Building Impact: How Business Must Give to Create Change | Kate Krukiel | TEDxYouth@UrsulineAcademy
have you ever given someone a gift that they didn't want or didn't need kind of like giving a bald man a hairbrush it's awkward well many times organizations give gifts and the hopes of solving society's challenges but they're not what they ask for and they're not what they need I used to work for a big software company and I work closely with the United Nations and was upfront and personal with sticky situations like climate change and corruption and access to education and according to the UN we still have half of our population living in poverty we have a billion people that don't have access to electricity we have almost 70 million people that are displaced these are big asks and these are big needs a few years ago I was on my way to the Middle East after a phone call from our giving team that they were gonna give mobile phones to Syrian refugees and this is something that we saw daily and the news and the photos I was feeling incredibly proud and also quite anxious as I had never been in a refugee camp and in the scenario early in the morning we set off driving north and it is dry and it's dusty and you're seeing the signs and you know you're eerily close to Syria the first thing that happens is we get a security briefing so we understand how the military the UN government nonprofits rapidly built this refugee camp in the middle of a desert that's now 90,000 people this is a city there's water there's sewage there's electricity I'll be it only for a few hours a day we set out into the camp and the first thing that I notice is there's all these young men almost hugging the fence with their mobile phones I said what are they doing they said oh they're trying to get the Wi-Fi from the offices on the other side of the fence because there's no connectivity in the camp huh and in one word it's hectic it's colorful and vibrant each section of the camp is given a color and a theme and refugee graffiti artists would paint all the sections of the walls so you knew where you were we have meetings with groups of women men community centers we learn things like there's only 8 schools in the camp right now so at least 10,000 kids aren't able to go to school we meet with a group of about 15 individuals that had not met until their journey across from Syria in different backgrounds from an electrician a taxi driver but they all came together and they wanted to learn a mapping software so they could map the camp and they could learn where's the closest hospital or sometimes more importantly where's the next football match or as we say here soccer and now they wanted to learn more software so they could help the three thousand shops be more effective in their business 3,000 shops so as we walk down what they call Shan stoolies a trade is vibrant the first thing that I noticed as I'm trying to hide the sounds coming from my tummy is this incredible smell and I look over and this man is making fresh bread on this stone and I walk over and he's making falafel and fresh vegetables and wraps and I'm wondering where are you getting the fresh vegetables in the middle of the desert we order food and we go to pay and the man says no my dear you're our guests so we continue to walk down and we see different shops from a hardware shop we can buy paint in the wheelbarrow there's a homemade perfume shop there's a shop you can rent your wedding dress and there's a mobile phone shop I can buy every accessory that I need headphones cases phones I was absolutely overwhelmed but mainly because I didn't know why we were there we were there to give phones right we did no due diligence we didn't visit we didn't ask we didn't understand the needs we didn't understand the complexities like electricity and connectivity I was really uncomfortable and that pride that I felt quickly melted into embarrassment our organizations big small local global have the ability to meet these society needs and they're falling short to value an impact every company should treat their giving with the same rigor as the rest of their business process a company would look at their giving and align it to their mission and strategy what are your goals metrics if you're a financial advice firm let's look at financial literacy if you make homes let's look at affordable homes do what you do but with a social conscious with set with metrics and accountability an organization will look at the ecosystem and infrastructure for their giving is the community involved in this case if we gave phones as their electricity is their connectivity are there apps for these phones what if they get stolen now I just met a group of 15 software developers that were eager to learn but I wasn't there for that I was there to give phones an organization would listen and learn you've got this incredible opportunity to learn about an environment that's unfamiliar to you for displaced people besides food and shelter we didn't understand what they needed language translation translation connectivity not just to stay in touch with your loved ones but to build your business we can learn stay relevant grow our business while not taking away from the local economy those phones never got into the country the large mobile phone providers lobbied the government because it was going to take away from their business now the good news that same software company shifted the process and I just got off a plane last week from visiting this project in Malawi in a refugee camp in southern Africa and the first thing that we did is we formed a group of what we called refugee ambassadors that were part of every decision that we made and we learned from them we learned big issues like food distribution what they would do is they would put a piece of paper on a tree now if you saw that piece of paper and you were the lucky ones you would wait anywhere from 2 to 12 hours to get your food if you didn't see that piece of paper you didn't get your food for the month the next thing we did is looked at the ecosystem who are the local partners is there a safe place to go are their chairs computers what needs to happen to make sure that we can get this done and lastly does this align to our mission and our strategy which is empower every individual with world-class software 18 months on we have a software development Center run by refugees Monday through Friday there are classes for at least 20 people in them and 18 months on we've got four apps built so that food distribution that piece of paper on a tree they now get a text message that says show up on Wednesday at 2 p.m. and families are fed that's impact that's value organizations have tremendous opportunity if they look at their giving and treat it with with with the same rigor as the rest of their business process so as you go to work tomorrow or as many of you start your own businesses or you get on that air let's land learn absolutely make sure that these gifts truly keep on giving thank you you