Season 2025: Episode 2. Nonprofit worker Matt Kazdan explains how access to sustainable energy can help underprivileged populations

Go ahead and text me!

With a Master's degree in international affairs with a focus on international politics, Matt Kazdan could have headed to a think tank or Washington DC. But he chose instead to use his skills in policy-making and his understanding of international politics to work at ta0ngelic, a nonprofit that helps underserved populations with access to sustainable sources of energy. The effects of this work are far-reaching -- it changes people's lives by extending their hours of light and allowing them to pursue more opportunities.

Matthew Kazden is a dedicated advocate for social impact and sustainable development, serving as Tangelic’s International Development Specialist. With a  background in international affairs, Matthew has extensive experience across both government and private sectors. Matthew has also worked extensively on projects focused on sustainability, global health, and natural resource management, particularly in Latin America and Africa, including direct engagement with indigenous communities.  

Matthew holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs with a specialization in International Politics from the University of California, San Diego, and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations & Communications from the University of California, Davis. 

For more information, see tangelic's website to learn more and/or a donation:

https://tangeliclife.org/

 See How We're Changing Lives: Watch Our Impact Story

c Note: NEW for 2025! Original music created for The Storied Human podcast by the band "Rough Year," featuring Julian Calv on trimba (and including Dillion Spear and Brendan Talian). Thanks Guys!

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!
Check out my Facebook group -- The Storied Human.

The Storied Human is on YouTube now-- check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIHYKJ0fBDIF7hzWCu7b396GMJU-2qb7h

Have a story? DM me on instagram: lthompson_574
Drop me an email: [e-mail]

See all my links on Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/StoriedHuman/

Also see all episodes on my new website: https://www.podpage.com/the-storied-human-what-is-your-story/episodes/

Keep in touch!

Original music "Saturday Sway" by Brendan Talian (for all interviews before 2025)

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:02):
Lynne, hello and welcome to the story human. I'm
Lynne Thompson. My guest todayis Matthew Kasdan. He's the
International DevelopmentSpecialist at tangelic, a
nonprofit organization whosegoal is to attack energy poverty
and create meaningful impact inunderserved communities. Matthew
transformed his life into one ofservice, advocating for energy

(00:24):
equity and sustainabledevelopment through his work at
tangelic, Matthew designs andimplements programs that address
energy poverty while promotinggender equality, equity and
climate resilience. Matthew'sstory is not only about
professional achievements, butalso about his deep commitment
to empowering people anduplifting communities. And

(00:45):
there's a lot to unpack herethat I really look forward to
talking to you about, abouthelping people connect,
helping people with energy, andhow that really has lots of
fingers and other pies, likepeople don't always connect
that, and I'd love to hear aboutit. So welcome, Matthew. It's
nice to have you here. Yes, it'snice to be here. Thank you for

(01:07):
having me.
So you just graduated from yougot a master's degree, that's
correct, yes. And what is thatin? So I recently got my
master's degree in internationalaffairs with a focus on
international politics. So mybackground, or at least academic
background, is more on thepolitical side, which, as you

(01:27):
said, is has its fingers ineverything, and especially with
energy, clean energy and policyjust ever more prevalent. Now, I
think that's a great background,and I noticed that one of the
partners that tan jellic workswith it is an NGO. I just think
there's a lot of overlap now,and people can collaborate.
People don't always make thatconnection. I have a friend

(01:49):
who's in the climate space, andshe has made a lot of those
connections. For me,it's sort of fascinating what
you can do when you improvepeople's access to sustainable
energy and renewable energy. Sodid you envision that you would
end up in this area? It's adifferent kind of area from what
you might have first thought youwould do. Yeah, I honestly I

(02:09):
didn't think I'd end up here,because in my background, at
least my academic background, Iwas like, I said, focus way more
on the politics, policy side ofthings, and in undergrad,
actually an internship where wework with international
delegations on a variety ofissues, really and different,

(02:31):
just everything from my climateto women's involvement to every
sector you can imagine. And thatnot only gave me a really good
opportunity and experienceworking with international
delegations, but also being ableto, like, move all the pieces
around, partner them with localorganizations, and like,
actually seeing that tangibleeffect on the ground in people's

(02:53):
lives. So that kind of opened myeyes to a bit of both worlds,
where I could use my backgroundwith Policy and International
Affairs, as well as bringing thenonprofit side of things into
the equation and actually makinga difference, I could see like
on the ground in people's day today lives. So that's kind of how
I got sucked into the thenonprofit realm.

(03:17):
I do love that, because I thinkpeople can get stuck on the
meetings and the policy makingand the discussions and the
standards and the you know,meanwhile, you're making a real
impact, which I love, that youcan see that what you do is
literally making an impact. Sotell me more about the work
tangelic Does, because I wasamazed.
I really was impressed. You'reall over the place, and you do

(03:39):
such meaningful work in Ghana inparticular, your your sort of
flagship program, could you tellus about that and the and the
impact of solar that you'veintroduced?
Yeah, of course. So we areworking right now with the heavy
focus in Ghana on clean energyand renewable energy for rural

(03:59):
communities. That's how we'restarting out. We're going to
expand to not only differentparts of Ghana and the region,
but hopefully throughout theglobal South, kind of down the
road as we scale up. And ourmain project right now is
sunrise spectrum, which, inshort, works to provide
different solar like communitycells, solar panels, different

(04:21):
forms of clean energy, such aslike different utilities that
focus on it, such as clean cookstoves, to these groups, because
one thing that's at the centerof tangelic is recognizing that
these groups contribute bear,like so minimally, to the amount
of global missions, But they'rethe ones feeling the brute force

(04:42):
of it the most, whereas, like alot of countries, kind of in the
as you call the global north,are contributing so so so much.
But while they may be feelingthe effects a little, not nearly
as much as their countries, kindof in the Global South, as you
call it, but.
Plus, it's important to notethat the countries that are
contributing also have theresources to better adapt to

(05:05):
that.
So with that in mind, that's whywe're focusing in the Global
South, and especially in Ghana,to start out, because they have
a fairly robust kind ofinfrastructure, in a way, and
they're already looking at,like, really cool solutions.
Obviously, a lot of placeshaven't adapted yet, so we're
focusing on providing theseclean energy sources to these

(05:29):
groups. And what I really likeis it doesn't just decrease
emissions, which obviously itdoes, but it's the cascading
effect that it has, because withthat comes economic empowerment,
because all these solar cellsand all these different things
we're providing creates aneconomy. So there's jobs to
repair them, manufacture them.
Also with that comes the abilityto start businesses have

(05:53):
electricity and light afterdark, clean electricity. So that
improves not only the ability tostart a business, but children's
education, because they couldactually study after dark now,
and this whole cascading amongstothers, one big thing is the
woman's empowerment, becausenow, as I mentioned, woman could
start businesses, get moreinvolved, not spend so much time

(06:15):
at home. So it's this cascadingeffect just from one simple
thing of clean energy comes morethan just a reduced emissions,
which is something I thinkthat's really important. I think
that's so good for us to learnabout, because, as I said, I
just recently made thoseconnections, and I was really
surprised. I don't think peopleconnect the disadvantages and

(06:36):
the poverty that can beconnected to climate change,
like the continuing of climatechange, and like you said, No
remediation, because they don'thave the, you know, the funds,
the resources they don't.
They're not huge companiesaround them, like in the global
north, as you said. So we haveto be aware of that. But what I

(06:56):
was struck by when I was readingabout this, and what you've been
talking about, I just want topull it out and make it more
clear, we don't even think abouthow people live without
electricity, and there's so manythings that happen because of
that. Like you were saying, youcan't study at night, you can't,
you know, read, you can't doyour homework. You can't it's
really hard because you don'thave light, or you don't have

(07:19):
sustainable energy for light,and you're changing people's
lives in ways that are so muchmore than just giving them
solar. You know, it's justamazing to me, and the idea that
women can have businesses, it'sjust, it's very cool. I did, I
did read something too aboutindoor pollution, like you're
helping with that, because theirsolutions right now pollute

(07:41):
their environment, inside wherethey live. Could you talk a
little bit about that?
Yeah, so it's definitely a bigproblem, especially when I think
it's most prevalent we'retalking about cooking, because
additional like gas poweredstoves and stoves that release
emissions like you're, you know,in an enclosed space, if you
don't proper ventilation, oranything like, you know,

(08:02):
kitchen, like restaurant kitchenor something, you're just
sitting in all of thoseemissions. And especially with
traditional food and Ghana, it'sa very long and cook time, high
heat process. So you couldimagine just the sheer amount of
emissions that come just per daybased on your meals. So with the
clean cook. So this allows, youknow, all those emissions to be

(08:22):
pulled so they could still keepup their traditional cuisine and
flavors, but without the harmfulemissions, which is kind of the
best of both worlds. That'samazing. Yeah, I wouldn't even
have thought of that, honestly,like the gas in such a small,
enclosed space. So there's somany advantages to offering that

(08:43):
come out of this one project. Sowhat pulled you to this? I'm
very interested in how you madethis connection and got
involved. Yeah, so I've alwaysbeen interested in the
environment, environmental sideof things, especially within my
background with Policy andInternational Affairs, the
environment has always beensomething super important to me,
especially my upbringing. I wasraised like always in nature,

(09:04):
always going out in hikes. Soobviously, you know, the
environment nature is very highfor me. Um, so this allowed me
to kind of combine the best ofall the worlds. I gotta work
with different NGOs, nonprofits,so on, so forth. So that brings
in the international part forme, slash policy, I get to help
people on the ground in theirday to day lives. That brings in

(09:25):
my like, newly explored interestfor NGOs, and it's good for the
environment, so that pulls inthat. So it's really the
trifectaof everything I enjoy doing
exactly. I'm veryimpressed with the work that
your organization does. I'm veryimpressed with what you do, and
I just think there are just somany benefits to feeling like
you're making an impact andtruly helping people. It's so

(09:47):
much more than a career or a jobwhen you're actually seeing
that,and that makes me feel really
good about what you do. Sowhat's the future?
Like, what are your plant? Yousaid you might expand, and I'm
wondering what you see in thefuture? Yeah. So what we're
working towards is, once we getit kind of in the groove, so to

(10:10):
speak, and scale up with ourcurrent projects in Ghana, an
important thing for us iscollecting all the data through,
like our we have, obviously, alot of partners, including ones
on the ground working with thesecommunities that already have,
you know, experience and arelationship with these
communities. So once we get allthis data about everything you
can imagine regarding theproject, really, we could see

(10:31):
how we can improve. And once weknow that, we could start
scaling out to other countriesin the region, well,
communities, and then countriesin region and down the road
throughout the global south. Sowe're also looking at kind of a
similar thing, but again, downthe road in South America as
well, with more, you know, ruralcommunities that are not
necessarily connected on thegrid in these large cities,

(10:55):
but one step at a time. But thatwould be great, yeah. So it's
nice to know there's a lot onthe horizon. Is there anything
else you'd like to tell us aboutthis work and how we could get
in touch and maybe help fund it?
Yeah, with this temp work ingeneral, I think it's super
important to kind of get intouch and with all these
different NGOs nonprofits, whathave you, and see what they're

(11:16):
doing. I know everyone's heardthis a million times, but as it
is, a nonprofit, financialassistance is very appreciated,
which is how we're able to dothis work we're doing. So you
know, if you're interested, Iit'd be amazing. Check out our
website. We have podcasts on allthe social media channels you
can imagine.

(11:38):
Check out all the work we'redoing, and I guarantee you're
gonna be impressed and verymoved. I was, I really was. It's
a beautiful website. So That'stangeliclife.org correct, okay?
Or sorry, it's tangelic.organgelic, yeah.org, sorry about
that. There's no life. Oh no, Ithink I made a mistake, and it

(12:03):
was life. Let me seetangent life. So I would just
reorganize some stuff. Yeah, Ijust, I made the same mistake. I
was typing tangelic.com eventangeliclife.org Okay, good. I
like to say it, becausesometimes people don't read the
show notes, so I'll put that inthe show notes. Is there any way
that people could talk directlyto you, contact you about what

(12:23):
you're doing, or if they haveany questions? Yeah. So we, if
you reach out to our kind ofcontact us page on the website,
you could write your message in,and then it'll kind of get
rerouted to the relevant person.
That's, um, yeah.
Anything else that you'd like totell us that I just want to, I

(12:44):
just want to first thank you forhaving me. It was a lot of fun.
I've only been on a food podcastbefore, so this is a great,
great experience. I find that itis, yeah, I want to thank
everyone listening. And yeah,just go and support your you
know, your NGO or nonprofit,for whatever particular field
you're interested in. And yeah,I want to thank you again. And

(13:04):
behalf of tangellic, we lookforward to hearing from you guys
that's so good. Thank you. Ifeel like we really help people
understand this is vital work,and it's like I said a million
times, but it's so important tosay it's connected to so many
other benefits in people'slives. Just this one initiative
that we were talking about hasso many wonderful, far reaching,

(13:27):
you know, benefits. And I don'tthink, like I said, I don't
think we I don't think peopleconnect it right away, and it's
so good to know about. And Ithank you so much for taking the
time, and I admire the work thatyou do. Thank you so much for
being on of course, thank youagain, and thanks for having me.
Have a good one. Bye.