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Forging Ahead
Kjerstin Erickson was 20 when she launched FORGE. She didn't have a business plan. She didn't have a revenue model. She didn't have connections. And she didn't have a penny. But she now works in three refugee camps in Zambia, helping 60,000 refugees build better lives. This is her story.
2008-05-06
It's About Time
Don't get me wrong - we couldn't do much at all with funds - but no matter how low our bank accounts get, funds aren't the biggest constraint. I don't think it's a ground-breaking statement, but I do think it's important to highlight that to me and to many other entrepreneurs (social or otherwise) that I know, the greatest constraint is actually time. In the non-profit world, funds are always scarce and in high demand. But if you're good at what you do and promote your work properly, money will come. What limits your ability is time.
When I think about it, the one thing that is limited to any one person is time. I find myself constantly having to prioritize one thing over another thing that itself is a major priority. I find myself second-guessing every choice I make regarding time. But it's the way it goes… this is the investment.
The good thing is that I do see a light at the end of the tunnel. As those of us in FORGE have invested our time, our skills, and our lives, things have steadied. We now have four years of results to point to. We have a staff that has stood the test of time and can propel FORGE forward. Our contacts have increased and our upcoming new model is designed to turn a lot of our responsibilities over to the community itself. All these things add up to more time to do some of things that we haven't been able to get to yet. In the end, we'll probably fill up our plates just as full as they've already been because in this line of business, you can simply never do enough...
2008-04-29
Flexibility in Structure
FORGE Education Fund – University (FEF-U) runs on a tight budget. Each selected scholar is granted tuition as well as a very basic living stipend. From the beginning, FEF-U scholars are required to manage their stipend for food, basic health care, daily transport, extra clothes, etc. It's not a lavish life… just enough to be happy and healthy while studying.
We often receive requests for more support on the financial level from FEF-U Scholars, but it's something we philosophically choose not to do. The program exists to provide opportunities to education, and not to create a luxurious lifestyle. Our budget is spread as thin as it can responsibly be spread. We frequently and heart-breakingly must simply say 'no' when it comes to FEF-U requests.
The other day, however, we just couldn't. Thom, one of the FEF-U scholars, had just taken a very expensive bus trip from Lusaka, the capital city, to Kala Camp. Thom's journey was to accompany his sister back to the camp after a medical trip to the city. Thom's sister was dying of incurable lung cancer and Thom would not let her travel alone. The voyage wiped out Thom's reserve moneys.
Only hours after he returned to Lusaka, Thom got word from Kala that his sister had died. Needless to say, he needed money to get back to Kala for his sister's funeral and her familial arrangements. Ordinarily, this would be against FEF-U policy… we don't supplement the monthly living stipend. However, how can we deny this request? Explaining that we cannot bolster funds for the purchase of clothes is one thing, but looking at a friend and an integral part of FEF-U and telling him that we cannot support his trip to his sister's funeral is unthinkable.
It may seem simple, but I think it's important that fixation on the grease and gears of the organization isn't counterproductive to its fuel. Some of the best advice I've either received or spread has been on remaining firm in our adherence to policy. But some of the most important little decisions I've made have been when policy was re-worked to better serve a critical situation.
2008-04-15
from struggle comes innovation
There are two types of tough times in life: those that are part of the natural ebb and flow of life, and those that represent something deeper that needs to be fixed. In enterprise, as in life, there are inevitably good times and bad. I've never met a leader who hasn't had his or her share of ups and downs. Being prepared for tough times and knowing how to stay upbeat and keep them in perspective is an important trait of any entrepreneur. But equally important is knowing when a tough time is more than just a downturn in the inevitable roller coaster, and actually is symptomatic of some greater opportunity that is being missed.
FORGE's new People-Powered Development Model is a good example of a tough time leading us to spawn a new development. Over the summer of 2007, it became clear that FORGE was outgrowing its old staffing model. Both Nick (Nicholas Talarico, FORGE Operations Director) and I were frustrated by the time and energy that we put into managing our 45 American volunteers, especially in comparison to the minimal management needed by our 150 refugee staff members. It was becoming more and more clear to both Nick and I that FORGE needed to rely less on Western volunteers.
Watching our 25 established projects blossom under refugee direction, we knew that it was time to fully turn over project implementation to the refugee communities. There was a clear gap in funding, however. Whereas Western Project Facilitators raised the funds necessary to implement projects, refugees had no such opportunity. The question remained: how could we fund multiple refugee-led projects moving forward?
Realizing that without the burden of managing dozens of non-refugee staff, we could more properly fundraise for and promote FORGE, we saw an opportunity. We decided to sharply scale down the size of our Western staff. We hired an experienced grant writer in Ms. Annelisa Pedersen. We played on some experience building web-based businesses, as well as ideas from other, similar fundraising models. When the brainstorming was done, we had a plan to bring the stories, sights, and sounds of refugee life to the global public. We would promote refugee-conceived projects on a state-of-the-art website and raise funds in small increments from many donors. We would drive traffic to the website through grassroots promotion.
This process is far from done, but it all began with a time of realtive struggle - a time when it felt that our energies were not producing the most efficient results. Hardships and downturns are an unavoidable part of nonprofit life, and a key function of a leader is to keep the team focused through the tough times. But sometimes those tough times are signs of opportunity. I'm happy that I've started to develop an intuition to discrimate between the inevitable ups and downs and the times when there is an opportunity for us to do things a better way.
- Kjerstin Erickson
2008-04-08
Gene Pool
Conventional wisdom would tell you to go for the best, bottom line. Is this person driven by excellence? Are they truly outstanding? These are simple, yet important questions that any hiring company or organization might ask. If you can answer 'yes' to both, it's a good sign.
FORGE is fortunate enough to have some truly exceptional people applying to work – for nothing more than a small travel stipend – on the ground, in Zambia, for a year. Each cycle, our applicant pool increases in size and we often feel like we have to turn down people who would be great in the field.
The question we've been grappling with of late, however, is the one I posed above. Does the best individual get the job, or should it be the one who best complements the people who are already place or who have already been selected?
Quite frankly, the core staff of FORGE has yet to answer that question. One moment, some will feel strongly about one applicant and others will oppose. Then, after a few good arguments, the roles will reverse and one side will submit while the other joins the "opposition."
Relationships matter… we've seen bad pairings hamper the work of strong individuals. But, we've also seen impressive people overcome awkward relationships and turn in remarkable performances. When serving 20,000 unique people and personalities in a camp, variety can go a long way. But can strong people skills overcome less-than-strong intellectual prowess?
There has to be a line that straddles the camps. Where is it?
2008-03-31
Finishing My Degree
It's a running joke within FORGE that the Executive Director (myself) is the least-educated of all of our staff. It's funny, but sometimes it becomes pretty clear that I need to finish my education. I was a junior at Stanford when I started FORGE, and by the end of my junior year I had decided to stop out of college and dedicate the entirety of my energies to growing and improving the organization.
I spent a full 2 and a half years out of school before finishing a few more units of credit in the first half of 2007. I am now only 13 credits away from finally obtaining my bachelor's degree…and I'm about to do it. Needless to say, developing FORGE has returned a savvy unlike any I could learned elsewhere. But… formally completing the education I started is an important milestone.
Spring quarter starts tomorrow, and then graduation day is just 10 weeks away. I live and work in Oakland and Palo Alto is a good 45 minutes away with no traffic – it's a weird thing to be commuting to school. Worst of all, I hate spending meaningful time away from FORGE. While I will continue to put in my full-time work weeks, I will of course have to spend less time than I otherwise would.
I've always loved academics and thrive on conceptual thinking. However, I only care about philosophies to the extent that they can be actualized and pursued. Thinking to me has always been a tool to inform intelligent action. In university, all too often, thinking is often treated as an end unto its own.
My Public Policy degree has actually been very good at preparing me for an action-oriented approach to life and society: how to recognize problems, analyze them, and create best-fit solutions. I've appreciated the rigorous analytical framework that it it has given me, and the extensive economic and mathematical emphasis that it has incorporated. At the same time, I can't escape the feeling that I am learning more (and accomplishing more) by doing work rather than problem sets and papers.
But yet I am reminded that it is just 10 weeks, a mere 13 units, and that Oprah will be the graduation speaker. Wish me luck 
!
2008-03-24
The Moral of the Story is....
Read below for an insightful story and philosophical commentary from my friend Kwase, a Sudanese refugee in his mid-twenties.
When I was 7 years old, my mother told me that my family was enemies with my uncle’s wife and that they have not greeted each other for the last ten years though the distant between our home and their home was less than three miles.
I asked her what was the cause of all those conflicts. She told me one time my elder brother was playing with my uncle’s son who later cut my brother on the head using a knife and my uncle’s wife supported her son wrongly. She said that my father and my uncle tried to solve the problem but she was not happy at all. She told me not to visit my uncle’s family and she said that my uncle’s wife can easily kill me. I told my mom that I didn’t know all that had happen between them and I was sorry because I have been eating and playing together with my uncle’s children as their home was closer to school than ours.
I asked my mom if my uncle’s children were enemies to our family as some of them were not yet born when they fought with my uncle’s wife and if she can allow me to play with them because our teacher told us that all children are brothers and sisters, they can sometimes fight but live and play together all the time. Mom told me to listen and follow what she has told me and to not ask any questions. I kept quiet and didn’t not bother to ask my father about what happened, because my mom was more friendly to me than my dad and I used to trust her very much. But after experiencing war for myself and thinking back on that experience I have learned the following lessons:
- The fact that families and communities all over the world still keep on telling the young about their old enemies and they want them to continue living in enmity makes it very difficult for the peace makers to do their job.
- For peace to cover the whole world, we need a great change in our mindset . I know it is not easy but we have to face it, if we are interested in peace, because I always ask myself before I ask others, does it mean that if my grandfather failed to bring peace than all the coming generation will fail to break through? The answer is a BIG “NO” and how long are we going to keep on inheriting enmity from our ancestors?
- Another lesson I learned is that time and environment keep on changing and it is a big task to the current generation that we try our best at our time to bring peace to the world through interactions, forgiveness, understanding of human values, and fair judgment. Of course, all these may not be possible without patience and sacrifice, both moral and material.
- Finally I also learnt that it would be a grave mistake for us to go in solving problems without consulting the elders who one time tried their best in bring peace and failed, because it is from their weaknesses and strengths that we the new generation can come up with a powerful modern tool to solve problems.
By Kwase Mohamed
2008-03-20
Ummmm....?
I’m facing a classic social entrepreneur’s challenge: balancing my time between doing what I do and talking about doing what I do. As you can see, I haven’t posted a new blog post in way too long. If you’ve been following this blog, you may have wondered to yourself ‘what happened to FORGE? Are they still doing anything?”
I don’t blame you for asking, because I’ve broken a cardinal rule of nonprofit leadership: if you don’t maintain strong and open communication, you can’t expect people to trust what you are doing and how well you are doing it.
But man, it’s hard! The irony of course is that it’s just when you are doing the most that you have the least time to tell people about it. The last four months have brought a whirlwind of advancements and milestones for FORGE: we have designed, refined, and launched a new Collaborative Project Planning Process that puts the creative control of the projects in the hands of the refugees themselves, we have trained and placed new staff in the field, we have been working hard to advance and improve our Microfinance Institute, and we have been building a new, state-of-the-art, interactive website to partner with our new project model…and a lot more.
Yet unfortunately, I’ve been talking about none of it. I started this blog for a purpose: to communicate with the world about the thing I am most passionate about - the work that FORGE is doing to improve the lives and future prospects of people displaced by war in Africa. My goals through this blog were to a) inspire others to think about the tragedies and opportunities of forced migration in Africa, b) share some of the challenges I’ve faced and lessons I’ve learned as a founder of a ambitious international NGO with other social entrepreneurs, and c) advance the conversation about how ordinary citizens can contribute to social progress in meaningful and intelligent ways.
I still believe in those goals, and I don’t want to fail on any of them anymore. So…you’ll be seeing more of me on The Edge from here on out.
-Kjerstin Erickson
2008-02-05
Facing Facts: the good, the bad, and the ugly
There’s a lot of advice out there telling you to "build on your strengths" and "focus on the positive". As an ED, I find this quite tempting: who doesn't want to think about what they do well all day long? Who doesn't want to make something that is already good even better?
Strangely, though, as the person responsible for the bottom line, I find that my main job is just the opposite: to focus on our weaknesses. Where are we failing? Who needs to improve? Revamp it or cut it altogether?
In a nonprofit world that is often full of warm-fuzzies and back-pats, talking about failures can be quite counter-cultural, Especially if it could ever get back to a potential donor or, gasp!, the public at large. But just as I've yet to meet a perfect person, I have yet to come across an organization that is anywhere near perfect. Given the heavy constraints under which nonprofits operate - lack of clear data and indicators on long-term goals, little proportionality between funding and quality of services, and difficulty attracting talent from the better-paid private sector - this should come of little surprise.
But then why are failures so hard to talk about publicly? From my experience, I suspect that the reasons all fall back on the competitive environment within which nonprofits operate. Competition is a natural driving force of humanity, and in my opinion is as essential in the nonprofit sector as it is in the private sector. However, in the private sector, there is only so much that you can do to mask your failures: ultimately you have to publish your quarterly profits and losses and declare your future earnings projections. The market will judge you accordingly.
In the nonprofit environment, things are very different. We submit our taxes but do nothing else to objectively showcase our success or failure at meeting our social bottom line. Therefore, everything we chose to reveal or publicize is voluntary. And guess what we all publicize? The great stuff… the tears of joy stuff… the oh-my-god-I-need-to-sell-my-car-to-give-to-this-organization stuff.
Where do the failures and the shortcomings go? Some organizations have strong internal review, evaluation, and program improvement systems (generally kept private). Most do not. While "best practices" are shared widely across the industry, "worst practices" are stored in the closet. So how do we learn from each other?
My commitment through FORGE is to do my small part to change this culture of closeted weaknesses. When we have "lessons learned", I want to share them – not just within my organization, but with others. I hope that others will, too. Eventually, together, we can dispel the fear that revealed weaknesses lead to exploitation and defeat. Our weaknesses will make us stronger.
- Kjerstin Erickson
www.FORGEnow.org
2008-01-29
Struggling with Comfort
2007-12-26
Ending the Year Anew
December, and the whole of 2007, is coming to an end. When I was younger, this time of year had me filled with anticipation of candy and gifts and celebrations. Since founding FORGE, however, the end of a year has come to symbolize another end – the end to the cycle of war and poverty.
Happy Holidays.
-Kjerstin Erickson
www.FORGEnow.org
2007-12-04
"Tactical" leveraging of online networks
FORGE experienced the strength of such networking first hand yesterday. And it required only a few keystrokes and clicks.
Once we started voting, however, the competing organization turned up the heat as well. With 12 hours remaining, FORGE found itself behind by 55 votes. That's when we put our plan into action. Twelve hours, a few email blasts that were forwarded around cyberspace, and one huge Facebook "event" later, FORGE had won by a landslide, about 450 votes to 230.
FORGE looks forward to being at the forefront of that movement!
- Kjerstin Erickson
2007-11-21
Thanksgiving: A Global Appreciation
In honor of Thanksgiving, I’d like to share a couple of very thoughtful and touching emails that I received from two exceptional young refugees, both of whom have FORGE scholarships to attend University in Zambia. Kwase is from Sudan and Antoine is from Congo – they are both in their mid-twenties. If you are like me, their words will help you to appreciate this special holiday in an even deeper way.
I wish you all a wonderful one…
-Kjerstin
*******
From Kwase:
Hi Kjer,
I was trying to understand and know this American Holiday called THANKS GIVING and why it is important to Americans and those who understood its origin. I hope I got it right from different explanations. I was told, it is in the memory of the hard time that the European Americans went through when they first came to America, ranging from lack of food and other basic neccessities of life. With this little knowledge on this great day, I deeply believe that I am part and parcel of this celebration including all the refugees in the world who have gone through similar experiences that our sisters and brothers went through in their first days and years in the USA. The general challenge to all humanity, is how can we stop the history from repeating itself ?
Happy Thanks Giving to all.
Lots of love
Kwase M
From Antoine:
Dear FRIENDS,
In this occasion of Thanks Giving, allow me to thank you for your generosity, commitment and hardworking in making FORGE’s mission happen; you really are people who raised, are raising, and will raise the Refugee community. You really have all contributed to the reduction of illiteracy, ignorance, poverty and many more in this community which was affected by war troubles in their countries.
By doing what you have done, are doing and will do, you are constructing our countries in advance.
As you know it, the refugee community is crying every day and night for help but not everyone can understand their cries, you have made it happen by understanding their cries and acting without waiting. We will never forget your incredible actions; you have rebuilt our hope and are still reinforcing it.
We have at least felt how much outside people care about us. You really shown your love to us but we have nothing to give back. THANKS FOR EVERY THING, you are right people doing right things.
Once again Thanks.
Antoine
2007-11-12
Looks can be deceiving
As it says above, I'm 24 years old. I started FORGE when I was 20. Yes... you can call me a young Executive Director.
Also, I'm relatively tall, thin, and (gasp!) blond. Some people say I'm pretty.
Those traits may come in handy for getting out of speeding tickets, but they are not always a blessing. When it comes to what I care about most – doing my job effectively – being a young blond female is often to my disadvantage.
By this point, I've gotten used to leaders of partner NGOs treating me as nothing more than a sweet little American girl until they see what FORGE can do. When they first come aboard, young FORGE volunteers often have a habit of challenging me until they realize that this is a complicated job that requires experience, tenacity, and a high level of intelligence. But invariably, when things go wrong, eyes immediately turn to me and fingers get pointed in my direction.
And that's all fine. Pile it on. These shoulders may be slender, but they can carry quite a heavy load. I've guided this ship through some stormy waters and I've always had enough wind in my proverbial sails to take the next step. That may sound a bit hardened, but don't look for a peg-leg or an eye-patch. This is what I signed up for. FORGE is too good and I'm too young to be salty.
Five years ago, when we started working in refugee camps, I had no idea what FORGE would become. Of course we were all on cloud nine, but it would've been very unrealistic of me not to anticipate uncertainty and difficulty as we grew. My wonderful parents encouraged me ceaselessly, but also made sure my feet were firmly planted on the ground. Dreaming pushed FORGE forward. Being grounded kept it from being pushed back.
It has all made me welcome the challenges. FORGE won't expand and improve without some sleepless nights and hardship. Broken pledges by donors? We'll get past it. Problems with inexperienced staff? FORGE can handle it. Bureaucracy on the ground in
This isn't supposed to feel nice. This isn't about dreaming. This is about work. And I've gotta get back to it.
- Kjerstin Erickson
www.FORGEnow.org
2007-11-06
Accountability!
Still working on FORGE's taxes while letting my mind run wild over the things I can’t wait to do once these are done.
Not knowing anything about government oversight of nonprofits before starting FORGE, I’ve been shocked in the past few years to find out just how few accountability mechanisms are in place for nonprofits. Sure, the government has basic guidelines for what a nonprofit can and cannot do, but the amount of leeway in what nonprofits can get away with (and how rarely they are caught) seems to me preposterous. From what I’ve learned in preparing tax returns (which are really the main form of accountability to the government), the IRS makes it ridiculously easy to cheat, hide, and get away with murder.
Now, I’m not trying to incriminate my organization here – FORGE is very diligent about its spending and accounting has always treated our donors’ dollars with intense care. However, I do wish that there was some way for the government to hold us truly accountable to our donors. Nonprofits with annual spending under $500,000 are not required to have any kind of independent audit whatsoever.
As it stands, there are only two ways for small-to-medium nonprofits to be held accountable for responsible spending of tax-free donor funds. The first is through the miniscule chance that the IRS decides to audit them, in which case the nonprofit is in big trouble if they turn out to be corrupt. The second is through paying for an independent auditor, which usually costs the nonprofit tens of thousands of dollars. Of course, no truly corrupt nonprofit is going to self-incriminate itself with an audit. On the other hand, most nonprofits (like FORGE) simply cannot afford to hire an auditor to either prove themselves clean or to find out what they might be doing wrong.
Now I understand that there are 1.5 million nonprofits in the United States, and that it is virtually impossible for the IRS to keep tabs on all them, let alone a small portion. But the fact is that these organizations account for billions of dollars of untaxed money that would otherwise be in government hands. The government doesn’t tax those funds because it trusts that the nonprofits are going to do some of the government’s work for them. But is trusting enough? Who is checking up?
Alright…back to work…
- Kjerstin Erickson
PS - While we're on the subject, anyone know a pro-bono auditor?
2007-10-30
Facebook blunders
It’s tax time for FORGE. This is (by far) my least favorite time of year. Nobody ever starts an organization like FORGE and proclaims, “I’m doing this because I want to lend my hand to relieve struggle, create bonds that will strengthen our world for years to come, and keep meticulous accounting records.”
But alas, I’ve spent the last few hours eyeball-deep in bank statements, receipts, and Excel sheets.
It was a nice departure from the taxes as I head to bed to see some of our university-sponsored refugees’ recent activity on Facebook. There’s something startling, warming, and hilarious about reading “Facebook Wall Posts” from people who hadn’t touched a computer until a couple of years ago.
The computer blunders are the most special part.
Consider Antoine, for example. His Facebook network is listed as: US Virgin Islands!
Thom’s “looking for…” status? Whatever I can get. I don’t think the husband and father of two knows quite what that means.
And Paul has been “tagged” in more Facebook photos than me!
No – when I started FORGE, I didn’t hope to do taxes. Nor did I plan to get refugees onto Facebook. I did, however, aim to create relationships and intercultural understanding.
Even through the massive social network that is Facebook, FORGE’s success in that endeavor shines through. Vaughn is exchanging photos with Taban. Kwase is “poking” Annelisa. And EVERYONE sent birthday wishes to Marisa and Elizabeth.
Back to taxes tomorrow, but for now, I’m smiling as I go to bed to get my precious few hours of sleep.
2007-10-22
Ever-Evolving
If vision comes from applying knowledge to passion, FORGE is on the right path…
There comes a time in every endeavor when something changes, momentum is built, and people launch.
People often ask me about my long-term vision for FORGE. To tell you the truth, I’ve never had one pre-determined vision for what the organization should look like. Founding FORGE as a 20-year-old college student, it would have been incredibly presumptuous for me to have ‘known’ how to do what I was trying to do. The only thing I knew for sure was how I wanted the world to look. I had an idea of how to get there, but that idea has been ever evolving and improving.
One of my favorite things about FORGE is our true commitment to excellence from our staff. Because no one is a part of FORGE for the money, and because we expect such high standards of commitment from all of our staff, the people who work for FORGE are people who are deeply committed to its success and growth. They will tell you that they eat, sleep, and breathe FORGE, and I will tell you that the wheels never stop turning in their minds.
As an organization, I believe that our greatest strength is that we are continually re-evaluating our performance and our strategies, and we are constantly implementing changes and improvements to our operations.
This past weekend, we may have outdone ourselves. I just returned from 3 intense days of meetings with 11 members of our domestic senior staff, immediately following a meeting of 10 international senior staff. We’ve developed a plan for FORGE that is so paradigm-shifting, so high-impact, and so in-line with all our deepest values and beliefs, we get jumpy just thinking about it.
I’ll be telling you more in the coming weeks. For now, it’s nose to the grindstone. We’ve got our work cut out for us. I said it once, and now’s a good time to say it again: STAY TUNED.
2007-10-15
Wireless email in a Zambian refugee camp?
I've said it a few times over the course of this blog, and I'm going to say it again here: FORGE’s refugee staff is overwhelmingly good at what they do. Their immense capability has to be FORGE's greatest asset.
In Mwange Refugee Settlement, FORGE built LISa (Laboratoire Informatique Safari) during the summer of 2006. It's the largest computer lab in a refugee camp anywhere in the world. We were fortunate enough to have Frances, a very talented young teacher from
Frances has not only increased the number of open classes due to community demand, but he stepped beyond the original classes of Word, Excel, and Paint classes and has moved into PowerPoint, Java, and basic coding. He has been producing CDs and DVDs for the various FORGE-led performance groups. He has created a FORGE photo scrapbook that employees and other community members alike regularly enjoy. And most amazing of all – Frances has conceived of and written his own "LISa mail" email program that allows users in the middle of a Zambian refugee camp to wirelessly email back and forth between various stations within the camp.
Please keep in mind that all of this has occurred in a refugee camp with no electricity, no running water, and no real urban or financial infrastructure for hundreds of miles. What
If you went to Mwange and met
It's when refugees like
-Kjerstin Erickson