it's really
setting the stage for what's to come. But it very
(03:24):
much was a school project and raising money for other
organizations and learned so much through that process to build
what we have today.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And you say, this wasn't the plan, This was not
a part of your what you envisioned your life looking like.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
So what made that change? What about all of this
in that video that you had in that class that
changed the course of your forever.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, I'll personally share I was a student athlete, but
I was also a trouble maker and having the time
of my life in high school. My parents were also
going through a divorce and my older brother has special needs,
and I think at that pivotal moment in my life,
I was looking for some purpose, and I was looking
for something to really sink my teeth into and feel
(04:10):
like I could have control over when the rest of
the world and when you're a fifteen year old girl
feels very chaotic, this felt like something I kind of
wrapped my hands around. And then that trip to Wanda was,
as you can imagine, really life changing. When you can
see and feel the impact that you're making and build
it based off of community and building relationships. That really
(04:30):
was when the rest became history, when we met the
kids and the families and the schools and fell in
love with the work that we were doing. So being
a teenager that was a little angsty, this gave me
a tremendous amount of purpose and helped me recalibrate my life,
which was pretty important at that point in time.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I love to hear that it's always cool to see
that somebody's passion started from a place of personal That's
often the case, whether it be intentional or not. And
it's cool that you an outlet for things that were
going on in your life that allowed you to do
something to help others. You could have gotten a lot
of different routes. I've been reminded of that by therapists
(05:09):
when I talk about things. They say, you could have
chose something different. And I don't know if you've ever
heard that based on what you just told me that
little excerpt about your life, you could have chose vastly
different directions in different paths.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
What do you feel like kept you.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
On this path to continue helping and then not just
taking it from the school project in this school community
that you created, but then to a full blown position
where you now have thirty plus employees. That is a
drastic change and a huge shift in what your responsibilities
(05:46):
and role looked like from this starting.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Yeah. I will preface this by saying I you might
feel the same way too, But I feel like I
have the best job in the world, and I work
with the most thoughtful, hardworking individuals and we all really
enjoy each other and we laugh a lot, and that's
just like the icing on the cake is that we
get to actually make a difference every single day and
(06:11):
that we're having a little bit of fun while doing it.
It's the dream I could have never orchestrated this life myself.
And a phrase that I love to share with people
is when people are like, what's your plan, or when
I was finishing college and deciding about going to grad
school or moving to Ganda, I always just said, my
only plans are to be surprised. And I think that
(06:32):
is the theme of my life. It's been nothing but
one big surprise. But it doesn't mean that it's not
a lot of work and that the days are long
and hard, and the circumstances with which we work in
are oftentimes very devastating and heartbreaking. But I think what
keeps me going and doing the work that I do
for now eighteen years, which is crazy, is the individual
(06:55):
impact in the day to day stories that we see
of lives being changed, from kids who have your special
needs who are now walking in school every single day,
to moms that are able to put food on the
table and educate their own children, to our first group
of kids that I met on that trip in two
thousand and eight who are in primary school are now
graduates of our university scholarship program, and three of them
(07:16):
are working for us full time. And this is like
the good stuff. Now, we're really seeing the fruits of
our labor come to fruition, and that's really what keeps
this thing going.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You mentioned the heartbreaking and the devastating parts of this.
So much of nonprofit work, you are seeing things that
a lot of people like to turn away from because
it's uncomfortable, it's hard, it's sad. What are some things
that maybe you've learned in this process of why you
(07:48):
can continue putting yourself through this? And I asked this
from a place of someone who constantly, on a completely
different nonprofit side is working with animals, and it's always.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
How can you do that?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I could never give them away, I could never foster.
That's a constant theme in general with nonprofits.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
How do you do it?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
And how do you deal with the sadness and the
experiences that you're going through while you're witnessing, honestly, some
of the harder parts of humanity. Maybe you can speak
to that on just different levels. I don't know. Where
it takes you. But I would just love your perspective
on that.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
We I love that you asked that I'll share on
a personal level something that I've been doing recently as
I have a folder on the desktop of my monitor
that I call caffeine, and I have screenshots and pictures,
and when we got our first million dollar donation, I
took a picture of it and put it in there.
When we redid our board of directors, there's a screenshot
of that in there. Or the first university student that
(08:42):
we hired from our scholarship program sent me an email
when he signed his contract and reminders of the good
stuff as just like a daily dosage of caffeine to
fight the good fight. I would like turn out of
time recommend for everyone. I look at it regularly. But yeah,
I think it goes back to the endivid stories again.
And also, listen, I'm biased in the work that we do,
(09:04):
but I think we're remarkably good at what we do.
We spend a really long time refining our model and
then you see the impact of it. So our entire
team in UGLANDA for example, is Ugandan and led by
the community, and they're the representation of the work, and
they're the ones that bring the proposed ideas of programs
and projects and services and then they deliver on them.
So when I go to Uganda, which is a couple
(09:26):
of times a year, I get to witness the great
work that's being happened, that's happening on a day to
day basis, despite sometimes the challenges, and I think you
can probably imagine some of the challenges when it comes
to a country like Uganda where there's an immense amount
of poverty and suffering, and for better for worse, people
experience temptation and make poor choices that can be so
(09:48):
devastating on a personal level also an organizational level, and
you just have to continue to meet people where they're
at and stay the course and fight the good fight.
But there's been a number of moments where we probably
should have just thrown in the towel, and we would
have had every reason to do, and I'm so glad
that we didn't. But yeah, there were some pretty painful
(10:10):
chapters in our organization. But I will say, and I
think in everyone's organization, by the way, but coming out
the other side of it, we're so much better for
those challenges and have learned how to pivot and how
to be thinking outside the box and really just committed
to the mission. But yeah, there's probably a number of
(10:30):
circumstances where we should not be here and doing the
work that we're doing now. But I'm so glad we are.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
And there's a reason you are. There's a reason that
it happened the way that it was supposed to. And
I'm a firm believer in that everything pans out in
the way that it's supposed to happen, for better or
for worse. And I love that you have a caffeine fuller.
I think that's a cool serotonin boost when you need
it pick me up.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, yes, absolutely, And I love that you mentioned this
side of things.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
There were moments where you should have potentially thrown in
the towel and you didn't. Is there misconceptions or things
over the course of time that you've learned.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
That you've experienced.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Maybe it's about the things that are happening in Africa,
maybe it's about nonprofits.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
But is there just.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Things that you learned along the way where you wish
people could also learn the things that you've learned.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Oh my gosh, Morgan, how much time do you have today.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
You can walk me down any path you want to
go here.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Oh my gosh, how to even approach that question. I
would like to think that for us at Action ACA,
we like to do things differently and rather unconventionally, and
sometimes that's unfamiliar and uncomfortable for people. So I've got
a couple hills that I would like to die on
as far as how I believe my belief systems around
(11:55):
nonprofit work and international development. There's a lot of layers
to being a white woman from Assmen, Colorado working in
a country like East Africa and making sure that we
have representation of our work. And we talk a lot
about what my role is in this organization, what it's not,
and how do we make sure it's community led, And
there's a lot of pressure around those narratives and conversations,
(12:17):
and I find that sometimes I get very insecure about
that or in my head about it, and then I'm
humbled and reminded that, like, I'm here to do the
good work and we have impact to prove it and
show it. So just not getting caught up in the
noise of things. And I think with nonprofits it's so
easy to do that there's a lot of conversations around
(12:38):
overhead and what you pay your employees and what your
work looks like, and there's just a lot of noise.
And so we try really hard as an organization to
stick to what we believe in and do things unconventionally
and a little bit differently. I am reminded by my
team often to what extent and at what expense or
we having these hills that we die on? And how
(12:58):
can it be an opportunity for conversation and a learning
opportunity for people, but not at the expense of donations
and the great work that we're doing. But I would
say in this season of my leadership, in this exciting chapter,
I'm learning a lot about just how to speak my
truth and how I feel about things and not wavering
in that. And so going on podcasts and talking about
(13:20):
our work is being a little bit vulnerable in who
I am as the leader of this organization.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Okay, of course I'm now curious, and you took me
a few different paths and we will go down the mall.
But what are these hills that you will die on?
Because I think it's a beautiful thing when people have
their convictions, because when you have seen an experienced and
been in a field long enough, you have the right
to die on a hill. There's good in having the
(13:52):
passion of certain things. So I see dying on a
hill as.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
A good thing.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
And that's why I would love to know more about
the one that are very close to your heart and
what you are very passionate about in this work.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Ooh, vie, I love sticky stuff. Although my team is
probably gonna listen to this and make you're never going
on a podcast again.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Hey, but this is how we change the narrative, right,
This is how we do things differently and how we
rewrite stories, and how we do better is sometimes talking
about the hard stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, absolutely, And I will say I do think in
the nonprofit industry and the work that I do in particular,
there are great meaningful conversations and shifts and narratives and
we love to see that. But to answer your question,
I'd say one of the most controversial things is the
overhead and salaries of employees. And I can tell you
two very specific examples. One of our major donors years ago,
(14:47):
I didn't take a salary for probably the first gosh.
I want to say, like thirteen years of this. I
had expected its cover and went on and made this possible.
But I had a donor say that they were going
to stop giving to us until we paid our employees
a livable wage because they view their gifts to us
as an investment and if there's no return on this
or guarantee that we're going to be around for years
(15:08):
to come, they're just wasting their money. And that was
pretty eye opening and revolutionary for us as an organization
and caused us to really think through our budget and
our fundraising strategy and making sure that people can be
compensated here. And I will say that really shifted how
we then do our work in Uganda. And being able
to hire employees here in the United States to help
(15:30):
with fundraising and creating some sort of financial stability for
our work. It's allowed us to grow our programs and
you want a tenfold so you see a direct correlation
by an increase in our overhead, by the great work
and the longevity of our work and meaningful work in
a place like Uganda. Being able to fairly compensate employees
is definitely one of those hills that I want to
(15:51):
die on. And I will say all of this with
a caveat of within reason, we still have an obligation
to make sure that we are good stewards of donors.
But that does not mean that we should not have
the best of the best employees and being able to
pay them a livable wage so that they can live
a wonderful life, just like all of our friends who
work in tech or entertainment or for profit spaces.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
No, it's so important, and I do having worked with
several nonprofits in my life. It finances is such a
tricky subject because nonprofits do they get donor dollars, and
that's the purpose, but there is such a huge conversation
around it, so much so that oftentimes I've said it myself,
(16:35):
where I can't work nonprofit. I can't have a living
in nonprofit. Do I want to do it? Absolutely, I
can't make a livable wage in there, because most of
them don't because they feel an obligation to support the
causes that they're going after. But I think there's such
a huge loss in that because to your point, these
(16:55):
programs that are already doing really good things could do
even better things if they have people who don't feel
so exhausted so financially strained that they could spend their
time and effort into really investing into something.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
So I think that's a great hill to die on.
I agree with you.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
And that's coming from someone who's had not even in
the side of nonprofit that you guys are in, but
just in working with several different ones over the years.
That's a common conversation. It's common controversial, and it's also
really hard to watch when you see really good hearted
people doing incredible things, not able to care for themselves,
(17:38):
not just emotionally and mentally because of what they're doing,
but financially, And that is so so common.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, And I think the statistic is and I actually
have it screenshotted in my caffeine and folder as a reminder.
I think it's something along the lines of ninety three
percent of organizations don't make it to the ten year
mark or or less than a million dollars. And to me,
that's a direct correlation and indicator of being able to
hire employees and sustain the work that you do. And
by the way, this is a comparable conversation you Ganta too.
(18:07):
I'm not just talking about us, but in really committing
to our employees globally, we take great care and hire
the best of the best in Uganda as well. And
you I'm biased in all this, so take out the
grave salt. But that's why you see us at a
two million dollar level organization around for eighteen years, and
that's because we're investing in our people to do the
good work and fight the good fight at a meaningful
(18:29):
and long term level.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Absolutely, Hey, I like all your hills, but this is
the one that we fu's not in that moment. You
also mentioned how it's been a white woman from the
States and you're working in Africa with primarily a lot
of the black community.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
So what has that experience been.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Like a learning experience. I'm viscerally aware of where I'm from,
what my look like, and I try to be cognizant
of that and the work that I do, but also
stick to my truth and that it's allowed me to
do the work that I do and be of service
to another community. It's funny. I have so much to
(19:12):
learn and grow in this space and the first to
admit that. But I will also say I, from my experience,
have observed this as a very strong Western conversation, and
that does not mean that these themes are not deeply
rooted in colonialistic roots. I acknowledge that, but these are
not conversations that our team in Uganda are having, for example,
and that to me is very eye opening and interesting
(19:33):
and by the way, would carry a whole other weight
if our leadership, staff and Ugonda were like, hey, you're
the white girl, what are you doing here? And there's
none of that. I think they're tremendously grateful for my
leadership and the resources I bring, irrelevant of where I'm
from and what that looks like. So I think that's
another perfect example of where I have an obligation and
a duty to be educated about this and I'm responsible
(19:56):
to this narrative, but also I'm not to be distracted
by it and let it deter me from just day
to day doing some really good work.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, that's a really important lesson and one that you
wouldn't have gotten had you done a nonprofit that's just here.
It's a different experience, I also imagine because Africa, a
lot of those countries within it are considered third world,
so you're experiencing also just a different overall experience in
(20:26):
another country, different economic standards.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
You have a different level of culture.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
You just there's so many bases of which you are different,
And I think those are some beautiful lessons that not
a lot of people get to learn.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
And I think I've had great grace and like time
to learn some of these lessons and acknowledge like the
ongoing learning in this right. I started going to Ulanda
when I was a teenager, and I go multiple times
a year. I lived there full time for a little
over three years. Like I'm like really putting in the
work and really a part of the work that we
(21:03):
do here. But I've had the opportunity to slowly learn
those lessons. Which is that helpful?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
What was that experience like when you lived over there
and you're seeing all of this and you're trying to
figure out, Okay, how do we do this and how
do we do it in the best way possible? What
was that part like of this story?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So I at that point, gosh, okay, So I was
in college. I went so I was running action Afrin
high school and college, going back and forth during holidays,
and when I graduated university, there was a moment of
are we really doing this? And what does this look like?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Like?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
It feels like we're halfway in and halfway out and
decided to move to Ganda and like really figure this
out and assess, Okay, we're going to fully commit or
we did a good thing and now this isn't working.
And I'll tell you I my family has never had
never really been out of the US, So this like
Africa thing my whole life since ide the kid was
(21:59):
like what is Thearah doing? Like what is happening here?
And so I would be going back and forth. And
I graduated college and I got into grad school at
USC to get my master's in social work, and my
whole family was like, yes, she'll be stateside, she'll be
home based, like we're recalibrating her life. I got in,
I went to like orientation, dropped out, moved to Blonda.
(22:20):
So it was a fun little plot twist for the family.
But I was like, I'll go to Blonda and like
really give us a noble attempt and see if this
is going to be the thing. I'll go for six
months naive me. Like that's a bit of this like
white girl thing, Like I keep thinking that I know
how to fix things or that I've got a solution here,
and thought I'd go for six months, hire our staff,
(22:41):
make a plan, and then come home. And three years
later I was like, I'm still here. I need to
make a plan. But I will say to answer your question,
those three years were some of the most magical years
of my life. I think that rate there is even
something that makes us a little bit different that as
the founder and executive director, I went there and I
(23:01):
fully bought in. And I lived in our community center,
which was really fun, very chaotic, soccer balls breaking glass
into my bedroom window and always hearing the kids start
their pe classes at six o'clock in the morning in
the front yard. But it was filled with so much
joy and creativity and building and hiring. It was just
(23:22):
a blast. But I think like really helped shape perspective
and how we do things and what things look like
here to action in Africa. I think it also carried
so much weight for our team in Uganda, like really
showed that I was bought in and that we were
in this together and like boots on the ground, not
just like I'm on the US side, they're on the
Uganda side. But the collaboration was so fun.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Oh yeah, And that's just so hands on and so
important of a role when it does come to nonprofit
that can make the difference between someone who's just a
donor and somebody who's actually a volunteer that's where the
work is. So it's cool that you had that experience
and of hearing that, I do want to hear a
little bit more about your parents and how you mentioned
(24:05):
that they were like what.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Is she doing? What is happening?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Because I think it's incredible that you chose and most
capacities of the sense that it's a more non traditional
way of living and being done.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
With college and being like, yeah, no, I'm going to
go here.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So what were your parents like in that experience for
you and was that just hard for you as you
were doing something that.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
You were paving a new path.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
So I will preface this by saying I have an
older brother who has special needs. He was born with
cerebral palsy, is very independent and very high functioning, but
definitely has his own challenges. And I spent most of
my childhood growing up going to physical therapy and speech
therapy and all these different programs with and focused on him.
(24:57):
And that really that experience, it's opened my eyes to
the other populations that are otherwise sometimes disenfranchised and have
a different way of living and need different avenues of support.
And I think that really set the foundation for my
heart to do the work that I'm doing now. We've
got a couple beloved kids in our special needs program
(25:19):
that are outside of our wheelhouse of work, but I'm like,
I love them, and that I really attribute to my
brother and growing up in that kind of household. But
I think in having an older brother with special needs,
it really forced me at a younger age to become
independent and marked to my own drum and live my
life in the different way. Well, I think my parents
are like, wow, Africa's really far, what are you doing.
(25:41):
I also don't think they were entirely unsurprised by it.
I do think that for a number of years everyone
was waiting for me to outgrow this phase, and perhaps
there's still a bit of them waiting for that. And
I'm like, all right, maybe at the twenty year mark,
you'll believe me that this is the thing. But I
think like, regardless of how unfamiliar it felt to them,
I do know that they've just been so proud of
(26:03):
this journey and have watched it grow from the ground
up and my dad has been to Gonda now twice
with us, and my brother actually came. In January. We
did a big donor trip celebrating the ground the ten
year anniversary of our current community center, breaking ground on
a brand new campus that I'll tell you about later.
But having my dad and brother there and seeing it
(26:26):
and feeling it was just beyond special. And even the
flip side of that, our staff and our kids have
heard me talk about my brother for fifteen years and
for them to meet him and receive him and love
on him was just like it gives me chills and
again like I have the best job in the world,
but for my dad. We had kids back when I
(26:46):
was in high school that didn't understand the time difference,
so they'd call at three o'clock in the morning be like,
where's Aunt Sarah, Where's Aunt Sarah? And my dadd she's
sleepings for him to then connect the faces to those
kids in Uganda, they're teenagers now well I think many
years later they're really starting to get it and understand it.
But now they too have experienced it.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Oh. I love that so much that your whole family
has gotten to now see and witness the things that
you created and have building all this time, to especially
your brother getting to go over there and witness that.
I can only imagine that experience. You probably just wanted
to bottle it up and be like, I'm going to
keep this feeling forever in this moment and I'm just
(27:28):
going to keep replaying it. That would be like eighty
caffeine folders.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I would think, yeah, yeah, I don't even know how
it'll contain that into my folder. But you're exactly right.
There are no words to describe that.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Oh, that's so special, and I think it's so beautiful
to look at your life, and it is when somebody
often takes a different path, there's always questions, there's always doubt,
there's uncertainty and a lot of insecurity.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
That gets part of that whole experience.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
So, now that we've heard from the outsider perspective for you,
what were those emotions and experiences like as you're going
through this, as this whole thing is getting built in
those moments you mentioned where we probably should have thrown
in the tab but we didn't, what were your emotions, like,
what were the things that you were going through that
were really difficult and how did you handle them.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Ooh. I think I would say in this chapter of
life that I've been now has probably been where I've
felt the most feelings because I'm in that season of
life where all my friends are married, They're all having babies.
I have a number of friends that have started cool
tech startup companies and some have failed, some have flourished.
(28:45):
And while I'm so proud of the work that we're
doing in Action Afria, there is a bit of it's
the same all Like I go back home for Christmas
and everyone's oh, back from Africa, and I'm like, no,
I live in Denver, but yes, I am still doing
the Africa thing. So there is a bit insecurity of
do people perceive this as it's the same thing that
I did when I was fifteen years old? And my
(29:06):
team does a great job of helping talk me off
that ledge a little bit, in reminding and educating people
that this is more or less a much bigger deal
than it was when I was fifteen years old, and
that there's a lot to be proud of. And if
people still look at it as the cute high school
club that Sarah started when she was fifteen, that's on them,
and that's their loss, but that what we're doing is
(29:28):
remarkable and is something I need to lean into. But
I'd be lying if I didn't say that there are
things that are easy to compare to being in this
season of life that I have missed out on because
I've made a choice to commit to my life up
until this point in time to the work that we're
doing in Uganda. And I would imagine people probably look
(29:48):
at my life too when compare it in certain ways
and think parts of it are cool or they wish
they were a part of it. I think that's just
human nature. So those are moments, and I've had to
miss a lot of things. I'm missing a friend's wedding
because I'm in You've gone to next month and baby showers,
and I feel like I'm having to make a lot
of sacrifices to do the work that we do. But
I have a good job.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I think that's a very real answer, and I think
I'm lucky that you shared that with me, because there
are we really love to make everything look like younicorns
and rainbows.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
And it is.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
There's this whole part of it that's so beautiful and
so significant and important. But to diminish the fact that
you're still human and you still experience real life emotions
just because you have a really awesome, cool job, and
might I say really awesome that it started for you
at fifteen, because not a lot of people can say
that they've had any version of that kind of consistency
(30:45):
in their life.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
I think that's a beautiful thing. So it's special.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
And important that you were willing to share that because
I do think it gets lost in translation a lot.
And to sit here and be like, well, she has
this mass of companies, she gets to go to Africa
all the time, and she loves what she's doing doesn't
mean that there aren't parts that you also wish you
could have, because also human nature is to one everything
(31:12):
and to have accomplished everything that you thought you should
accomplish by this point in your life.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah. Yeah, I think I have an obligation to lead
from a place of showing that I'm human and that
creates space and allow of space for our team on
the USID and our team in Uganda to do the same.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yes, so I totally get it.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I also totally relate that's also part of this phase
of our life. You get to a point where everybody
gets married or they're doing they're like, wait, okay, I feel.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Like I'm getting left behind.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
But then you're also super successful in something else and
you're like, does that mean they get left behind there?
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Like what's the trade off here?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And you have a lot of those real human moments
where you just kind of look at your life you're like, Okay,
I guess this was part of the plan.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, and I'm sure you can relate to this, But
I think at this stage of life just goes so
fast too. Like we have a lot of conversations around
succession planning and how do we set the organization up
for success outside of me, and we keep talking about it,
but I'm like, oh my gosh, we're still here, and
I'm to blame for that, right because I'm energized and
excited about our work and what we're doing and what
(32:24):
more we could do that I'm like, oh my gosh,
I'm going to be eighty five years old here.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I appreciate you really sharing the personal side, because I
know it's hard. You come on here and you're talking
about the professional side of your life, and but personal
play such a significant role, especially on the nonprofit side.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
So thank you for sharing all of that.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Is there anything else in that capacity in the personal space,
where again, you were fifteen when this all started and
now you're in your thirties that you learned along the
way that you wish you could pass on to younger you.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
I could just remind myself. We have a saying, and
this is I'm embarrassed I'm even sharing this with you,
but as a family, but now also as a team,
that everything works out for Sarah and I have multiple
feelings about that statement, but I will say it's a
good reminder that things do work out. And I am
(33:20):
a firm believer that what you put out into the
universe you also attract back to you. A word that
I'm really leaning into this year is being magnetic and
trying to create that type of magnetic energy. So I
think as a teenager and even honestly in the formative
early years of Action Africa, I just was so worried
(33:41):
all the time. And that does not mean I'm not
worried now or anxious about what the future holds or
navigating this personal versus professional chapter of my life. But
it all works out, and I'm just such a firm
believer in that, and I think I can look back
on what we've accomplished and what I've accomplished personally within
the organization or outside it. That is a testament to that.
(34:01):
So I would remind myself to just relax and not
be ocd about things and so manic and stressed and
just trust that, like it's all going to work out.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
So is that also a lesson that adult you is
trying to learn, especially on the personal side of things
as well.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I love that you're throwing that back at me, because yes,
I need to remind myself of that, and I do
need to remember that because and I also I love
this but also slightly terrifies me. I find that in
chapters of my life, I always reflect back on wanting
to be into in previous chapters, and in doing that,
you're missing out and being in the present. So trying
(34:39):
to recognize that. I'm sure at some point I will
figure out my personal life. But once I do that,
I do know that I will look back on this
chapter that I'm in now being like those were the
glory days. I wish I wasn't fixated on what's to come.
So I think like a lesson in all this too,
is also just being really present. I try to ground
myself in gratitude on a regular and consistent, multiple times
(35:02):
a day practice because I think that also like really
just sets the stage for how you show up and
how things come into your life. But yeah, that's definitely
something I should pay more attention to because it will
all work out.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
I do believe that it's hard.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
One of the hardest lessons I think that I still
am trying to learn every single day is being present
for every single day versus living in the past or
thinking to the future. Present living is not an easy accomplishment.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
It's one that's difficult.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
For nearly every human on this planet. So I don't
think you're alone in that, And I know, just sitting
here with me, you're not alone because I do the
same thing. I can look back at so many Hindsight
is always twenty twenty. That's my favorite thing to remind
myself of, especially when I'm in a moment where I'm contemplating,
or i feel out of control, or I don't think
I know what's going to happen next, and like, remember,
(35:56):
every time you get past a moment, you're always like
hindsight was twenty twenty, So try and have your hindsight now.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Yep, So that's really special.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Speaking of to personally, what is it being a leadership
role now, being in charge of thirty plus employees, you're
the founder of this company, like you're an incredibly successful woman.
What is that experience like for you? Because I know,
in a lot of the work that I've done, being
(36:27):
a woman in these positions of success is not always
the easiest thing.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah, I have two answers for that because I think
often about so A big part of my job now
is our fundraising and making sure we have the resources
to do the work we do. And I think regularly
about if I was a male, if my approach and
aggressiveness for better or for worse around fundraising would look
differently and I'd be more successful. I think about that
a lot because I think men show up a little
(36:57):
bit more assertive and a little bit more confident, a
little bit more bold with they're ass and by the way,
maybe that's not the best approach, but I do think
about that regularly if I was a man, how I
would show up in the fundraising space. But I think
as a leader for our team, both on the US
and on the Yuganda side. I love being a female
founder and a female leader, and I think I lean
(37:19):
into being full of patients and grace but also joy
And I've had to learn a lot about professionalizing my leadership,
especially a number of our staff that I've known for
twelve years, ten years when I was a kid, and
my leadership then versus my leadership now as we professionalize
as an organization has had to change a little bit.
(37:40):
And how do I still keep that joyful, youthful Sarah
self that showed up many years ago, but also, oh gosh,
We're a multimillion dollar organization and I probably should carry
myself in a different way sometimes perfect example, like we
used to do midday office dance parties or push up
contests in the front office, like now we can't do
(38:00):
that because we have politicians like show up or like
parents who need to be taking our work seriously. So
things like that where I've just had to learn and
grow a little bit, but also navigating what my non
negotiables are as as far as leadership and making sure
I can still be joyful and make sure that people
at work are doing a great job, but also enjoying
(38:21):
the work that they're doing and having fun while at it.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I've always imagined being in a leadership role and being
able to do things that you wish other people were doing.
Like you look at other companies in leadership and you go,
I don't feel like that's the right way of doing it.
Have you gotten to have this cool experience where you
get to implement a lot of things in the leadership
role to make this company be something that you're proud of.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Ooh love that, Yes, But I would say that's not
isolated to me. I think it's been such a gift
to grow this organization alongside the team that I have,
and it'd be a real collaborative, not so hierarchical though
I'm the founder or executive director, but that we're all
in this leadership responsibility together. So that has been such
(39:14):
a gift and so fun. Something I've been thinking about
a lot lately, as everyone has a perspective on how
you should be doing things, and like the self help
space and the leadership space and the coaching space is
just so noisy right now, and I find myself falling
trapped to that. Like you come across a TikTok video
that's here's the best way to lead a board meeting,
(39:35):
or then here's the best way to show up and
be a good boss, And you're like trying to aggressively
take all these notes and apply it, and it's just
too much. And I think even going back to like
earlier parts of this conversation of just trusting how you
show up and how you lead, and like that sometimes
being enough and not feeling so overwhelmed by the noise
and constant improvement and adaptation to the world that we
(39:56):
live in, because it can be to digest. But yeah,
I would say, like, it's been fun to build this
and build my leadership style alongside the rest of our
leadership team.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
There's so much noise in social media and so many capacities,
so I don'tally get it. You definitely have to just
find your approach that works for you and what you
feel is best.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
And we're all human and learning along the way.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
So it's cool that you've gotten to experience and kind
of form your own leadership style over the course of
the entire organization.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
It's also a very unique experience.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
You are on social media a lot, and people do
things You're like, dang, I really have not had a
unique life in any capacity.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
But the noise would tell you otherwise. Though this is true,
that you're getting it all wrong.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
This is so action in Africa. Where does it stand
right now? As an organization? How can people help or
help you guys continue the work that you're doing.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
What does that look like?
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, So, as I loosely tea, we celebrated our ten
year anniversary and you've gone in January, so celebrating our
current community center and ten years of impact. We feel
like we've spent most of those last ten years really
refining our model and our work and paving a way
forward to scale our impact and make sure that other
communities can have access to the programs and services that
(41:20):
we offer. So we recently purchased eight and a half
acres of land. We're building an additional campus over the
next three ish years. To put it in perspective for you,
our current campus serves about five hundred kids a day,
similar to HAWAIMCA or a boys and girls club, a
community center model, so after school programs, music, dance, drama, arts,
(41:41):
access to food, medical nutrition, public libraries, play, et cetera.
And that's on half an acre. And so by buying
eight and a half acres. It just helps you put
in perspective the scale that's about to come. And the
way this model will work is our new campus will
be our headquarters, and then our current campus we will
(42:03):
keep and it's more or less our satellite campus. So
creating this blueprint that is replicable and able to scale
and impact multiple communities for years to come is our
north star and where we're headed. So we're about to
launch a massive capital campaign, so wish me luck as
a female fundraiser, but really looking forward to that and
(42:24):
being able to take this model and grow it has
been a big vision for us. We definitely have a
philosophy of this inch wide but a mile deep, and
we've spent years refining the work that we do and
now we feel confident and in a place to do
that responsibly and ethically. So it's a very exciting chapter
for us. I will tell you we really struggled with
(42:45):
the notion of scaling and it took us ten years
to build our team and our model, and I think
any good development work takes that level of time and patience,
And unfortunately it's not super sexy because people want to
know how many schools can you build and how many
kids can you feed overnight and they don't want to
see the long haul. But so for us, we were
really worried about So we build this campus, but who's
(43:07):
going to run this? And now that our kids are
graduating from university? From my humble founder's perspective, who better
to higher than the accountants and the social workers and
the teachers and the doctors and the lawyers that we've
educated and have worked with and have built a loyalty
too and with for the last fifteen years. So it's
a really exciting season. I'm like giddy about it and
(43:29):
I just want to build it. So stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I'm so excited for you guys, because that does sound
like a very exciting chapter and an all new one, right,
this is an entirely new experience, even in the course
of something that's for you been a part of your
life for so long. But this is all new and
new comes with a lot of fun things. So that
sounds so exciting and you guys can check all that
out just search up Action in Africa. But what I
(43:54):
do like to end these episodes on is it can
be a piece of advice.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
It can be motivation, inspiration.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Or touching on something that maybe we didn't.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Even get to.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I give the floor over to you, and you end
us on something of your choosing.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Ooh, I'd love to end just with a story, if
that's okay, I would love that. I think it just
speaks to the work that we do and how we
do it. So when we moved into our community center
ten years ago, there was a beloved kid named Shaki,
who I think at the time was about three years old,
who lived across the street and has very severe cerebral palsy.
(44:33):
And as I shared, my brother has cerebral palsy but
is very mobile at this point. Through extensive therapy and
support and in meeting Shocky, we built our special needs
program and started to work with him and his family
on an individual basis, and there was no hope for
him to be independent and walking, and now ten years later,
(44:55):
he is. And it gives me chills because it's a
humble reminder of the investment that you can make in
one human's life and how much of a difference you
can make. And my dad always says, like my dad
came and has heard me talk about Shocky for years
and saw Shocky walk down the hallway and my dad,
who's a large construction worker, wept and was like, if
(45:18):
you did nothing ever again in your life and this
is all that you did, it would all be worth it.
And I think about that all the time, from like
my brother's perspective and my family's perspective, also for SHOCKI
and his family, and then also the Action Africa's staff
who have worked so diligently to set this one kid
up for success, to be independent and be healthy and
to be successful. And we're about to do a video
(45:39):
series on him, so keep an eye out for that.
But now he's in school full time and it wants
to be a doctor in the future, and it's just
so beyond inspiring. And that's one of thousands of stories
that we have from the eighteen years that we've been around,
and who knows what the next eighteen years will have
in store, and I'm planning on being surprised about it.
(46:00):
But i will tell you, Yeah, if the only thing
that ever happened was that Shocky ended up walking, I'll
chalk it up as a big old win.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Oh that's such a special story and I don't think
you could have chosen anything else better to end on.
So we're not even gonna try, but Sarah, thank you
for being here. Shout out where people can find you
guys that way, if they do want to see the
series and just see what you guys are up to,
they can, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
We are. The name of our organization is Action in
Africa and our websites Action in Africa dot com. You
can also find us on TikTok and Instagram and all
the fun social platforms. Sign up for our newsletter. We
often share ways that people can engage and participate. We
do anything from trips to Uganda so you can come
and experience our work firsthand, to contributing to our special
(46:46):
education fund supporting kids like Shaki, or becoming a monthly donor,
or coming to events that we do in Colorado, New York, LA.
So that's where you can find us and what we're
up to and how you can engage.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Thank you so much, sir for being here and for
sharing your story.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Thank you for having me, Morgan, It's fun to talk about.
I'm so grateful for you to give us the space
to share the work that we do, and I will
separately share with you. I appreciate you asking about me
as a human in this because sometimes it's all just
about Action Africa and the work that we do, and
it should be and that's important stuff, but just female,
the female. I appreciate thank for you on who I
(47:21):
am as a person. You're relevant of this work.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Oh yeah, that's the whole part of the story.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
The volunteering and the nonprofit is special stuff. But people
humans that has to start somewhere and that's always with them.
So I'm glad, but thank you again. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Thanks Morgan, and come join us in Yuganda one of
these days.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
I'm still sitting here impressed by Sarah's tenacity at such
a young age and the impact she's continuing to make
on the world. You can check out Action in Africa
dot com if you want to learn more or get involved.
Next week, I have Struggle Jinning's joining me. For all
the rap and country music fans out there, you will
love this interview. I love doing it. I mean I
love to all of them. That's kind of why I
do this podcast. So subscribe now so you don't miss it,
(48:04):
and check out the instagram at take this personally.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Thanks for being here. I love you.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Bye.
Personally with Nan Duelsman.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
There are times I just want to do episodes with
awesome people without a series of mine, but knowing I
want to tell their stories. So last week I had
on Nate and Holly sharing.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Their amazing mother and son duo.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
This week, I have Sarah Nininger joining me to share
why she founded Action in Africa when she was just
in her teens. Anne continues to do the work over
a decade later. If you're someone who has ever wanted
to do nonprofit work or curious to how it all happens,
this is the episode that's gonna get you. She reached
out after listening to the podcast, and I'm so glad
she did, so let's get into it.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Joining me this week is Sarah Nininger.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
She is the found or an executive director of Action
in Africa.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Sarah, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm awesome. Thank you so much for having me today.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, it was so cool you reach out to me
on an email and I was like, wow, I love
what she's doing.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
This is so new to me.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I was learning about it through your email and the
stuff that you had sent over and you guys this
Instagram page. But I'm so curious you've started this when
you were a sophomore in high school.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Tell me how why? What does that look like when
it happens?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, I will preface this by saying this was never
a part of the plan. So it's been a really
wonderful organic journey over the last eighteen years. But Action
in Africa started simply as just a school project with
a group of other students. My high school history teacher
had showed us a film about kids in Africa, and
(01:52):
fastward eighteen years.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Here we are, but out of all of the students
and you guys start this. So you start this in
high schoo school, but you're sixteen seventeen years old at
the time, and you're like, yeah, I should do something
with this, or does it pause? You start this in
high school, it pauses, and then you get to your
adult life and kind of visit it again. What is
(02:13):
the transition that happens there?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, it has been a part of my life since
I was fifteen. So we started as a group of
kids just raising money for already existing organizations doing really
interesting different things throughout the continent, and one happened to
be based in Uganda, so we had helped them build
I think then it was a widow shelter or a
library or something. And my senior year, they invited us
(02:41):
to Uganda to see the project we had helped fund.
So that would have been two thousand and eight and
we are still working in that very community today. The
more time we spent there and the more work that
we were doing, the more clear we got about our
mission and our purpose. And we've sent transitions from funding
and soup other organizations to building our own model of
(03:03):
what we think is really impactful, important, meaningful work in
a country like Uganda. But it's been many years of
refining our model and who we are and what we do.
We're really proud that we're celebrating our ten year anniversary
of our current community center right now. So that's been
an exciting year in celebration for us, and it's really
setting the stage for what's to come. But it very
(03:24):
much was a school project and raising money for other
organizations and learned so much through that process to build
what we have today.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And you say, this wasn't the plan, This was not
a part of your what you envisioned your life looking like.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
So what made that change? What about all of this
in that video that you had in that class that
changed the course of your forever.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, I'll personally share I was a student athlete, but
I was also a trouble maker and having the time
of my life in high school. My parents were also
going through a divorce and my older brother has special needs,
and I think at that pivotal moment in my life,
I was looking for some purpose, and I was looking
for something to really sink my teeth into and feel
(04:10):
like I could have control over when the rest of
the world and when you're a fifteen year old girl
feels very chaotic, this felt like something I kind of
wrapped my hands around. And then that trip to Wanda was,
as you can imagine, really life changing. When you can
see and feel the impact that you're making and build
it based off of community and building relationships. That really
(04:30):
was when the rest became history, when we met the
kids and the families and the schools and fell in
love with the work that we were doing. So being
a teenager that was a little angsty, this gave me
a tremendous amount of purpose and helped me recalibrate my life,
which was pretty important at that point in time.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I love to hear that it's always cool to see
that somebody's passion started from a place of personal That's
often the case, whether it be intentional or not. And
it's cool that you an outlet for things that were
going on in your life that allowed you to do
something to help others. You could have gotten a lot
of different routes. I've been reminded of that by therapists
(05:09):
when I talk about things. They say, you could have
chose something different. And I don't know if you've ever
heard that based on what you just told me that
little excerpt about your life, you could have chose vastly
different directions in different paths.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
What do you feel like kept you.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
On this path to continue helping and then not just
taking it from the school project in this school community
that you created, but then to a full blown position
where you now have thirty plus employees. That is a
drastic change and a huge shift in what your responsibilities
(05:46):
and role looked like from this starting.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Yeah. I will preface this by saying I you might
feel the same way too, But I feel like I
have the best job in the world, and I work
with the most thoughtful, hardworking individuals and we all really
enjoy each other and we laugh a lot, and that's
just like the icing on the cake is that we
get to actually make a difference every single day and
(06:11):
that we're having a little bit of fun while doing it.
It's the dream I could have never orchestrated this life myself.
And a phrase that I love to share with people
is when people are like, what's your plan, or when
I was finishing college and deciding about going to grad
school or moving to Ganda, I always just said, my
only plans are to be surprised. And I think that
(06:32):
is the theme of my life. It's been nothing but
one big surprise. But it doesn't mean that it's not
a lot of work and that the days are long
and hard, and the circumstances with which we work in
are oftentimes very devastating and heartbreaking. But I think what
keeps me going and doing the work that I do
for now eighteen years, which is crazy, is the individual
(06:55):
impact in the day to day stories that we see
of lives being changed, from kids who have your special
needs who are now walking in school every single day,
to moms that are able to put food on the
table and educate their own children, to our first group
of kids that I met on that trip in two
thousand and eight who are in primary school are now
graduates of our university scholarship program, and three of them
(07:16):
are working for us full time. And this is like
the good stuff. Now, we're really seeing the fruits of
our labor come to fruition, and that's really what keeps
this thing going.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You mentioned the heartbreaking and the devastating parts of this.
So much of nonprofit work, you are seeing things that
a lot of people like to turn away from because
it's uncomfortable, it's hard, it's sad. What are some things
that maybe you've learned in this process of why you
(07:48):
can continue putting yourself through this? And I asked this
from a place of someone who constantly, on a completely
different nonprofit side is working with animals, and it's always.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
How can you do that?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I could never give them away, I could never foster.
That's a constant theme in general with nonprofits.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
How do you do it?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
And how do you deal with the sadness and the
experiences that you're going through while you're witnessing, honestly, some
of the harder parts of humanity. Maybe you can speak
to that on just different levels. I don't know. Where
it takes you. But I would just love your perspective
on that.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
We I love that you asked that I'll share on
a personal level something that I've been doing recently as
I have a folder on the desktop of my monitor
that I call caffeine, and I have screenshots and pictures,
and when we got our first million dollar donation, I
took a picture of it and put it in there.
When we redid our board of directors, there's a screenshot
of that in there. Or the first university student that
(08:42):
we hired from our scholarship program sent me an email
when he signed his contract and reminders of the good
stuff as just like a daily dosage of caffeine to
fight the good fight. I would like turn out of
time recommend for everyone. I look at it regularly. But yeah,
I think it goes back to the endivid stories again.
And also, listen, I'm biased in the work that we do,
(09:04):
but I think we're remarkably good at what we do.
We spend a really long time refining our model and
then you see the impact of it. So our entire
team in UGLANDA for example, is Ugandan and led by
the community, and they're the representation of the work, and
they're the ones that bring the proposed ideas of programs
and projects and services and then they deliver on them.
So when I go to Uganda, which is a couple
(09:26):
of times a year, I get to witness the great
work that's being happened, that's happening on a day to
day basis, despite sometimes the challenges, and I think you
can probably imagine some of the challenges when it comes
to a country like Uganda where there's an immense amount
of poverty and suffering, and for better for worse, people
experience temptation and make poor choices that can be so
(09:48):
devastating on a personal level also an organizational level, and
you just have to continue to meet people where they're
at and stay the course and fight the good fight.
But there's been a number of moments where we probably
should have just thrown in the towel, and we would
have had every reason to do, and I'm so glad
that we didn't. But yeah, there were some pretty painful
(10:10):
chapters in our organization. But I will say, and I
think in everyone's organization, by the way, but coming out
the other side of it, we're so much better for
those challenges and have learned how to pivot and how
to be thinking outside the box and really just committed
to the mission. But yeah, there's probably a number of
(10:30):
circumstances where we should not be here and doing the
work that we're doing now. But I'm so glad we are.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
And there's a reason you are. There's a reason that
it happened the way that it was supposed to. And
I'm a firm believer in that everything pans out in
the way that it's supposed to happen, for better or
for worse. And I love that you have a caffeine fuller.
I think that's a cool serotonin boost when you need
it pick me up.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, yes, absolutely, And I love that you mentioned this
side of things.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
There were moments where you should have potentially thrown in
the towel and you didn't. Is there misconceptions or things
over the course of time that you've learned.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
That you've experienced.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Maybe it's about the things that are happening in Africa,
maybe it's about nonprofits.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
But is there just.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Things that you learned along the way where you wish
people could also learn the things that you've learned.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Oh my gosh, Morgan, how much time do you have today.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
You can walk me down any path you want to
go here.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Oh my gosh, how to even approach that question. I
would like to think that for us at Action ACA,
we like to do things differently and rather unconventionally, and
sometimes that's unfamiliar and uncomfortable for people. So I've got
a couple hills that I would like to die on
as far as how I believe my belief systems around
(11:55):
nonprofit work and international development. There's a lot of layers
to being a white woman from Assmen, Colorado working in
a country like East Africa and making sure that we
have representation of our work. And we talk a lot
about what my role is in this organization, what it's not,
and how do we make sure it's community led, And
there's a lot of pressure around those narratives and conversations,
(12:17):
and I find that sometimes I get very insecure about
that or in my head about it, and then I'm
humbled and reminded that, like, I'm here to do the
good work and we have impact to prove it and
show it. So just not getting caught up in the
noise of things. And I think with nonprofits it's so
easy to do that there's a lot of conversations around
(12:38):
overhead and what you pay your employees and what your
work looks like, and there's just a lot of noise.
And so we try really hard as an organization to
stick to what we believe in and do things unconventionally
and a little bit differently. I am reminded by my
team often to what extent and at what expense or
we having these hills that we die on? And how
(12:58):
can it be an opportunity for conversation and a learning
opportunity for people, but not at the expense of donations
and the great work that we're doing. But I would
say in this season of my leadership, in this exciting chapter,
I'm learning a lot about just how to speak my
truth and how I feel about things and not wavering
in that. And so going on podcasts and talking about
(13:20):
our work is being a little bit vulnerable in who
I am as the leader of this organization.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Okay, of course I'm now curious, and you took me
a few different paths and we will go down the mall.
But what are these hills that you will die on?
Because I think it's a beautiful thing when people have
their convictions, because when you have seen an experienced and
been in a field long enough, you have the right
to die on a hill. There's good in having the
(13:52):
passion of certain things. So I see dying on a
hill as.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
A good thing.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
And that's why I would love to know more about
the one that are very close to your heart and
what you are very passionate about in this work.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Ooh, vie, I love sticky stuff. Although my team is
probably gonna listen to this and make you're never going
on a podcast again.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Hey, but this is how we change the narrative, right,
This is how we do things differently and how we
rewrite stories, and how we do better is sometimes talking
about the hard stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, absolutely, And I will say I do think in
the nonprofit industry and the work that I do in particular,
there are great meaningful conversations and shifts and narratives and
we love to see that. But to answer your question,
I'd say one of the most controversial things is the
overhead and salaries of employees. And I can tell you
two very specific examples. One of our major donors years ago,
(14:47):
I didn't take a salary for probably the first gosh.
I want to say, like thirteen years of this. I
had expected its cover and went on and made this possible.
But I had a donor say that they were going
to stop giving to us until we paid our employees
a livable wage because they view their gifts to us
as an investment and if there's no return on this
or guarantee that we're going to be around for years
(15:08):
to come, they're just wasting their money. And that was
pretty eye opening and revolutionary for us as an organization
and caused us to really think through our budget and
our fundraising strategy and making sure that people can be
compensated here. And I will say that really shifted how
we then do our work in Uganda. And being able
to hire employees here in the United States to help
(15:30):
with fundraising and creating some sort of financial stability for
our work. It's allowed us to grow our programs and
you want a tenfold so you see a direct correlation
by an increase in our overhead, by the great work
and the longevity of our work and meaningful work in
a place like Uganda. Being able to fairly compensate employees
is definitely one of those hills that I want to
(15:51):
die on. And I will say all of this with
a caveat of within reason, we still have an obligation
to make sure that we are good stewards of donors.
But that does not mean that we should not have
the best of the best employees and being able to
pay them a livable wage so that they can live
a wonderful life, just like all of our friends who
work in tech or entertainment or for profit spaces.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
No, it's so important, and I do having worked with
several nonprofits in my life. It finances is such a
tricky subject because nonprofits do they get donor dollars, and
that's the purpose, but there is such a huge conversation
around it, so much so that oftentimes I've said it myself,
(16:35):
where I can't work nonprofit. I can't have a living
in nonprofit. Do I want to do it? Absolutely, I
can't make a livable wage in there, because most of
them don't because they feel an obligation to support the
causes that they're going after. But I think there's such
a huge loss in that because to your point, these
(16:55):
programs that are already doing really good things could do
even better things if they have people who don't feel
so exhausted so financially strained that they could spend their
time and effort into really investing into something.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
So I think that's a great hill to die on.
I agree with you.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
And that's coming from someone who's had not even in
the side of nonprofit that you guys are in, but
just in working with several different ones over the years.
That's a common conversation. It's common controversial, and it's also
really hard to watch when you see really good hearted
people doing incredible things, not able to care for themselves,
(17:38):
not just emotionally and mentally because of what they're doing,
but financially, And that is so so common.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, And I think the statistic is and I actually
have it screenshotted in my caffeine and folder as a reminder.
I think it's something along the lines of ninety three
percent of organizations don't make it to the ten year
mark or or less than a million dollars. And to me,
that's a direct correlation and indicator of being able to
hire employees and sustain the work that you do. And
by the way, this is a comparable conversation you Ganta too.
(18:07):
I'm not just talking about us, but in really committing
to our employees globally, we take great care and hire
the best of the best in Uganda as well. And
you I'm biased in all this, so take out the
grave salt. But that's why you see us at a
two million dollar level organization around for eighteen years, and
that's because we're investing in our people to do the
good work and fight the good fight at a meaningful
(18:29):
and long term level.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Absolutely, Hey, I like all your hills, but this is
the one that we fu's not in that moment. You
also mentioned how it's been a white woman from the
States and you're working in Africa with primarily a lot
of the black community.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
So what has that experience been.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Like a learning experience. I'm viscerally aware of where I'm from,
what my look like, and I try to be cognizant
of that and the work that I do, but also
stick to my truth and that it's allowed me to
do the work that I do and be of service
to another community. It's funny. I have so much to
(19:12):
learn and grow in this space and the first to
admit that. But I will also say I, from my experience,
have observed this as a very strong Western conversation, and
that does not mean that these themes are not deeply
rooted in colonialistic roots. I acknowledge that, but these are
not conversations that our team in Uganda are having, for example,
and that to me is very eye opening and interesting
(19:33):
and by the way, would carry a whole other weight
if our leadership, staff and Ugonda were like, hey, you're
the white girl, what are you doing here? And there's
none of that. I think they're tremendously grateful for my
leadership and the resources I bring, irrelevant of where I'm
from and what that looks like. So I think that's
another perfect example of where I have an obligation and
a duty to be educated about this and I'm responsible
(19:56):
to this narrative, but also I'm not to be distracted
by it and let it deter me from just day
to day doing some really good work.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, that's a really important lesson and one that you
wouldn't have gotten had you done a nonprofit that's just here.
It's a different experience, I also imagine because Africa, a
lot of those countries within it are considered third world,
so you're experiencing also just a different overall experience in
(20:26):
another country, different economic standards.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
You have a different level of culture.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
You just there's so many bases of which you are different,
And I think those are some beautiful lessons that not
a lot of people get to learn.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
And I think I've had great grace and like time
to learn some of these lessons and acknowledge like the
ongoing learning in this right. I started going to Ulanda
when I was a teenager, and I go multiple times
a year. I lived there full time for a little
over three years. Like I'm like really putting in the
work and really a part of the work that we
(21:03):
do here. But I've had the opportunity to slowly learn
those lessons. Which is that helpful?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
What was that experience like when you lived over there
and you're seeing all of this and you're trying to
figure out, Okay, how do we do this and how
do we do it in the best way possible? What
was that part like of this story?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So I at that point, gosh, okay, So I was
in college. I went so I was running action Afrin
high school and college, going back and forth during holidays,
and when I graduated university, there was a moment of
are we really doing this? And what does this look like?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Like?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
It feels like we're halfway in and halfway out and
decided to move to Ganda and like really figure this
out and assess, Okay, we're going to fully commit or
we did a good thing and now this isn't working.
And I'll tell you I my family has never had
never really been out of the US, So this like
Africa thing my whole life since ide the kid was
(21:59):
like what is Thearah doing? Like what is happening here?
And so I would be going back and forth. And
I graduated college and I got into grad school at
USC to get my master's in social work, and my
whole family was like, yes, she'll be stateside, she'll be
home based, like we're recalibrating her life. I got in,
I went to like orientation, dropped out, moved to Blonda.
(22:20):
So it was a fun little plot twist for the family.
But I was like, I'll go to Blonda and like
really give us a noble attempt and see if this
is going to be the thing. I'll go for six
months naive me. Like that's a bit of this like
white girl thing, Like I keep thinking that I know
how to fix things or that I've got a solution here,
and thought I'd go for six months, hire our staff,
(22:41):
make a plan, and then come home. And three years
later I was like, I'm still here. I need to
make a plan. But I will say to answer your question,
those three years were some of the most magical years
of my life. I think that rate there is even
something that makes us a little bit different that as
the founder and executive director, I went there and I
(23:01):
fully bought in. And I lived in our community center,
which was really fun, very chaotic, soccer balls breaking glass
into my bedroom window and always hearing the kids start
their pe classes at six o'clock in the morning in
the front yard. But it was filled with so much
joy and creativity and building and hiring. It was just
(23:22):
a blast. But I think like really helped shape perspective
and how we do things and what things look like
here to action in Africa. I think it also carried
so much weight for our team in Uganda, like really
showed that I was bought in and that we were
in this together and like boots on the ground, not
just like I'm on the US side, they're on the
Uganda side. But the collaboration was so fun.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Oh yeah, And that's just so hands on and so
important of a role when it does come to nonprofit
that can make the difference between someone who's just a
donor and somebody who's actually a volunteer that's where the
work is. So it's cool that you had that experience
and of hearing that, I do want to hear a
little bit more about your parents and how you mentioned
(24:05):
that they were like what.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Is she doing? What is happening?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Because I think it's incredible that you chose and most
capacities of the sense that it's a more non traditional
way of living and being done.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
With college and being like, yeah, no, I'm going to
go here.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So what were your parents like in that experience for
you and was that just hard for you as you
were doing something that.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
You were paving a new path.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
So I will preface this by saying I have an
older brother who has special needs. He was born with
cerebral palsy, is very independent and very high functioning, but
definitely has his own challenges. And I spent most of
my childhood growing up going to physical therapy and speech
therapy and all these different programs with and focused on him.
(24:57):
And that really that experience, it's opened my eyes to
the other populations that are otherwise sometimes disenfranchised and have
a different way of living and need different avenues of support.
And I think that really set the foundation for my
heart to do the work that I'm doing now. We've
got a couple beloved kids in our special needs program
(25:19):
that are outside of our wheelhouse of work, but I'm like,
I love them, and that I really attribute to my
brother and growing up in that kind of household. But
I think in having an older brother with special needs,
it really forced me at a younger age to become
independent and marked to my own drum and live my
life in the different way. Well, I think my parents
are like, wow, Africa's really far, what are you doing.
(25:41):
I also don't think they were entirely unsurprised by it.
I do think that for a number of years everyone
was waiting for me to outgrow this phase, and perhaps
there's still a bit of them waiting for that. And
I'm like, all right, maybe at the twenty year mark,
you'll believe me that this is the thing. But I
think like, regardless of how unfamiliar it felt to them,
I do know that they've just been so proud of
(26:03):
this journey and have watched it grow from the ground
up and my dad has been to Gonda now twice
with us, and my brother actually came. In January. We
did a big donor trip celebrating the ground the ten
year anniversary of our current community center, breaking ground on
a brand new campus that I'll tell you about later.
But having my dad and brother there and seeing it
(26:26):
and feeling it was just beyond special. And even the
flip side of that, our staff and our kids have
heard me talk about my brother for fifteen years and
for them to meet him and receive him and love
on him was just like it gives me chills and
again like I have the best job in the world,
but for my dad. We had kids back when I
(26:46):
was in high school that didn't understand the time difference,
so they'd call at three o'clock in the morning be like,
where's Aunt Sarah, Where's Aunt Sarah? And my dadd she's
sleepings for him to then connect the faces to those
kids in Uganda, they're teenagers now well I think many
years later they're really starting to get it and understand it.
But now they too have experienced it.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Oh. I love that so much that your whole family
has gotten to now see and witness the things that
you created and have building all this time, to especially
your brother getting to go over there and witness that.
I can only imagine that experience. You probably just wanted
to bottle it up and be like, I'm going to
keep this feeling forever in this moment and I'm just
(27:28):
going to keep replaying it. That would be like eighty
caffeine folders.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I would think, yeah, yeah, I don't even know how
it'll contain that into my folder. But you're exactly right.
There are no words to describe that.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Oh, that's so special, and I think it's so beautiful
to look at your life, and it is when somebody
often takes a different path, there's always questions, there's always doubt,
there's uncertainty and a lot of insecurity.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
That gets part of that whole experience.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
So, now that we've heard from the outsider perspective for you,
what were those emotions and experiences like as you're going
through this, as this whole thing is getting built in
those moments you mentioned where we probably should have thrown
in the tab but we didn't, what were your emotions, like,
what were the things that you were going through that
were really difficult and how did you handle them.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Ooh. I think I would say in this chapter of
life that I've been now has probably been where I've
felt the most feelings because I'm in that season of
life where all my friends are married, They're all having babies.
I have a number of friends that have started cool
tech startup companies and some have failed, some have flourished.
(28:45):
And while I'm so proud of the work that we're
doing in Action Afria, there is a bit of it's
the same all Like I go back home for Christmas
and everyone's oh, back from Africa, and I'm like, no,
I live in Denver, but yes, I am still doing
the Africa thing. So there is a bit insecurity of
do people perceive this as it's the same thing that
I did when I was fifteen years old? And my
(29:06):
team does a great job of helping talk me off
that ledge a little bit, in reminding and educating people
that this is more or less a much bigger deal
than it was when I was fifteen years old, and
that there's a lot to be proud of. And if
people still look at it as the cute high school
club that Sarah started when she was fifteen, that's on them,
and that's their loss, but that what we're doing is
(29:28):
remarkable and is something I need to lean into. But
I'd be lying if I didn't say that there are
things that are easy to compare to being in this
season of life that I have missed out on because
I've made a choice to commit to my life up
until this point in time to the work that we're
doing in Uganda. And I would imagine people probably look
(29:48):
at my life too when compare it in certain ways
and think parts of it are cool or they wish
they were a part of it. I think that's just
human nature. So those are moments, and I've had to
miss a lot of things. I'm missing a friend's wedding
because I'm in You've gone to next month and baby showers,
and I feel like I'm having to make a lot
of sacrifices to do the work that we do. But
I have a good job.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I think that's a very real answer, and I think
I'm lucky that you shared that with me, because there
are we really love to make everything look like younicorns
and rainbows.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
And it is.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
There's this whole part of it that's so beautiful and
so significant and important. But to diminish the fact that
you're still human and you still experience real life emotions
just because you have a really awesome, cool job, and
might I say really awesome that it started for you
at fifteen, because not a lot of people can say
that they've had any version of that kind of consistency
(30:45):
in their life.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
I think that's a beautiful thing. So it's special.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
And important that you were willing to share that because
I do think it gets lost in translation a lot.
And to sit here and be like, well, she has
this mass of companies, she gets to go to Africa
all the time, and she loves what she's doing doesn't
mean that there aren't parts that you also wish you
could have, because also human nature is to one everything
(31:12):
and to have accomplished everything that you thought you should
accomplish by this point in your life.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah. Yeah, I think I have an obligation to lead
from a place of showing that I'm human and that
creates space and allow of space for our team on
the USID and our team in Uganda to do the same.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yes, so I totally get it.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I also totally relate that's also part of this phase
of our life. You get to a point where everybody
gets married or they're doing they're like, wait, okay, I feel.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Like I'm getting left behind.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
But then you're also super successful in something else and
you're like, does that mean they get left behind there?
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Like what's the trade off here?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And you have a lot of those real human moments
where you just kind of look at your life you're like, Okay,
I guess this was part of the plan.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, and I'm sure you can relate to this, But
I think at this stage of life just goes so
fast too. Like we have a lot of conversations around
succession planning and how do we set the organization up
for success outside of me, and we keep talking about it,
but I'm like, oh my gosh, we're still here, and
I'm to blame for that, right because I'm energized and
excited about our work and what we're doing and what
(32:24):
more we could do that I'm like, oh my gosh,
I'm going to be eighty five years old here.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I appreciate you really sharing the personal side, because I
know it's hard. You come on here and you're talking
about the professional side of your life, and but personal
play such a significant role, especially on the nonprofit side.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
So thank you for sharing all of that.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Is there anything else in that capacity in the personal space,
where again, you were fifteen when this all started and
now you're in your thirties that you learned along the
way that you wish you could pass on to younger you.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
I could just remind myself. We have a saying, and
this is I'm embarrassed I'm even sharing this with you,
but as a family, but now also as a team,
that everything works out for Sarah and I have multiple
feelings about that statement, but I will say it's a
good reminder that things do work out. And I am
(33:20):
a firm believer that what you put out into the
universe you also attract back to you. A word that
I'm really leaning into this year is being magnetic and
trying to create that type of magnetic energy. So I
think as a teenager and even honestly in the formative
early years of Action Africa, I just was so worried
(33:41):
all the time. And that does not mean I'm not
worried now or anxious about what the future holds or
navigating this personal versus professional chapter of my life. But
it all works out, and I'm just such a firm
believer in that, and I think I can look back
on what we've accomplished and what I've accomplished personally within
the organization or outside it. That is a testament to that.
(34:01):
So I would remind myself to just relax and not
be ocd about things and so manic and stressed and
just trust that, like it's all going to work out.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
So is that also a lesson that adult you is
trying to learn, especially on the personal side of things
as well.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I love that you're throwing that back at me, because yes,
I need to remind myself of that, and I do
need to remember that because and I also I love
this but also slightly terrifies me. I find that in
chapters of my life, I always reflect back on wanting
to be into in previous chapters, and in doing that,
you're missing out and being in the present. So trying
(34:39):
to recognize that. I'm sure at some point I will
figure out my personal life. But once I do that,
I do know that I will look back on this
chapter that I'm in now being like those were the
glory days. I wish I wasn't fixated on what's to come.
So I think like a lesson in all this too,
is also just being really present. I try to ground
myself in gratitude on a regular and consistent, multiple times
(35:02):
a day practice because I think that also like really
just sets the stage for how you show up and
how things come into your life. But yeah, that's definitely
something I should pay more attention to because it will
all work out.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
I do believe that it's hard.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
One of the hardest lessons I think that I still
am trying to learn every single day is being present
for every single day versus living in the past or
thinking to the future. Present living is not an easy accomplishment.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
It's one that's difficult.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
For nearly every human on this planet. So I don't
think you're alone in that, And I know, just sitting
here with me, you're not alone because I do the
same thing. I can look back at so many Hindsight
is always twenty twenty. That's my favorite thing to remind
myself of, especially when I'm in a moment where I'm contemplating,
or i feel out of control, or I don't think
I know what's going to happen next, and like, remember,
(35:56):
every time you get past a moment, you're always like
hindsight was twenty twenty, So try and have your hindsight now.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Yep, So that's really special.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Speaking of to personally, what is it being a leadership
role now, being in charge of thirty plus employees, you're
the founder of this company, like you're an incredibly successful woman.
What is that experience like for you? Because I know,
in a lot of the work that I've done, being
(36:27):
a woman in these positions of success is not always
the easiest thing.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah, I have two answers for that because I think
often about so A big part of my job now
is our fundraising and making sure we have the resources
to do the work we do. And I think regularly
about if I was a male, if my approach and
aggressiveness for better or for worse around fundraising would look
differently and I'd be more successful. I think about that
a lot because I think men show up a little
(36:57):
bit more assertive and a little bit more confident, a
little bit more bold with they're ass and by the way,
maybe that's not the best approach, but I do think
about that regularly if I was a man, how I
would show up in the fundraising space. But I think
as a leader for our team, both on the US
and on the Yuganda side. I love being a female
founder and a female leader, and I think I lean
(37:19):
into being full of patients and grace but also joy
And I've had to learn a lot about professionalizing my leadership,
especially a number of our staff that I've known for
twelve years, ten years when I was a kid, and
my leadership then versus my leadership now as we professionalize
as an organization has had to change a little bit.
(37:40):
And how do I still keep that joyful, youthful Sarah
self that showed up many years ago, but also, oh gosh,
We're a multimillion dollar organization and I probably should carry
myself in a different way sometimes perfect example, like we
used to do midday office dance parties or push up
contests in the front office, like now we can't do
(38:00):
that because we have politicians like show up or like
parents who need to be taking our work seriously. So
things like that where I've just had to learn and
grow a little bit, but also navigating what my non
negotiables are as as far as leadership and making sure
I can still be joyful and make sure that people
at work are doing a great job, but also enjoying
(38:21):
the work that they're doing and having fun while at it.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I've always imagined being in a leadership role and being
able to do things that you wish other people were doing.
Like you look at other companies in leadership and you go,
I don't feel like that's the right way of doing it.
Have you gotten to have this cool experience where you
get to implement a lot of things in the leadership
role to make this company be something that you're proud of.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Ooh love that, Yes, But I would say that's not
isolated to me. I think it's been such a gift
to grow this organization alongside the team that I have,
and it'd be a real collaborative, not so hierarchical though
I'm the founder or executive director, but that we're all
in this leadership responsibility together. So that has been such
(39:14):
a gift and so fun. Something I've been thinking about
a lot lately, as everyone has a perspective on how
you should be doing things, and like the self help
space and the leadership space and the coaching space is
just so noisy right now, and I find myself falling
trapped to that. Like you come across a TikTok video
that's here's the best way to lead a board meeting,
(39:35):
or then here's the best way to show up and
be a good boss, And you're like trying to aggressively
take all these notes and apply it, and it's just
too much. And I think even going back to like
earlier parts of this conversation of just trusting how you
show up and how you lead, and like that sometimes
being enough and not feeling so overwhelmed by the noise
and constant improvement and adaptation to the world that we
(39:56):
live in, because it can be to digest. But yeah,
I would say, like, it's been fun to build this
and build my leadership style alongside the rest of our
leadership team.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
There's so much noise in social media and so many capacities,
so I don'tally get it. You definitely have to just
find your approach that works for you and what you
feel is best.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
And we're all human and learning along the way.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
So it's cool that you've gotten to experience and kind
of form your own leadership style over the course of
the entire organization.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
It's also a very unique experience.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
You are on social media a lot, and people do
things You're like, dang, I really have not had a
unique life in any capacity.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
But the noise would tell you otherwise. Though this is true,
that you're getting it all wrong.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
This is so action in Africa. Where does it stand
right now? As an organization? How can people help or
help you guys continue the work that you're doing.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
What does that look like?
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, So, as I loosely tea, we celebrated our ten
year anniversary and you've gone in January, so celebrating our
current community center and ten years of impact. We feel
like we've spent most of those last ten years really
refining our model and our work and paving a way
forward to scale our impact and make sure that other
communities can have access to the programs and services that
(41:20):
we offer. So we recently purchased eight and a half
acres of land. We're building an additional campus over the
next three ish years. To put it in perspective for you,
our current campus serves about five hundred kids a day,
similar to HAWAIMCA or a boys and girls club, a
community center model, so after school programs, music, dance, drama, arts,
(41:41):
access to food, medical nutrition, public libraries, play, et cetera.
And that's on half an acre. And so by buying
eight and a half acres. It just helps you put
in perspective the scale that's about to come. And the
way this model will work is our new campus will
be our headquarters, and then our current campus we will
(42:03):
keep and it's more or less our satellite campus. So
creating this blueprint that is replicable and able to scale
and impact multiple communities for years to come is our
north star and where we're headed. So we're about to
launch a massive capital campaign, so wish me luck as
a female fundraiser, but really looking forward to that and
(42:24):
being able to take this model and grow it has
been a big vision for us. We definitely have a
philosophy of this inch wide but a mile deep, and
we've spent years refining the work that we do and
now we feel confident and in a place to do
that responsibly and ethically. So it's a very exciting chapter
for us. I will tell you we really struggled with
(42:45):
the notion of scaling and it took us ten years
to build our team and our model, and I think
any good development work takes that level of time and patience,
And unfortunately it's not super sexy because people want to
know how many schools can you build and how many
kids can you feed overnight and they don't want to
see the long haul. But so for us, we were
really worried about So we build this campus, but who's
(43:07):
going to run this? And now that our kids are
graduating from university? From my humble founder's perspective, who better
to higher than the accountants and the social workers and
the teachers and the doctors and the lawyers that we've
educated and have worked with and have built a loyalty
too and with for the last fifteen years. So it's
a really exciting season. I'm like giddy about it and
(43:29):
I just want to build it. So stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I'm so excited for you guys, because that does sound
like a very exciting chapter and an all new one, right,
this is an entirely new experience, even in the course
of something that's for you been a part of your
life for so long. But this is all new and
new comes with a lot of fun things. So that
sounds so exciting and you guys can check all that
out just search up Action in Africa. But what I
(43:54):
do like to end these episodes on is it can
be a piece of advice.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
It can be motivation, inspiration.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Or touching on something that maybe we didn't.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Even get to.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I give the floor over to you, and you end
us on something of your choosing.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Ooh, I'd love to end just with a story, if
that's okay, I would love that. I think it just
speaks to the work that we do and how we
do it. So when we moved into our community center
ten years ago, there was a beloved kid named Shaki,
who I think at the time was about three years old,
who lived across the street and has very severe cerebral palsy.
(44:33):
And as I shared, my brother has cerebral palsy but
is very mobile at this point. Through extensive therapy and
support and in meeting Shocky, we built our special needs
program and started to work with him and his family
on an individual basis, and there was no hope for
him to be independent and walking, and now ten years later,
(44:55):
he is. And it gives me chills because it's a
humble reminder of the investment that you can make in
one human's life and how much of a difference you
can make. And my dad always says, like my dad
came and has heard me talk about Shocky for years
and saw Shocky walk down the hallway and my dad,
who's a large construction worker, wept and was like, if
(45:18):
you did nothing ever again in your life and this
is all that you did, it would all be worth it.
And I think about that all the time, from like
my brother's perspective and my family's perspective, also for SHOCKI
and his family, and then also the Action Africa's staff
who have worked so diligently to set this one kid
up for success, to be independent and be healthy and
to be successful. And we're about to do a video
(45:39):
series on him, so keep an eye out for that.
But now he's in school full time and it wants
to be a doctor in the future, and it's just
so beyond inspiring. And that's one of thousands of stories
that we have from the eighteen years that we've been around,
and who knows what the next eighteen years will have
in store, and I'm planning on being surprised about it.
(46:00):
But i will tell you, Yeah, if the only thing
that ever happened was that Shocky ended up walking, I'll
chalk it up as a big old win.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Oh that's such a special story and I don't think
you could have chosen anything else better to end on.
So we're not even gonna try, but Sarah, thank you
for being here. Shout out where people can find you
guys that way, if they do want to see the
series and just see what you guys are up to,
they can, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
We are. The name of our organization is Action in
Africa and our websites Action in Africa dot com. You
can also find us on TikTok and Instagram and all
the fun social platforms. Sign up for our newsletter. We
often share ways that people can engage and participate. We
do anything from trips to Uganda so you can come
and experience our work firsthand, to contributing to our special
(46:46):
education fund supporting kids like Shaki, or becoming a monthly donor,
or coming to events that we do in Colorado, New York, LA.
So that's where you can find us and what we're
up to and how you can engage.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Thank you so much, sir for being here and for
sharing your story.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Thank you for having me, Morgan, It's fun to talk about.
I'm so grateful for you to give us the space
to share the work that we do, and I will
separately share with you. I appreciate you asking about me
as a human in this because sometimes it's all just
about Action Africa and the work that we do, and
it should be and that's important stuff, but just female,
the female. I appreciate thank for you on who I
(47:21):
am as a person. You're relevant of this work.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Oh yeah, that's the whole part of the story.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
The volunteering and the nonprofit is special stuff. But people
humans that has to start somewhere and that's always with them.
So I'm glad, but thank you again. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Thanks Morgan, and come join us in Yuganda one of
these days.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
I'm still sitting here impressed by Sarah's tenacity at such
a young age and the impact she's continuing to make
on the world. You can check out Action in Africa
dot com if you want to learn more or get involved.
Next week, I have Struggle Jinning's joining me. For all
the rap and country music fans out there, you will
love this interview. I love doing it. I mean I
love to all of them. That's kind of why I
do this podcast. So subscribe now so you don't miss it,
(48:04):
and check out the instagram at take this personally.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Thanks for being here. I love you.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Bye.
Host
Morgan Huelsman
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