Project Redwood [PRW] Provides Funding, Expertise and Connections to Social Entrepreneurs Who Address the Challenge of Global Poverty.

The funding part of Project Redwood’s mission has been straightforward. Right from the beginning, classmates came forward as partners to provide the money that enabled PRW to fund carefully-chosen projects.

But the expertise and connections are a growing and ever-changing aspect of our effectiveness.

Beginning at the Beginning

The contributions of Ann McStay are a good example.  Ann became a part of Project Redwood at its inception. She was keenly aware of the grassroots efforts by experts and professionals in fields such as engineering, medicine, and business working around the world alongside impoverished people, addressing the issues they face. Project Redwood offered her a chance to collaborate with classmates and participate in that movement while still working and raising a family.

Starting off as a member of the Grant Review Committee (GRC), Ann learned about the projects being proposed for funding.  She also learned the importance of sponsors helping their grantees make connections and catch problems early. By providing perspective to often-young organizations and their leaders, sponsors provide a kind of “shepherding” for grantees, carried out at a distance, on an as-needed basis.

Ann first became directly involved with a grantee as a liaison between Development in Gardening (DIG) and the GRC, and then as co-sponsor on several succeeding grant applications with Bill Westwood, DIG’s original sponsor.  DIG enables vulnerable and HIV/AIDS-affected communities to meet their own needs and improve their well-being through nutrition-sensitive and sustainable agriculture.

DIG invited supporters to Africa in 2010, and Ann joined the group, which traveled to Uganda and Kenya. They met with DIG field partners:  orphanages, schools, and food-security groups, and experienced Africa. One of the first stops was the St. Paul and Rose Orphans’ Care Centre in the village of Buwala in Uganda, where the White Nile flows out of Lake Victoria.  A day or two later, Ann decided to skip the white-water rafting opportunity at Bujigali Falls (as she says, to avoid spoiling everybody’s day by drowning), and instead visited Kampala where she met with women in the micro-finance collectives of Opportunity International, an organization introduced to Ann by Cara Bowers (a fellow GSB 1980 grad) prior to the DIG trip.  

St. Paul and Rose Orphanage – at the Farm

Serendipity!  One of her fellow day-travelers was Emily Lutyens, the country director for Educate!, which was just in its second full year of operation.  Educate!’s mission is to develop the potential for youth in Africa by helping national ministries of education improve their curricula for entrepreneurship and leadership, and by training teachers and mentors.

Inspiration and Connection

Arriving home, Ann was inspired to begin working with Paul and Rose Bogere, founders and co-directors of the Orphans’ Care Centre in Uganda, and to advocate for Educate!  Emily Lutyens introduced her to Educate! co-founder Boris Bulayev, resulting in Educate!’s first successful application to Project Redwood in 2011.  PRW also approved grant requests in 2012 and 2013 to expand Educate!’s entrepreneurship and leadership training from twenty-five secondary schools in the Kampala area to hundreds more throughout the country.  

As Educate! has developed into an award-winning, highly successful NGO, PRW has remained a valued partner.  Boris and other staff members have spoken at PRW annual meetings, and have shared Educate!’s curriculum with PRW-linked organizations.

According to Ann, “Watching Educate! grow and mature as an organization and as a force in the global social-venture arena has been an exceptional experience. It  happened because I was fortunate enough to be a GSB alum and a member of PRW.”

In the case of the orphanage, Ann started working with the directors in 2011 to send all the children to school. Since then, a number of “infrastructure” projects have been completed to improve the home’s facilities, and Project Redwood’s grants in 2014 and 2018 funded development of income-generating programs for the home’s farm and the surrounding community.  Along the way, Kermit Eck (another GSB ’80 alum) became a PRW co-sponsor with Ann. Additionally, through a connection with One World Children’s Fund (OWCF), the home gained 501c(3) tax-advantaged fiscal sponsorship.

The addition of two bedrock collaborations – Kermit’s involvement and OWCF – coupled with Ann’s visits in 2014 and 2019, has made a tremendous difference in the home’s successful growth.  And they are the direct result of PRW’s non-financial support and connections on behalf of grantees.

Exploring New Ideas

The connections continue and the value to grantees, specifically the Orphans Care Centre, keeps growing.  Through unexpected introductions at home in Pittsburgh, Ann acquired a laptop from a local non-profit, Computer Reach, and reusable pads for the home’s female students from Days for Girls. She also bought a set of DIG’s latest version of their gardening, nutrition and community organization manuals.  These seemingly small contributions, otherwise unavailable or unaffordable to the home, make a real difference.

During both the 2014 and 2019 trips to the orphanage, Ann visited other NGOs in Uganda, including demonstration farms that use bio-gas systems for cooking, the Social Innovation Academy where anti-malarial soaps and recycled-plastic building materials are being developed, and the national zoo in Entebbe where solar-powered devices are on display.  Her goal never wavers: to learn ways to address basic necessities at the home and similar rural sites. And, of course, ideas from other PRW grantees can offer similar benefits: CTI’s water-chlorination systems, EOS’s baking ovens, and products from Stanford’s Design for Extreme Affordability (DEA) program all spur new ideas.

Through these experiences, Ann has come to realize how important on-the-ground presence is in building these relationships and identifying new opportunities for synergy.

Expanding Connections and Creating Synergy

A great example of non-financial support that creates synergy in the social-venture sphere occurred when Ann last visited Uganda.  Before her January trip, Donna Allen (a fellow GSB ‘80 alum and PRW partner) suggested she stop by grantee S.O.U.L.’s headquarters in Uganda.  S.O.U.L.’s executive director, Katy Kutzner, e-mailed Ann and arranged a meeting with the local staff, who provided a tour of their community center, training classes and the fish-farming operation that PRW is helping to fund as part of S.O.U.L.’s programs to empower women.

Ann McStay at S.O.U.L. Headquarters in Uganda

Ideas are now flowing between Ann and Katy about how some PRW-connected organizations in Uganda may find ways to collaborate.  It happens that the Orphans’ Centre, S.O.U.L., and a nearby food-security group – situated closely in their region north of Lake Victoria – are all DIG-trained organizations with their own skills training centers.  

Additional connections may be possible with other PRW grantees in East Africa – Educate!, DIG, Village Enterprise (VE), Ongoza – along with various NGOs with which PRW has partnered. There is an opportunity to share curricula, best practices, and other non-financial support. The hope is that PRW can help build even stronger linkages among these outstanding organizations to help their constituents achieve economic security and success.