May 7, 2025 • 22 mins
Paul Corvino sits down with Nuka Hart, CEO of Free Wheelchair Mission. The company is an international faith-based nonprofit, humanitarian organization providing wheelchairs for people with disabilities in developing nations who do not have the resources to obtain one, of whom the World Health Organization estimates number over 70 million.
https://www.freewheelchairmission.org/
https://www.freewheelchairmission.org/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is CEOs you should know with division president of iHeartMedia,
Paul Corvino. Today, I'm here with Nuka Hart, the CEO
of Free Wheelchair Mission, which is an organization that designs
and manufactures cost efficient wheelchairs for individuals living with disabilities
in developing countries.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Hey, before we get started and we get to learn
about you and your journey, what I like to do
is a quick rapid fire Q and A or I
ask you a quick question. It's a one word answer.
Oh the first that comes to your mind. It gets
your mind working and your mouth moving. You ready, I'm ready,
beat your ski vacation.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Oh, beach, beach, beach.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Michael Jordan or Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Beatles or Stones Beatles,
Star Wars or Godfather, Godfather, Sean Connery.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Or Daniel Craig, Sean Connery.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Celebrity people say you remind.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Them of Oh, that's easy, these are all easy. Carrie
Washington from Scandal, Oh very bifically that that role that she.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Played, I see that that was a pretty scary role.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So I don't know she's fear. She was smart. She
looked pretty good.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Welcome, Thank you for having me again.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
So let's learn a little bit about your journey. Where
did it start? Where are you from?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Where am I from?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
While I was raised in New York, so I'm a
New Yorker, fast talker, fast talking New Yorker. I was
born in Brooklyn, and I was raised the Boogie Down Bronx.
I was born in King's County Hospital. My parents both
immigrated from Haiti and both doctors. They didn't know each
(01:51):
other before coming to the hospital where they did their residencies,
and they started out there.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
They met there.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I was born there, and I lived in Brooklyn for
about a year of my life, and then I moved
to Long Island. I moved to a town called Great
Neck on the north shore. Ye people know it from
the Great Gatspeed's where the book was based, from.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Middle Neck Road exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
You know Middle Neck Road. You're a true New Yorker.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I ran the New York Times Long Island addition, based
in Garden City, Okay. There for several years. I spent
a lot of time shopping at the Americanimals.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Oh, the Americana.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
There was a Peter Luggers out there in Great Neck.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
That's right, Americana was like the big mall that you
aspired to go to by yourself without your parents and
you're a teenager.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
That was a miracle mile uh huh of.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
The street near near Manhasset.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yes, that whole ship to Billie Joel Sings.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, we're from the same place. We were meant to
be here.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
We're pretty close. So tell me. So you grew up
on Long Island.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah, I grew up on Long Island. So I'm a
patient descent immigrant household. So I grew up in a
bilingual household with lots of different foods and smells and
different things.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
My mom passed away when I was really young. My
dad remarried and then ended in a divorce, and I.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Moved to the West Coast.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
After college, I went to college and at Dartmouth College
in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Two doctors for parents. You go to an Ivy League college,
you're on your way. Did you study medicine? Were you? No?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
No, the opposite.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
So, like most immigrant families, education was extremely important. It
was drilled into me from the beginning that an education
could never be taken away from you, and I think
that's what drove me to be a high achiever in
terms of my education, but I did not pursue medicine.
I don't consider myself to be a stem person by nature,
(03:53):
though I find it really intriguing. I'm more of an
art person and humanitarian person. So I studied studio art
at Dartmouth and did that and then did on the
side a lot of work with a museum that was
up there on the border of Vermont and New Hampshire
called the Montshire Museum. It was a science museum, and
(04:16):
that was my first job, learning how to do everything
within the nonprofitas So.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
You studied art and your first job was in the
art field's let's tell us a story. How did you
get from there to running the wheelchair Mission?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, you know, I kind of think of myself as
having two brains. I have one side of my brain
that's artsy FARTSI and the other side of my brain
is like the humanitarian side. So I started out at
that museum learning the inner workings of a nonprofit straight
out of college or in college, and then that translated
to when I came to California working as a grant
(04:56):
writer and doing fundraising for your first.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Job working at the muse it was a nonprofit museum.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
It was a nonprofit science museum, science museum, not an
art museum, and it was basically doing everything.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Being a gofer, I.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Was an undergrad and I did a lot with operations.
At that time, the Internet was just coming to pass
and people were just using email for communications. So I
actually helped them to build some infrastructure. My team now
would probably laugh at this, but I helped them to
build a lot of back office infrastructure that they didn't have.
(05:34):
I learned the inner workings of what it was to
fundraise and to do logistics in the space of a nonprofit.
Just about two and a half years. Off and on,
there were summers that I was there, So I stayed
on campus throughout summers and work there, and then also
part time when I was studying.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeow, and so what was the next job from there?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Next job was a grant writing job for the Archdiocese
of Los Angele. So I moved to California straight out
of college, and that was my first job.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
I think I was here maybe a month.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So the first job while you were actually in college.
It was an internship.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
No, I wasn't an internship. It was it was a
job exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
A job while you were in college. Yeah, and then
you graduated from Dartmouth, and then you came out to Los.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Angeles, sunny Los Angeles, and I never left California. From there,
I became thin skinned. I ran away from all this exactly.
I ran away from all the snow that I endured
in New Hampshire. And I was a grant writer for
the archdiocese, which meant that I had to solicit grants,
to write the grants, and solicit big donors foundations.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And at the time, you are you very young, Yeah,
and then you're calling on I guess wealthy people or
you've got some sort of a list. You're just picking
up the phone and dialing or were they people at
that get.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I don't want to date myself. Yeah, I don't want
to date myself. But back then there weren't all of
these high net worth searches that you could do online, right,
So we had these books that we would look at
to research high net worth individuals to determine whether or
not they would be potential funders. And then the yes,
(07:14):
there were lists, and yes there were some calls, but
in the grant writing space, it's a lot of actual writing.
So a lot of sourcing of foundations and then determining
how you apply for the grant and then report on the.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Grand's some of the difficult things you had to overcome
it in order to get the grant.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
My age and I didn't know a lot of people.
You know, in the business of fundraising for any entity,
it's about relationships. Even if you're a grant writer, you
the relationships are king or queen. And I was just
straight out of college. I wasn't even married at the time.
I you know, I and I think I looked younger
(07:55):
than I was. And I don't know if people really
felt that what I was trying to, you know, pitch
was I don't know, reliable or something that they wanted
to fund. And I had to constantly prove myself and
that was probably the biggest obstacle proving myself. But I
don't think that's unusual for any young professional in any
(08:18):
line of business. You're constantly trying to demonstrate.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
That you have value.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
First success there, the biggest success actually was being told
that I could walk upstairs. At the time, there was
a cardinal and Cardinal Mahoney was the archbishop cardinal of
the Catholic Church. And I was told that I could
go upstairs and drop a letter on his desk that
(08:44):
I wrote that would have been written in his name.
And that was a huge honor to be able to
do that. Yeah, I mean, I felt like there were
so many layers between me and him, and the fact
that I was told that I could do that was huge.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
That's gratic. That's pretty exciting. Yeah, that's very exciting. So
how how many years did you work there?
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Just a few years and then I went and did art.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So I went back to the art world. I did.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
So I ran a studio, and this studio that I
ran was to teach art to children and adults. I
had well over one hundred and fifty students under my charge,
and I loved it.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It was fantastic.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
It was not fundraising, it wasn't nonprofit, it was for profit,
but it was my line of work, my love.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
The size of the brain fighting each other exactly. I'm
seeing there's this business side where you're doing fundraising and
you see a future there, But I'm seeing someone that
still wants to remain an artist. How do you balance
the two of these out? Or maybe that's eventually what
got you to where you are.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I don't think it's always easy to balance for me
currently because of the leadership position that I have, but
it comes into play in different things that I do.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Now, Uh, how do I balance it?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
My artist side is more of a hobby now, it's
not my main business. I could see it down the
road in retirement being you know, my maybe a business
or something that I do full time. But I'm not
gonna lie. I have a very serious position. It takes
up a lot of my time. So unfortunately or fortunately,
I'm not standing in front of an easel every day,
(10:33):
but I have my easel behind me. When I take
my zoom calls. A lot of people can see it
unless I blur my screen. And it's a reminder to
me that I need to keep, you know, on top
of my talent and to apply it where appropriate in
my day job.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Okay, So now what pulled you away from that world?
It's getting the nonprofit profit space.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
It's timed for me to go back.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Is wilchair Mission a nonprofit.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Free willchair Mission is a five on one, say three
nonprofit organization. It's been in existence for twenty four years,
based headquartered in southern California.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And how did you get there, How did you go
from the art.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
I was recruited.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I was in another job before that, working for a
United Way of Greater Los Angeles doing fundraising. I had
earned my stripes as a fundraiser.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
And was good fundraiser is always in demand.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
It is actually one of the hardest positions to fill
when you're in this world. Very hard to find and
it's competitive. But yeah, I was doing major gifts fundraising
and also operations what we called development operations at unit
Away of Greater Los Angeles and I was recruited. I had,
(11:53):
as I said, earned my stripes. I think as a
good fundraiser. I had raised millions of dollars and I
was very proud of that. But I'm not going to
lie that there was something nagging at me that I
wasn't doing enough enough to fulfill my life. And I
think that goes back to my heritage. So now we're
in twenty sixteen. When I was recruited to come to
(12:17):
Free Wheelchair, the earthquake in Haiti had been about six
years old, the big, big one that they had in
twenty ten, and at that time I had a lot
of guilt.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I was kind of thinking here.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
I am in this beautiful place, and there's poverty and
issues here, but it's not on the scale of what
Haiti suffers, and.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Even what we're seeing now as bad as Oh. Absolutely,
we don't have people living in the conditions that they
lived in Haiti after that earthquake.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Absolutely, and I felt like I wasn't doing enough. I
mean there were things that I was doing to you know,
just privately. You have family, Oh yeah, and I still do.
I just actually spoke to my cousin last night. Yeah,
I have family there a close People that are very
very close to me mean a lot to me. And
(13:11):
that earthquake really rocked me. And it made me, like
I said, feel guilty about not doing enough for the world,
so to speak. And so I was recruited by free
Will Chair Mission and didn't realize at the time that
I wanted to work there. I kind of looked at
it as well, why would I leave my current position.
I know nothing about wheelchairs? Why would I do that?
(13:35):
I Mean the closest thing I knew to wheelchairs was
seeing people in my dad's office when he was an
orthopedic surgeon, being wheeled in and working there sometimes to
help him out but beyond that, didn't really know a
lot about it. And it was when I saw the
breath of the impact that they were making and Haiti
(13:56):
was one of the countries that had benefited. And obviously
then after the interview process that I just knew I
wanted to be a part of it. And what year
I got the gig. I was recruited in twenty sixteen.
I started in twenty seventeen. In February, I gave my
old employer two months notice.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And what job did you start as.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
A I started? My title was executive director. My current
title is CEO. In the nonprofit world, it's synonymous. There
as some nonprofits that call a CEO an executive director,
or some call them like we do now with mine, CEO.
And you know, my title changed as a promotion maybe
a year or two years in a lot of it
(14:36):
having to do with just also offering clarity to our
supporters because our founder was still involved at the time
and he held the president title, and it was a
little confusing I think for some to understand, well, you know,
how does this work. She's leading the team and leading
the organization, but yet the founder's still involved.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
You went from one world class charital organization. Yes to
wheelchair mission, which is a big jump and it's a
big decision. You had to think, what was it about
wheelchair mission that excited you? It drove you together to
go there.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
It excited me that there was a clear and distinct
impact that I could communicate to a donor. So if
you gave a donation around one hundred dollars, then I
could tell you where is it.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
An ongoing donation or is it a one time donation?
Speaker 3 (15:28):
No, we have that as an option, so people could
be a recurring giver and they could automatically do that,
but you can also just give a one time donation.
So in the example of a one time I could
tell you where your wheelchair that you donated went, and
I could tell you the container that was full of
approximately five hundred wheelchairs when it was shipped, loaded, manufactured,
(15:50):
et cetera. Whereas in the previous jobs that I've held,
it's been a little murky and confusing to communicate the impact.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
And it's very much from a fifty thousand foot view,
and they do a lot of good, but this you
actually see absolutely, this is where the wheelchair is going,
this is who's going to get it exaest and you
see the effect you have on an individual's life. That's
exciting exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So that was one of the big draws.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
And I think that obviously, after going on the trips
and seeing the work firsthand, I was hooked, you know.
And the first wheelchair that I gave out was to
a guy, a boy in a Haiti. My first trip
was there and I got to give out a wheelchair
to a boy who lost his leg in an earthquake.
(16:39):
In that earthquake, he was an amputee and lost his
leg and was hobbling around on crutches for eight years
before I got to.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Eight years before he was able to get a wheelchair.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
That's right. So the wheelchair I gave Tom.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Eight years not able to walk and all he needed
was a wheelchair.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I kid you not.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
So he went back and forth to school thirty minutes
each way in a town that currently is being rocked
by you know, violence in the capitol, and he would
do it on crutches, and the crutches he was using
were pretty beat up.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
And I mean, and this boy, and all.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
It takes is one hundred dollars, yeah, approximately, Yeah, to
get a wheelchair. That's like less than what we're going
to spend for lunch today.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
For sure, and he could have unless than the wheelchairs
you could purchase here in the States too.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yes, and so for that one hundred dollars, you've really
changed that person's life. How do people if someone wants
to make that donation, how do they go out and
do that?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Well, first of all, you could go to Free Wheelchairmission
dot org and then obviously follow us on Instagram it's
FWI mission, or on our Facebook page or any of
our other channels, and there's lots of opportunities to give
and to be involved and to share about the need.
Because what I learned very quickly is how that it
(18:00):
is there's eighty million people in the world, the World
Health Organization estimates that need a wheelchair at any GAMA time. Yeah,
and the vast majority of them do not have access
to one.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And this is something that really changes a person's life.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
That's I mean, it's you know, I think the closest
thing that we in the States could come to understand
it is what happened during COVID, Right, So if we
were in a lockdown situation where you weren't able to
get out as much and or you actually had COVID
and you were quarantined and you were desperate to get
(18:37):
outside and you couldn't because you didn't want to infect others. Right,
that's what it's like to not have a wheelchair on
a on a big, much bigger scale. Right.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Well, it takes.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, and then that individual.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Change someone's life.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Absolutely, Then you can get out and be with your
community and at minimum get out in the sunlight people.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
If someone makes you don'tate, will they get to know
who it went to?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
It depends.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
So there are times when we offer for volunteers to
be able to go on trips, and absolutely there are
ways for us to share stories with individuals. Yes, but
with the amount that we're giving out it's about one
hundred and seventy five per day wheelchairs that we give out.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
You have one hundred and seventy five day. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Yeah, And our goal this year, I think is about
sixty six thousand wheelchairs and we've given.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Million people that need them, so it's got to take
a little while to get to them.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
So when did you become CEO.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Well, I started, like I said, in twenty seventeen. My
title changed I think it was in twenty eighteen twenty
nineteen somewhere in there to CEO, but my responsibilities remain
the same, so I basically oversee the entire staff and
all the strategy related to the organization. I get the
pleasure and the honor of being able to help give
(19:54):
out wheelchairs and work with a core group of volunteers,
board members, all kinds of people around the world. It's
not just here in the United States that are well
intentioned that want to make a difference.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
It is the most rewarding job.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
What would you tell the twenty one year old Nucohart.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
I would tell her to learn more than just one language,
which I am bilingual in French Engluighe. I would tell
her to learn more than one language because I think
that is the key to integration of culture in the
world is being multilingual.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
I would also tell her to read a lot.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
More than she already did at a young age, because
I think that has helped me to also be a
better communicator in different circles that I've had to run in.
And I'd also tell her to be patient. There have
been times in my life that I haven't been patient,
(21:00):
and I think patients is really important.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
It's listening. I need to learn, and we're here with Nukahrt,
the CEO of Free Wheelchair Mission. Thank you so much
for coming on. We tell the audience once more how
they can make a donation and really change a person's life.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
First and foremost, visit our website freeweelchair Mission dot org
and check out any of the pages on our website
where there's tons of resources related to how to donate
and engage, participate in events and then also volunteer. And
then we have tons of social media channels like our
(21:38):
Instagram and our Facebook FW mission on Instagram where people
can see firsthand the stories of impact that I was
just sharing and be more engaged with us and potentially
share with our friends and family dollars.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
You can really change a person's life, That's right, That's
something to really really think about. So go go to
your computers, go to your phone, whatever it means you do,
and put in once again Freewheelchair Mission dot org. Freewheelchair
Mission dot org. Thank you so much, Nuka for.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Coming on, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
This is Paul Corvino, Division President and iHeartMedia and Los
Angeles saying thank you for listening to another episode of
CEOs you Should Know.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Listen to CEOs you Should Know on the iHeartRadio app
This is CEOs you should know with division president of iHeartMedia,
Paul Corvino. Today, I'm here with Nuka Hart, the CEO
of Free Wheelchair Mission, which is an organization that designs
and manufactures cost efficient wheelchairs for individuals living with disabilities
in developing countries.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Hey, before we get started and we get to learn
about you and your journey, what I like to do
is a quick rapid fire Q and A or I
ask you a quick question. It's a one word answer.
Oh the first that comes to your mind. It gets
your mind working and your mouth moving. You ready, I'm ready,
beat your ski vacation.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Oh, beach, beach, beach.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Michael Jordan or Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Beatles or Stones Beatles,
Star Wars or Godfather, Godfather, Sean Connery.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Or Daniel Craig, Sean Connery.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Celebrity people say you remind.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Them of Oh, that's easy, these are all easy. Carrie
Washington from Scandal, Oh very bifically that that role that she.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Played, I see that that was a pretty scary role.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So I don't know she's fear. She was smart. She
looked pretty good.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Welcome, Thank you for having me again.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
So let's learn a little bit about your journey. Where
did it start? Where are you from?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Where am I from?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
While I was raised in New York, so I'm a
New Yorker, fast talker, fast talking New Yorker. I was
born in Brooklyn, and I was raised the Boogie Down Bronx.
I was born in King's County Hospital. My parents both
immigrated from Haiti and both doctors. They didn't know each
(01:51):
other before coming to the hospital where they did their residencies,
and they started out there.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
They met there.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I was born there, and I lived in Brooklyn for
about a year of my life, and then I moved
to Long Island. I moved to a town called Great
Neck on the north shore. Ye people know it from
the Great Gatspeed's where the book was based, from.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Middle Neck Road exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
You know Middle Neck Road. You're a true New Yorker.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I ran the New York Times Long Island addition, based
in Garden City, Okay. There for several years. I spent
a lot of time shopping at the Americanimals.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Oh, the Americana.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
There was a Peter Luggers out there in Great Neck.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
That's right, Americana was like the big mall that you
aspired to go to by yourself without your parents and
you're a teenager.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
That was a miracle mile uh huh of.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
The street near near Manhasset.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yes, that whole ship to Billie Joel Sings.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, we're from the same place. We were meant to
be here.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
We're pretty close. So tell me. So you grew up
on Long Island.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah, I grew up on Long Island. So I'm a
patient descent immigrant household. So I grew up in a
bilingual household with lots of different foods and smells and
different things.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
My mom passed away when I was really young. My
dad remarried and then ended in a divorce, and I.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Moved to the West Coast.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
After college, I went to college and at Dartmouth College
in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Two doctors for parents. You go to an Ivy League college,
you're on your way. Did you study medicine? Were you? No?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
No, the opposite.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
So, like most immigrant families, education was extremely important. It
was drilled into me from the beginning that an education
could never be taken away from you, and I think
that's what drove me to be a high achiever in
terms of my education, but I did not pursue medicine.
I don't consider myself to be a stem person by nature,
(03:53):
though I find it really intriguing. I'm more of an
art person and humanitarian person. So I studied studio art
at Dartmouth and did that and then did on the
side a lot of work with a museum that was
up there on the border of Vermont and New Hampshire
called the Montshire Museum. It was a science museum, and
(04:16):
that was my first job, learning how to do everything
within the nonprofitas So.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
You studied art and your first job was in the
art field's let's tell us a story. How did you
get from there to running the wheelchair Mission?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, you know, I kind of think of myself as
having two brains. I have one side of my brain
that's artsy FARTSI and the other side of my brain
is like the humanitarian side. So I started out at
that museum learning the inner workings of a nonprofit straight
out of college or in college, and then that translated
to when I came to California working as a grant
(04:56):
writer and doing fundraising for your first.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Job working at the muse it was a nonprofit museum.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
It was a nonprofit science museum, science museum, not an
art museum, and it was basically doing everything.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Being a gofer, I.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Was an undergrad and I did a lot with operations.
At that time, the Internet was just coming to pass
and people were just using email for communications. So I
actually helped them to build some infrastructure. My team now
would probably laugh at this, but I helped them to
build a lot of back office infrastructure that they didn't have.
(05:34):
I learned the inner workings of what it was to
fundraise and to do logistics in the space of a nonprofit.
Just about two and a half years. Off and on,
there were summers that I was there, So I stayed
on campus throughout summers and work there, and then also
part time when I was studying.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeow, and so what was the next job from there?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Next job was a grant writing job for the Archdiocese
of Los Angele. So I moved to California straight out
of college, and that was my first job.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
I think I was here maybe a month.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So the first job while you were actually in college.
It was an internship.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
No, I wasn't an internship. It was it was a
job exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
A job while you were in college. Yeah, and then
you graduated from Dartmouth, and then you came out to Los.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Angeles, sunny Los Angeles, and I never left California. From there,
I became thin skinned. I ran away from all this exactly.
I ran away from all the snow that I endured
in New Hampshire. And I was a grant writer for
the archdiocese, which meant that I had to solicit grants,
to write the grants, and solicit big donors foundations.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And at the time, you are you very young, Yeah,
and then you're calling on I guess wealthy people or
you've got some sort of a list. You're just picking
up the phone and dialing or were they people at
that get.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I don't want to date myself. Yeah, I don't want
to date myself. But back then there weren't all of
these high net worth searches that you could do online, right,
So we had these books that we would look at
to research high net worth individuals to determine whether or
not they would be potential funders. And then the yes,
(07:14):
there were lists, and yes there were some calls, but
in the grant writing space, it's a lot of actual writing.
So a lot of sourcing of foundations and then determining
how you apply for the grant and then report on the.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Grand's some of the difficult things you had to overcome
it in order to get the grant.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
My age and I didn't know a lot of people.
You know, in the business of fundraising for any entity,
it's about relationships. Even if you're a grant writer, you
the relationships are king or queen. And I was just
straight out of college. I wasn't even married at the time.
I you know, I and I think I looked younger
(07:55):
than I was. And I don't know if people really
felt that what I was trying to, you know, pitch
was I don't know, reliable or something that they wanted
to fund. And I had to constantly prove myself and
that was probably the biggest obstacle proving myself. But I
don't think that's unusual for any young professional in any
(08:18):
line of business. You're constantly trying to demonstrate.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
That you have value.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
First success there, the biggest success actually was being told
that I could walk upstairs. At the time, there was
a cardinal and Cardinal Mahoney was the archbishop cardinal of
the Catholic Church. And I was told that I could
go upstairs and drop a letter on his desk that
(08:44):
I wrote that would have been written in his name.
And that was a huge honor to be able to
do that. Yeah, I mean, I felt like there were
so many layers between me and him, and the fact
that I was told that I could do that was huge.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
That's gratic. That's pretty exciting. Yeah, that's very exciting. So
how how many years did you work there?
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Just a few years and then I went and did art.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So I went back to the art world. I did.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
So I ran a studio, and this studio that I
ran was to teach art to children and adults. I
had well over one hundred and fifty students under my charge,
and I loved it.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It was fantastic.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
It was not fundraising, it wasn't nonprofit, it was for profit,
but it was my line of work, my love.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
The size of the brain fighting each other exactly. I'm
seeing there's this business side where you're doing fundraising and
you see a future there, But I'm seeing someone that
still wants to remain an artist. How do you balance
the two of these out? Or maybe that's eventually what
got you to where you are.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I don't think it's always easy to balance for me
currently because of the leadership position that I have, but
it comes into play in different things that I do.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Now, Uh, how do I balance it?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
My artist side is more of a hobby now, it's
not my main business. I could see it down the
road in retirement being you know, my maybe a business
or something that I do full time. But I'm not
gonna lie. I have a very serious position. It takes
up a lot of my time. So unfortunately or fortunately,
I'm not standing in front of an easel every day,
(10:33):
but I have my easel behind me. When I take
my zoom calls. A lot of people can see it
unless I blur my screen. And it's a reminder to
me that I need to keep, you know, on top
of my talent and to apply it where appropriate in
my day job.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Okay, So now what pulled you away from that world?
It's getting the nonprofit profit space.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
It's timed for me to go back.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Is wilchair Mission a nonprofit.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Free willchair Mission is a five on one, say three
nonprofit organization. It's been in existence for twenty four years,
based headquartered in southern California.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And how did you get there, How did you go
from the art.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
I was recruited.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I was in another job before that, working for a
United Way of Greater Los Angeles doing fundraising. I had
earned my stripes as a fundraiser.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
And was good fundraiser is always in demand.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
It is actually one of the hardest positions to fill
when you're in this world. Very hard to find and
it's competitive. But yeah, I was doing major gifts fundraising
and also operations what we called development operations at unit
Away of Greater Los Angeles and I was recruited. I had,
(11:53):
as I said, earned my stripes. I think as a
good fundraiser. I had raised millions of dollars and I
was very proud of that. But I'm not going to
lie that there was something nagging at me that I
wasn't doing enough enough to fulfill my life. And I
think that goes back to my heritage. So now we're
in twenty sixteen. When I was recruited to come to
(12:17):
Free Wheelchair, the earthquake in Haiti had been about six
years old, the big, big one that they had in
twenty ten, and at that time I had a lot
of guilt.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I was kind of thinking here.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
I am in this beautiful place, and there's poverty and
issues here, but it's not on the scale of what
Haiti suffers, and.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Even what we're seeing now as bad as Oh. Absolutely,
we don't have people living in the conditions that they
lived in Haiti after that earthquake.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Absolutely, and I felt like I wasn't doing enough. I
mean there were things that I was doing to you know,
just privately. You have family, Oh yeah, and I still do.
I just actually spoke to my cousin last night. Yeah,
I have family there a close People that are very
very close to me mean a lot to me. And
(13:11):
that earthquake really rocked me. And it made me, like
I said, feel guilty about not doing enough for the world,
so to speak. And so I was recruited by free
Will Chair Mission and didn't realize at the time that
I wanted to work there. I kind of looked at
it as well, why would I leave my current position.
I know nothing about wheelchairs? Why would I do that?
(13:35):
I Mean the closest thing I knew to wheelchairs was
seeing people in my dad's office when he was an
orthopedic surgeon, being wheeled in and working there sometimes to
help him out but beyond that, didn't really know a
lot about it. And it was when I saw the
breath of the impact that they were making and Haiti
(13:56):
was one of the countries that had benefited. And obviously
then after the interview process that I just knew I
wanted to be a part of it. And what year
I got the gig. I was recruited in twenty sixteen.
I started in twenty seventeen. In February, I gave my
old employer two months notice.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And what job did you start as.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
A I started? My title was executive director. My current
title is CEO. In the nonprofit world, it's synonymous. There
as some nonprofits that call a CEO an executive director,
or some call them like we do now with mine, CEO.
And you know, my title changed as a promotion maybe
a year or two years in a lot of it
(14:36):
having to do with just also offering clarity to our
supporters because our founder was still involved at the time
and he held the president title, and it was a
little confusing I think for some to understand, well, you know,
how does this work. She's leading the team and leading
the organization, but yet the founder's still involved.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
You went from one world class charital organization. Yes to
wheelchair mission, which is a big jump and it's a
big decision. You had to think, what was it about
wheelchair mission that excited you? It drove you together to
go there.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
It excited me that there was a clear and distinct
impact that I could communicate to a donor. So if
you gave a donation around one hundred dollars, then I
could tell you where is it.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
An ongoing donation or is it a one time donation?
Speaker 3 (15:28):
No, we have that as an option, so people could
be a recurring giver and they could automatically do that,
but you can also just give a one time donation.
So in the example of a one time I could
tell you where your wheelchair that you donated went, and
I could tell you the container that was full of
approximately five hundred wheelchairs when it was shipped, loaded, manufactured,
(15:50):
et cetera. Whereas in the previous jobs that I've held,
it's been a little murky and confusing to communicate the impact.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
And it's very much from a fifty thousand foot view,
and they do a lot of good, but this you
actually see absolutely, this is where the wheelchair is going,
this is who's going to get it exaest and you
see the effect you have on an individual's life. That's
exciting exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So that was one of the big draws.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
And I think that obviously, after going on the trips
and seeing the work firsthand, I was hooked, you know.
And the first wheelchair that I gave out was to
a guy, a boy in a Haiti. My first trip
was there and I got to give out a wheelchair
to a boy who lost his leg in an earthquake.
(16:39):
In that earthquake, he was an amputee and lost his
leg and was hobbling around on crutches for eight years
before I got to.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Eight years before he was able to get a wheelchair.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
That's right. So the wheelchair I gave Tom.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Eight years not able to walk and all he needed
was a wheelchair.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I kid you not.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
So he went back and forth to school thirty minutes
each way in a town that currently is being rocked
by you know, violence in the capitol, and he would
do it on crutches, and the crutches he was using
were pretty beat up.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
And I mean, and this boy, and all.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
It takes is one hundred dollars, yeah, approximately, Yeah, to
get a wheelchair. That's like less than what we're going
to spend for lunch today.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
For sure, and he could have unless than the wheelchairs
you could purchase here in the States too.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yes, and so for that one hundred dollars, you've really
changed that person's life. How do people if someone wants
to make that donation, how do they go out and
do that?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Well, first of all, you could go to Free Wheelchairmission
dot org and then obviously follow us on Instagram it's
FWI mission, or on our Facebook page or any of
our other channels, and there's lots of opportunities to give
and to be involved and to share about the need.
Because what I learned very quickly is how that it
(18:00):
is there's eighty million people in the world, the World
Health Organization estimates that need a wheelchair at any GAMA time. Yeah,
and the vast majority of them do not have access
to one.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And this is something that really changes a person's life.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
That's I mean, it's you know, I think the closest
thing that we in the States could come to understand
it is what happened during COVID, Right, So if we
were in a lockdown situation where you weren't able to
get out as much and or you actually had COVID
and you were quarantined and you were desperate to get
(18:37):
outside and you couldn't because you didn't want to infect others. Right,
that's what it's like to not have a wheelchair on
a on a big, much bigger scale. Right.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Well, it takes.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, and then that individual.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Change someone's life.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Absolutely, Then you can get out and be with your
community and at minimum get out in the sunlight people.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
If someone makes you don'tate, will they get to know
who it went to?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
It depends.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
So there are times when we offer for volunteers to
be able to go on trips, and absolutely there are
ways for us to share stories with individuals. Yes, but
with the amount that we're giving out it's about one
hundred and seventy five per day wheelchairs that we give out.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
You have one hundred and seventy five day. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Yeah, And our goal this year, I think is about
sixty six thousand wheelchairs and we've given.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Million people that need them, so it's got to take
a little while to get to them.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
So when did you become CEO.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Well, I started, like I said, in twenty seventeen. My
title changed I think it was in twenty eighteen twenty
nineteen somewhere in there to CEO, but my responsibilities remain
the same, so I basically oversee the entire staff and
all the strategy related to the organization. I get the
pleasure and the honor of being able to help give
(19:54):
out wheelchairs and work with a core group of volunteers,
board members, all kinds of people around the world. It's
not just here in the United States that are well
intentioned that want to make a difference.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
It is the most rewarding job.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
What would you tell the twenty one year old Nucohart.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
I would tell her to learn more than just one language,
which I am bilingual in French Engluighe. I would tell
her to learn more than one language because I think
that is the key to integration of culture in the
world is being multilingual.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
I would also tell her to read a lot.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
More than she already did at a young age, because
I think that has helped me to also be a
better communicator in different circles that I've had to run in.
And I'd also tell her to be patient. There have
been times in my life that I haven't been patient,
(21:00):
and I think patients is really important.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
It's listening. I need to learn, and we're here with Nukahrt,
the CEO of Free Wheelchair Mission. Thank you so much
for coming on. We tell the audience once more how
they can make a donation and really change a person's life.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
First and foremost, visit our website freeweelchair Mission dot org
and check out any of the pages on our website
where there's tons of resources related to how to donate
and engage, participate in events and then also volunteer. And
then we have tons of social media channels like our
(21:38):
Instagram and our Facebook FW mission on Instagram where people
can see firsthand the stories of impact that I was
just sharing and be more engaged with us and potentially
share with our friends and family dollars.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
You can really change a person's life, That's right, That's
something to really really think about. So go go to
your computers, go to your phone, whatever it means you do,
and put in once again Freewheelchair Mission dot org. Freewheelchair
Mission dot org. Thank you so much, Nuka for.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Coming on, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
This is Paul Corvino, Division President and iHeartMedia and Los
Angeles saying thank you for listening to another episode of
CEOs you Should Know.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Listen to CEOs you Should Know on the iHeartRadio app
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