Do not start a nonprofit, says Becky Straw, co-founder of The Adventure Project, a nonprofit. She makes a strong case. If you start a nonprofit you’ll be broke, stressed, and you’ll have to be boring while you work long hours with no money. You will be rejected a lot. And, by the odds, you’ll fail within a few years.

Becky has been through all of it except the failing. For the last two years she lived couch-to-couch, maxing out her credit cards and relying on gracious friends and family, and working with her co-founder Jody Landers to build the foundation of an enormous vision. They aim to create one million jobs in the developing world within a decade.

Sitting across the table from Becky in a cafe in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, she says she’s tired from flying across the world and spending three long days in the field catching up with a social business she partners with. Still she crackles with energy. I’ve been in the country three extra, less busy days and I’m fading with jet lag. She shares with me the grand vision she and her partner are building, lamenting that it’s hard to shrink it down to the elevator pitch that many would-be backers want.

Her vision sees good businesses in poor countries as the final solution to poverty, and to many other endemic problems, like access to clean water and affordable healthcare. The Adventure Project aims to focus international attention and money on these businesses, helping them scale and make the biggest positive impact.

And, in a way, it all started with swimming.

“As a kid I was terrible,” Becky told me later over email. “I’m not trying to be modest, I have multiple last place ribbons to prove it.” Then, when she was twelve, a swim coach took her aside and gave her this advice: “Everything in life is 90% hard work and only 10% talent, so just work harder than everyone else.”

“That stuck with me, and he was right,” said Becky. “I put my head down and never stopped trying.” Her hard work earned her a scholarship to swim collegiately on a team that won two conference titles. She still wasn’t the fastest on the team (“I was the worst of the best”) but, she recalls, “it didn’t really matter to me, because I learned that I love to work hard, and will go to great lengths to make something happen.”

“I experienced that feeling that hits you in the gut, and you know you’ll never be able to live blissfully ignorant again.”

That sort of determination, ‘Grit’, as it’s often called, is being hailed by top researchers as one of the most important characteristics of successful people. And Becky clearly has large grit reserves. Which means that she could likely succeed at just about anything: movie making, real estate development, technology startups, fields that could win her fame or fortune or both. So why put all that determination towards stopping poverty?

“I think the main experience for me was volunteering in Romania after college,” she said. A couple from Ohio ran a group home for kids who had been orphaned and abused. Some of them had been confined to cribs for the first ten years of their lives and had to learn to walk starting at age eleven.

“I experienced that feeling that hits you in the gut,” said Becky, “and you know you’ll never be able to live blissfully ignorant again. It made me horribly sad to see the vast disparity between the rich and poor. But it was also incredibly hopeful, because I witnessed resilience and love. And it gave me purpose.”

She earned a Master’s in International Social Welfare from Columbia before joining a fledgling non-profit called charity: water. Becky was employee number three, and helped launch one of the most innovative and successful non-profits in the world. She left charity: water during some challenging organizational growth pains and soon reconnected with a donor named Jody she had become fast friends with a year earlier during a trip to Liberia. Over dinner in Colorado they discovered their common passion for social enterprise and started a Google document titled, “Launch List,” filled with items like “Assemble a board” and “Get charitable status”.

They started in on the to do list in October 2010 and launched The Adventure Project a month later.

So far they have partnered with four social ventures in four developing countries, creating over 350 jobs. These businesses are helping solve the problems of hunger, water, environment, and healthcare, and are serving almost 900,000 people.

When I met her in Uganda she had been visiting one of these partners, a company called Living Goods that combines the Avon door-to-door sales model with the effectiveness of community driven healthcare. Women are trained as community health workers and visit the homes of their neighbors, checking on family health and offering advice and selling low-cost solutions where necessary.

On her organization’s blog Becky shares a story (with beautiful photos from Esther Havens) that epitomizes the impact she and Jody are having. A Ugandan woman named Gertrude, recently widowed and left with three young children, was hired and trained by Living Goods as they expanded to her village. When she started visiting homes she met a woman who had three children sick with malaria and no money for medication. Gertrude decided to trust the woman and paid for the medications herself before moving on to the next house. Two days later the children had recovered, the woman had repaid Gertrude for the medication, and the village was buzzing that Gertrude had saved these children’s lives. Now her new health business is booming and she can afford to send her kids to school. And all throughout the village she is known as “the Kind One.”

Becky’s dream, and the vision of The Adventure Project, is to take Gertrude’s story and multiply it by a million. One million new jobs. One million people solving their communities’ problems. One million families out of poverty. It’s the kind of goal that will take, more than anything, a lot of grit.

Learn more about Becky’s work here. We’re donating 50% of all online sales now thru November 9th to The Adventure Project! Shop our new Fall Lineup here!

Elena Bondar downplays her big move. About six months ago she quit her comfortable job in San Diego and moved to Los Angeles, a city where she had never lived and knew almost no one, in order to chase her dream.

But she’s not trying to act or sing. Elena is building a program to launch survivors of sex trafficking towards their dream careers. She calls the program Two Wings. Sex trafficking, she told us, is not confined to the infamous red light districts of Thailand and India. It’s a frighteningly large and hidden criminal industry in America, too. And Los Angeles is one of its centers.

Elena was born in the Republic of Georgia in the former Soviet Union. Her family was persecuted by the communist regime because of their religion and they dreamed of escaping to America. Finally, in 1988, they got the chance.

“We packed one suitcase per person to journey to an unknown land,” she said. “I was five years old when we left our home and was not happy to leave the only life I knew.”

She grew up in northern California, immersed simultaneously in mainstream American culture and a robust Russian subculture. In college she studied Social Work, dreaming of working with youth in Russia, perhaps starting a transitional living home. But after an emotionally draining stint as a social worker in Riverside County she decided to go back to school.

Several years ago Elena was living in San Diego, studying for a double Masters in Business and Education and working at an online university, when she saw the film ‘Trade’ about international sex trafficking.

“I was shocked to learn that something so atrocious was occurring to young girls my age not only in other countries but in my own city,” said Elena. She found an organization that ran San Diego’s only dedicated shelter and comprehensive recovery program for trafficking survivors and, learning of their funding needs, voluntarily organized one of their major fundraising events.

This experience kindled an old spark in her.

“Working in the corporate world for five years was beginning to take a toll on my humanitarian spirit,” Elena said. “As I began to volunteer with the organization I realized the part of me that wanted to open a transitional program had been awakened.”

Then, she says, she was faced with a choice. “Do I continue to work in a job I no longer find fulfillment in, or do I pursue something that has been in my heart for many years?”

It’s a wonder that a successful young woman would consider leaving a comfortable job and good friends to pursue something so challenging and uncertain. Maybe seeing her family cross oceans for their beliefs left her uniquely open to such a sacrifice. Maybe seeing a thriving Russian subculture that exists all but invisibly across America prepared her to understand, as few others could, an invisible tragedy taking place in our cities.

“I felt a moral obligation to pursue my dream,” she says. So she went for it. Los Angeles is home to more sex trafficking survivors than almost anywhere else in America, so that’s where she went, without a job and knowing only a couple people. Luckily her brother lived in LA and offered her a place to crash.

Now she works to build an organization that will support survivors of the sex trade in choosing and pursuing dream careers. “My dream for Two Wings is to see not only our survivors inspired and empowered to pursue their dream careers,” Elena said, “but to see other women inspired to pursue their dreams, too.”

She is building a program that can be replicated across the United States, and that she hopes will one day reach women as far as Ghana, in West Africa.

We asked her what sort of difference she would like to make in the world. “To inspire people to pursue dreams that enhance our world. Regardless of how big or small, to pursue them relentlessly. Just jump,” says Elena. “It will be worth it in the end.”

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In Elena’s honor, we are donating 50% of our online sales for one month to her nonprofit program Two Wings. Click to shop our Spring Collection, and join us on Facebook.

Photos by Sarah Shreves. See more below:

www.sarahshreves.com

Stella with Amani Matabaro and the women of the Mumosho Peace Market.

This July I took my first trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that has not seen sustained peace for more than a century. I was lucky to travel with an amazing young woman by the name of Stella Safari, who was taking a different sort of first trip. This was her first time to Congo in 12 years, since fleeing war at the age of eight.

As she returned 12 years later, now a student at Dartmouth and a leader among her peers, she brought with her a mission: to inspire Congo’s youth to invest in their country, so that future generations can enjoy peace and prosperity in Congo.

Back in 1999 the growing violence in the region reached Stella’s private elementary school, and after the recent death of her father her family decided that the risk to her future was too great for her to stay. So she and her sisters were sent to America to live with her brother. “The majority of my family was left behind,” she told me by email, “including my mother.”

Stella remembers a wonderful childhood in Congo. “Before the gunshots, I attended a great school. I spent time with family and friends without having to be cautious about the things we discussed around the dinner table.” These memories and a strong network of Congolese friends and family helped her maintain a devotion to Congo, even as she enjoyed the privileges of American life.

For years after Stella left, the family relied for their communication on friends and family ferrying letters and photographs back and forth across continents. Stella would also seek out information on the political situation in Congo through her community. “Though it was mostly older men who discussed politics enthusiastically, I often found myself intrigued by these issues and wanting to know more.” Eventually the cell phone revolution and Facebook let Stella and her distant family communicate “more frequently and at very little cost.”

It was her junior year in high school when Stella found a passion for making a difference in her home country. Then the president of her student government, she decided to organize a benefit concert to raise money for rape victims in Congo. “To my surprise we raised over $2,000 just by being adamant and educating our peers about the situation in Congo. I realized the power of my voice and have been using it since to advocate for peace in Congo.”

Stella has since made it a life goal to bring more peace, liberty, and prosperity to her home country. “My dream is to see future generations of Congo having the opportunity to enjoy the same and even better childhood than I did.”

This July she set foot on Congolese soil for the first time since her happy childhood there was cut short. She traveled with Falling Whistles, an organization aiming to bring peace to Congo after more than a century of conflicts, and with whom Stella had been working as a cultural liaison. After a quick trip to Congo’s capital she flew to Rwanda and traveled overland to her home town, Bukavu, where her mother was waiting.

Stella literally on home soil after 12 years away.

Stella spent several weeks catching up with her mother and meeting other family members and friends of the family. She was a minor celebrity in Bukavu, the long-lost daughter of a popular family. Walking down the street she would be greeted by total strangers who, though she had never met them, were excited to see her. It would often turn out that they were cousins or uncles. “I did not expect to feel so at home in Bukavu,” Stella said. “However, when I arrived I felt an overwhelming sense of purpose and belonging.”

Along with family she spent time with local youth and community leaders. “We discussed ways in which we can support one another and work in unity for the benefit of the country.”

One of those community leaders is an intense and inspiring man named Amani Matabaro. He took Stella to his community, a town just outside of Bukavu called Mumosho, where he had built a marketplace where people of different ethnic backgrounds can trade together and build friendships. He calls it a Peace Market.

When the women of Mumosho heard Stella’s story they were overjoyed and they gathered around her, cheering in appreciation. “It really touched me to spend time with these women,” Stella recalled, “because in them I saw my mother, my sisters, my friends. It was incredible.”

Stella working with the women of the Mumosho Peace Market.

Two weeks later we were in the volcanic town of Goma when we received a call from Amani. Mumosho has been attacked by the FDLR, one of the violent rebel groups that seeds fear and uncertainty in the region. Several women were raped and a priest was abducted and held for ransom. “I was devastated when I heard about the attack by the FDLR,” said Stella. She remembers thinking about the huge, complex web of challenges facing Congo, starting with a Congolese government that values its own interests far above its citizens.

“It’s both frustrating and motivating for me. Frustrating because the issue is clearly a more “top-down” problem that we have little control over. Motivating because of the capacity and potential that exists from the bottom up and how eventually that can affect the top-down.”

Next summer Stella plans to go back to Congo and launch a project to “promote action and unity through social entrepreneurship.” The website, she says, is coming soon. We’ll keep you updated.

Stella is an Ember Hero. In Stella’s honor we are donating 50% of all online sales for one month, through December 7th, 2011, to Action Kivu, an organization that supports the visionary work of Amani Matabaro. Visit our online store. 

Thank you to Abby Ross for the beautiful photographs above.

Michelle Larson doesn’t look the type to wade through knee-deep trash along the border of two developing countries. She’s pretty, stylish, and at the very least hygienic. Nonetheless she points to one such jaunt into the garbage as a formational moment in her life.

“The first time I took a visit to the city garbage dump in Mae Sot, Thailand [a Thai city on the border with Burma], I found myself knee deep in the trash, playing with the children who live there,” Michelle recounted to us by email from Mae Sot.  “Many of them had skin problems, horrible coughs, and smelled like… trash.” The children’s Burmese mother said that settling her family in the dump was the lesser of two evils, that keeping her family in Burma was far more dangerous.

Michelle has since spent the last several years traversing the borderlands of Thailand and Burma, educating herself on the brutal military regime that tyrannizes the Burmese people to this day, and exploring ways to support the many refugees that flee for their lives.

She helped found an organization called Eleho that publicizes the hardships of people in Burma and supports the best organizations serving them. And recently she was asked by those organizations to teach English to Community Health Workers, helping them to better understand the medical texts and drug labels that they rely upon. She is there now, working on a voluntary basis to spread hope in Burma.

We are proud to announce that Michelle is our next Ember Hero, and that 50% of all online sales through the end of October will be donated to Eleho to support Michelle’s work. You can shop online here.

And Michelle’s commitment to Burma is only her latest endeavor in making the world more just.  She grew up in Portland, Oregon and when she was still very young she remembers seeing homeless people in the city’s downtown, some without shoes or coats, trying to shelter themselves from the rain. She started volunteering with a soup kitchen and a women’s shelter, and she began to wonder about poverty not just in her hometown, but globally.

Years later in 2006, after seeing the film Invisible Children, she joined the organization’s first national tour to raise awareness and funds for children affected by a civil war in Uganda. She finished her college degree from an Invisible Children RV as it sped across America to screen the film.  “I was blown away at how many people selflessly gave of their time and resources on behalf of the children of northern Uganda,” said Michelle.

Injustice, she says, happens everywhere. “It can be found in our own neighborhoods, and in our own cities. If you are looking to engage in the fight against injustice, you don’t have to look far.” Michelle, though, still has her eyes on a pile of trash on the far side of the world. “Being there that day,” she says, “with garbage all around me, I felt a strange responsibility. Now that I have seen with my own eyes, I am compelled to share.”

We are glad that she has shared her mission with us, and we hope that you will be inspired by her work as well. We’re proud to donate 50% of all online sales through the end of October to Eleho to support Michelle’s work. You can shop online here.

Talking to Lisa Dougan you might not know what an important force for hope she is. She speaks with unswerving humility about herself, and would likely turn the conversation to you, your interests and your successes, rather than focus on her own.

In fact even her success tends to focus on other people, on building peace and opportunity for those who find them lacking. She has helped open hundreds of thousands of eyes to Africa’s longest running war, seeded a community that bridges socioeconomic divides, and was recently invited to the Oval Office to meet President Obama in recognition for her advocacy and lobbying for children in East and Central Africa.

She is, in short, an inspiration. And our first Ember Hero.

In appreciation of her contribution to hope in our world we are donating 50% of all proceeds from our online sales through the end of the month to Lisa’s chosen charity: the Young Life Columbia Heights Program, which is investing in the lives of Washington DC teenagers from rough backgrounds with faithful, caring mentorship. Ember’s contribution will specifically go to help 30 of these teens attend a summer camp with Young Life that offers them the chance to connect more deeply with caring mentors and experience a different perspective on life.

Shop online thru July 31, and 50% will go to Young Life Columbia Heights.

A couple months ago Lisa was invited to the Oval Office to shake hands with President Obama. The path that got her there started about four years ago when she saw a film called Invisible Children that highlighted the unthinkable hardships of children in a civil war in Uganda.

“My life was monopolized by a desire to advocate for the children of northern Uganda,” says Lisa, and soon she was road-tripping from Washington DC to San Diego to the join a growing non-profit movement sparked by the film. As a ‘roadie’ for Invisible Children she spent five months travelling the country, living out of a donated RV, and “sharing the story that had taken my life captive and calling on my peers to act.”

But Lisa didn’t stop there.  She soon left on a fact-finding trip to Northern Uganda and then returned to San Diego to help manage the ongoing awareness and advocacy efforts of Invisible Children.

Even as she split her attention between her friends in Uganda and the roadies she managed across the US, Lisa did not neglect her interim hometown of San Diego. The small coastal community of Ocean Beach is known in part for the many homeless people who enjoy its nice weather and public spaces. One Sunday afternoon a friend of Lisa’s took some leftovers from a party to Ocean Beach and had a public BBQ, inviting anyone who happened to be around, many of whom lived on the streets.

Lisa saw that food was a great way to connect with people. She says, “After that first day, I made a personal commitment to return to that same spot every Sunday, with a meal to share. The food just provided an excuse to meet people. The real goal was to learn their name and their stories and to make plans to find them the following week. The point was relationship.”

Five or six people grew to ten, then twenty, then forty people meeting every Sunday for food and each other’s company. This small community was the catalyst for life change on both sides of the soci-economic spectrum.  Says Lisa, “Through the relationships that were built between all of us and the community that formed, I had the incredible privilege of seeing people get off the streets, find the courage to pursue recovery from addictions, experience unconditional love for the first time, open up about pain and fear that paralyzed them.  In turn, I have been loved, supported, educated and challenged by many of my friends living on the streets in Ocean Beach.”

At the end of last year Lisa moved back to Washington DC to dive deeper into political advocacy to bring an end to the ongoing conflict in Easter and Central Africa with Resolve Uganda. Together with other advocates she slept on the streets in front of a Senator’s office to get him to release a hold on the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, which aims to focus US attention on the conflict. And it worked. The bill passed and Lisa, together with a select few delegates, was invited to meet President Obama as he signed the bill into law.

It’s the most visible of Lisa’s accomplishments so far, but we don’t suspect that it will be her last, or greatest. We asked Lisa, “If the world could be different somehow because of you, what change would you choose?” Her answer was that people would see the richness and necessity of building deep bonds of relationship, that they would brave the inconveniences and sacrifices and pursue the adventure, healing, and transformation that relationship promises. This, Lisa seems to believe, can change the world.

[Join Lisa's mission to send 30 teens to Young Life summer camp here.]