Hosts
Daniel Casanova
Daniel is the Executive Director at Global Partners for Development. With over 20 years of experience working with non-profit community-based organizations, Daniel brings extensive expertise in board and community relations, fundraising, resource development, and grant writing. Daniel holds a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities and Philosophy from the Dominican University of California.
Ria Pullin
Ria is the Communications Director at Global Partners for Development. She holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing and International Leadership and Management from Holy Names University. Ria also brings an extensive background in hosting, acting, and public speaking.
Intro
Global Partners for Development proudly presents: What Do You Understand? A deep dive into the many facets of philanthropy and development. We will have conversations about what really works and what really doesn’t. Do we know yet how to solve poverty? Are big ideas the answer or do we need to look for small grassroots solutions? Experts in their field will discuss an aspect of their work that they understand particularly well. We will delve into how their work addresses global inequity with an honest conversation about impact.
Let’s talk about big bets, innovation, social enterprises, large-scale humanitarian aid, and the fixation on ending things or solving humanity’s greatest problems and the issues that arise while tackling it all. I am your host Ria Pullin, and my co-host is the Executive Director of Global Partners for Development, Daniel Casanova.
Ria
Hi, Daniel, how are you?
Daniel
Hey Ria
Ria
This is it. The pilot.
Daniel
We’re doing it.
Ria
We’re doing it. This is it.
Daniel
We’re doing it. It’s the pilot. I think the other key to this is, what was it? It’s, uh, Ria Learns Development.
Ria
Yeah, or Ria Learns Philanthropy, because I’m coming in with more of like a hosting background, but I—this is my first foray into the nonprofit world, into philanthropy, and I am learning by jumping in.
Daniel
Yeah
Ria
So, you know pretty much, like, through all your experiences have learned about philanthropy and development, um, can you kind of explain to me how you get started in this? Is this something you wanted to do as a kid?
Daniel
Yeah, you know, now you know, when I was a kid I wanted to be an adventurer. Like I was like, well, I was thinking about us doing this, I was like, oh I have—there’s all those sound bites you have in life of like, this is what I say about myself. So, I was going to try to not do that, but I will start by doing that. I always say that people ask I’d be like, I was like, I want it to be like, Sir Richard Burton or Lawrence of Arabia. I was, like, going to be an adventurer. My grandfather was like overly fixated on those like British explorers and I was gonna, you know, I grew up around ethnographic and tribal art and I thought like, oh, I want to go to those places. Um, so, as a younger person, I would have been like, no, I was gonna be like Indiana Jones and traveled around the world, and it was really aimless and privileged and there wasn’t a lot of focus to it.
So, so when I graduated high school, I—that’s what I did. I went and traveled around the world and tried to do it in really obscure ways, like I, you know, tried to travel as much by like foot or land or sea, and, um—but I think that the short versions that, as I did those things, I always was—I always came in contact with some form of development or philanthropy or NGOs working in the world.
And it was always like, you know, it’s hard to go travel the world and not see disparity and poverty and you’re moved to do something about it. So, the universe had a plan.
Like, I, I, you know, initially I’d be like, maybe I’m going to be like a filmmaker, and I was like a megalomaniac young guy. So, I was like, oh, I’m going to do these amazing things, and it was really ego-driven.
But, um, the other side of my life is that my parents, I think are philanthropists and during, through, and growing up, my dad, um, was an executive director for a large nonprofit based in Los Angeles that worked with homeless people, and so, I like, you know, I grew up around that.
Ria
You’re just following in his footsteps.
Daniel
I’m just fo—there’s nepotism there, I mean, I, you know, like you—you do what you learn. I mean, I, you know, or I could have been a book dealer or something like that, but when I was in high school, I used to volunteer at needle exchange programs in Los Angeles and this was in the early days of like the harm reduction movement and those things, and it was because my dad was involved in it.
So, um, but it was cool. It was like all these young punk rock people, and it felt radical, and it was that kind of thing. So, I got involved in doing that and then similarly, when I traveled internationally, I, I started gathering all these other types of philanthropic groups to do work with. I worked with a floating hospital in Bangladesh, a French floating hospital, and, um, met people in west Africa that were doing things. Started developing that network and then, you know, you have to work, so, I—
Ria
Oh, you weren’t making money doing this?
Daniel
I mean, I wasn’t—no one was paying me to be an adventurer, so, you know, yeah, exactly. So, you know, when—after I traveled a long time, I was offered an opportunity to run a needle exchange program in LA, and so, I did that and, um, you know, that led to lots of other types of consulting work with nonprofits, and I, you know, I always tell people I’m an expert at hanging out with old white men. Um, with that, I mean, there’s like, there’s, what’s interesting about, um, non-profit work is like, there’s a lot of what’s going on in the backdrop it’s just around fundraising and marketing and doing those things and relationship building.
And I, I joke a lot. People talk about like, how do you get grants from major foundations or how do you get funding? And I’m like, I think of it, it’s like, it’s fit into the niche of the capitalist system. There’s like, this inner circle of people that are already in, that are getting funded by this small amount of founders, you know, cause it’s not a large network and then they’re this like middle circle of people that are like hovering and then there’s everyone else that’s like in this outer ring. And so, like the people that are an outer ring are never going to make it into that inner ring. And like what happened, the only way to get into that inner ring is to be in that middle ring and someone in that inner ring has to die.
Ria
Oh, that’s a little morbid.
Daniel
Yeah, yeah, right? And so, then when they die, someone like steps in, but anyway, so, um—
Ria
Are you talking about the inner ring of givers or the inner ring of non-profits that want the money?
Daniel
The inner ring of—of non-profits that want the mon—there’s like the—the people that are making the—the grant makers and funders in the small inner ring, you have to be in with them.
Ria
I see.
Daniel
That’s like networks of things, and I think it’s like anything right? There’s—there’s the people that are in the Psychgeist, right? That are like the hot thing for whatever reason or the hot person in philanthropy. Right? They’re the philanthropic superstars and people running programs, so.
Ria
What’s—what’s an example of something that’s in the middle? Is that like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? What—what is this—
Daniel
Well Bill and Melinda Gates would be the peop—the people who are funding—
Ria
Funding the people.
Daniel
Funders in that, and then there’s the people that want to be there, so, you know, there’s the people that get all the awards, there’s the people that, you know, get awards from like the school foundation or the awardees of the Bill and Melinda Gates stuff.
Ria
I see.
Daniel
And I think that, um, you know, it’s nepotistic, and it’s small, and—
Ria
It’s based on your network, maybe?
Daniel
I think it’s; it is based on your—I think the people that are those funders would want to say that it’s based on really good science and that there, and it’s true. It’s not that those organizations aren’t good. Right?
It’s—it’s whatever I have to, I think, similar to anything, there’s—there’s a lot of other organizations and unknown things that are not getting in because they don’t have the network or the connection or aren’t doing it.
Ria
So, from the needle exchange program to Global Partners, where is this arc that brought you to Global Partners from the needle exchange program kind of as your first foray into leading like a non-profit cause?
Daniel
So, I had been doing a lot of domestic work at the time before I came to Global Partners, I was working at a homeless youth shelter in Berkeley. Um, and I wanted to work…I mean the honest truth is my wife was like, “you need to get a straight job and not be working for so many people.” And then she also was like, “maybe we should go live abroad somewhere. You start looking at international jobs.” Cause I had that background in doing that.
So, she—so, um, Global Partners happened. I mean, it was just like one of those random things, and I think culturally, Global—you know, I grew up going to these, like hippy-dippy private schools and talking about my feelings and the Global Partners is this very unusual organization in that, I think the Board of Directors are people that can communicate really well and can talk about things in a really grown-up way and build consensus, and that—that is like part of the culture of the organization.
And then, they’re also really cool because they were, you know, it’s really, I think it’s hard to find work from, uh, from, from, from the worker bee, right? Like, being the person in the organiza—it’s hard to find organizations where you’re not plugged into a really giant system—that’s
Ria
Okay
Daniel
—that’s already got something amazing going that you’re just like a cog in the wheel doing, whereas Global Partners had this really interesting ethos that I believed in, in my other grassroots work, which was like, true grassroots work that was funding projects that were community-led.
Ria
Okay
By the recipients of the, you know, piece. So, the needle exchanges is like that, needle exchange came out of this movement of drug addicts and users creating programs for themselves, and so Global Partners was—had a similar type of philosophy, right? They—they are funding projects that are led by local people on the ground.
Ria
So that’s what grassroots is, and what is the opposite of grassroots? I guess?
Daniel
Well, there’s top-down development, I mean, so—
Ria
Does that mean just throwing lots of money at a problem. What is, what is the opposite of grassroots?
Daniel
It looks like a lot of things. I mean, I think, you know, what’s interesting is I think it’s not organized. I mean the opposite grassroots I think would be top-down.
Ria
Okay
Daniel
And so, on one of the large-scale that’s government programs, right? And, and now I think government programs want to be more grassroots and funds.
Ria
Okay.
Daniel
It just really hard. We were talking about having them move lots of money.
Ria
Yeah.
Daniel
I mean, this is an issue both from a government perspective or from philanthropy. It’s super hard to move lots of money, like, you can’t—giving away money is not easy or doing it ethically or responsibly, yeah.
Ria
Okay, like making sure the recipients are going to use that money for what they say they’re going to use it for, or—
Daniel
Yeah, I mean, yeah. Knowing what happens to the money, knowing, you know, how, how good of an intervention it is. Does it have—what kind of impact does it have? And it’s caught—and it’s really expensive to evaluate programs, so.
Ria
I see.
Daniel
So, yeah, so it’s like how you do that? So, on the ones that, so there’s, if there’s grassroots in one end, the other end is this large-scale projects that are really more like, the criticism right now would be as like, it’s, you know, developed nations, it’s the US and Europe telling the global south what they need to fund and how they to fund it.
I think we’re well beyond that. I mean, while there are people, maybe they’re still living in that world because you have to, like, in terms of like large-scale, humanitarian crisis, like, that has to be done by governments or by large entities that can move huge amounts of resources around the world. But on another scale, any—all, a lot of projects used to look that way. Right?
Lots of development in the world used to be like, oh, you need electricity, you need water, you need health resources, and so somebody in Europe or the US would make a decision and, and study and figure out how to do that and go on the ground and implement it.
Ria
Interesting.
Daniel
Yeah.
Ria
So, we’ll get back to Global Partners, but I heard there’s a story about building a boat that we need to discuss. Did you build a boat? How, how do you even learn how to build a boat?
Daniel
Yeah, I know this is one of those young man things I—I.
Ria
So, you wanted to be Indiana Jones, that’s what you wanted to do.
Daniel
Yeah, you know, or like Thor Heyerdahl or something like that, I mean, I um, yeah, I, I, so Bangladesh at the time, so, this was in 2002.
Ria
Okay.
Daniel
Yeah, um, I traveled to Bangladesh before in 1999 and, you know, there’s, it’s a, it’s a, a really amazing space, but one of the things that’s really particularly unique about it, is there’s this rich tradition of wooden boat builders on all sorts of different types of wooden boats and it’s a riverine country so they need boats to move things, and, you know, I, I like was, had the idea like, oh, we’re going to build a boat in Bangladesh and we’re going to sail it to Australia.
Ria
Oh.
Daniel
So, I got three friends to go with me and do it and we were going to make a documentary film about it, I mean, I think to be honest, I was more motivated by, and this is with a lot of the things I did, is like being able to say I did something, or like, yeah.
Ria
Okay. Is it like bucket list items maybe?
Daniel
Yeah. Or like the glory of be like, oh, I’m going to, it’s going to be, I’m going to bicycle across the north of Africa and then down the west coast, and I did that, but it was really terrible, and I don’t know.
Ria
Did you make it to Australia?
Daniel
Well on the—no we didn’t. We sunk in the—
Ria
Oh my God.
Daniel
We hit a, you know, we hit a, we hit a storm and—
Ria
Oh no.
Daniel
And it broke the rudder of the boat, and we were rescued in the Indian ocean by a Ukrainian tanker—
Ria
Are you serious?
Daniel
Yeah, called the Mona Lisa that was transporting Palm oil from Bangladesh to, um, to Indonesia.
Ria
Did they speak English on the Ukrainian ship?
Daniel
Yeah, yeah, it was great, I mean, you know, what was interesting about this, one of the, one of the members on our boat was this Norwegian who was in the coast guard, and I remember as we were getting, like, radioing for rescue, we only had a VHF radio. So, we had to, we can only, like, radio line of sight to someone, but, um, he was like, oh man, it costs those tankers like hundreds of thousands of dollars to like change direction or rescue us, like they’re going to be so angry when they pick us up or they’re not going to pick us up.
But we, um, we got picked up and we, you know, it was, you know, it was kind of, it was dramatic cause it’s like, you know, you have to imagine our boat was 12 and a half meters, this small wooden Bangladeshi sand pan, and there was this, you know, football size tanker—
Ria
Oh my goodness.
Daniel
that pulled up next to the boat, so, it um, you know, they have these sites—we thought that they would send a little rescue boat to come get us, but they pulled the tanker right up next to our boat.
Ria
Oh
Daniel
So, it displaces a lot of water, so like, we like came crashing into the side of the boat and, and then—
Ria
Oh my—
Daniel
Yeah, and then they had, you know, they had like all their water cannons going, cause like, they’re like worried about pirates and stuff like that, yeah.
Ria
Did you had to like, declare who you were before you got on?
Daniel
Yeah, well they’re like “one person can come up without anything,” you know, they’re, they’re like, and then they’re like, oh, look it, who are these white kids in the Indian ocean? Um, but, um, so. So, yeah, so we, we, we got rescued and we were really nervous, and we get brought to the captain’s quarters and he’s, he, he’s drinking, he’s like, you know.
Ria
Oh
Daniel
Yeah, and like, and we, I feel bad saying it because I like, it’s like, I feel like tanker captains probably shouldn’t be drunk right there, I don’t know. But it was his last voyage.
Ria
Okay
Daniel
And he was like—you know.
Ria
Going out with a bang.
Daniel
Well, yeah, he was like, he’s like the company told me that I couldn’t rescue you, but I had rescued one other sailor in my life, this Italian sailor in the Mediterranean, and he’s like, I wanted to, you know, seamen help out each other. So, it’s my last trip with them, so, fuck them, I’m going to rescue you guys, so.
Ria
Did you keep in touch with this captain?
Daniel
We have, yeah, but you know, and he, so we spent the rest of the night just drinking.
Ria
Oh my goodness.
Daniel
And it was weird. And then the next morning, like morning happened really quickly ‘cause it was like the middle of the night when we rescued, and in the morning, we watched our boat sink, and you know, it wasn’t really, I had, um, I’d been really fixated and focused on doing this trip. And I think I was like a jerk to my friend. I know I was not, I don’t think, I was like a jerk, yeah, I was l a jerk.
Um, but the experience was really elating because it, it was like ecstatic to watch the boat sink because here’s this thing where I had spent the last year working, it was really hard living in Bangladesh, like, one of the Norwegians that was with us had arsenic poisoning—
Ria
Oh my goodness
Daniel
and was hospitalized in Norway for part of the trip, and we had to deal with the government, and it was, you know, it’s hard. It was hard.
Ria
I know the script for your next movie. I know it.
Daniel
Yeah, right? I’m going to go to, I’m going to go to Africa, East African build a boat.
Ria
Yeah, no. That’s a bad idea.
Daniel
With Global Partners.
Ria
Bad idea. So, from that experience, what did you pull from that to kind of help you along the rest of your career as far as development, seeing how it was living in Bangladesh trying to build a boat and have this end goal. What did you kind of learn from that?
Daniel
I mean, so one was, as I developed relationships with people at the UNHCR, because where we lived in Bangladesh was near where all the right kind refugees from Myanmar were living. So, I built those connections, and like I said, there was that theme there, but the bigger one was is that it definitely killed for me that part of me that wanted to do these ego-driven things, and so I was like, I don’t need to adventure anymore.
Ria
You did.
Daniel
I did. And I was like, oh no, it was, you know, it was really traumatic. It was actually, you know, like.
Ria
Yeah
Daniel
It was sailing in a wooden boat and, um, a big storm was really, really super stressful.
Ria
I can imagine.
Daniel
Yeah,
Ria
And then so—
Daniel
But it, but no, but it led me to like, want to, I think, you know, I came back and that was when I worked for the needle change.
Ria
Oh, it was after the—okay.
Daniel
It was after that. Yeah, and then, you know, I think, and again, I think still at that time, you know, to be honest, it was really accidental. I was more like, okay, this is the work that I know how, like I know how to work with boards of directors and fundraise.
And, um, it just like made sense and that just snowballed into continuing to work with different nonprofits. But, what was good is that I had all of this international experience. Like, being on the ground in places and implementing projects. So, that turned into lots of work, like being able to go to a remote space somewhere and help to build something, you know.
Ria
Maybe that boat experience, did it maybe change things from being about you and more being about others and helping others? Cause it sounds like—
Daniel
Yeah, not in a cliche way or anything like that.
Ria
You’re not trying to save, you know, your, your movie that you’re making, you’re going to go help people on the ground.
Daniel
Yeah, I mean, it, it, I mean, as I got older, definitely. I mean, you don’t have having kids does that. I mean, I actually feel, to be honest, it feels more synchronistic.
Ria
Okay.
Daniel
Or like less planned just in like, I feel fortunate that that’s the work that I’ve been able to do. I mean, I’m um, you know, it’s hard for me to think about making money, being motivated to make money, which is good. I mean, it does for an individual, right.
But, but it’s like, yeah, it’s really, I feel fortunate, like I can do the work that Global Partners does because it’s so intimate and because I think it has this really great ethos. It feels good to do those projects and meet those partners on the ground and do that kind of work so I feel lucky. And I think it’s part of this like lineage, like, you know, I could say that it’s intentional. Like I did this altruistic thing.
Like I used to be this terrible person. And then now I’m going to, I saw poverty and I’m going to do this. It’s like, no, I grew up in LA and my dad worked in skid row, like I know about poverty. I mean, I, you know, it was more accidental, like, oh, there’s this—there’s this universe has a plan for me to hang out with old white men.
Ria
To help people all over the world.
Daniel
To help people all over the world.
Ria
That’s right. So, I, I have no segway, but I am supposed to ask you about a cheeseburger gun and I, there’s no way to segway into asking you about a cheeseburger gun, so there it is. I don’t even know what that means.
Daniel
When I interviewed for Global Partners, the, um, you know, they were asking like: What would you want to do? Like what would you do with the organization or like, tell us about ideas you might have, like how to like, represent our work. And, um, I’m really, I’ve always been people, I don’t know, a lot of people don’t know about this, but what we’ll do is like, um, Jonathan Swift wrote an essay called A Modest Proposal and it was during the Irish potato famine.
Ria
Okay.
Daniel
And so, it was put in the major newspapers at the time in the UK, but it had, um, recipes for it—it opens with an essay talking about like how terrible poverty is in Ireland and like how horrible it is to have all these babies and its really critical and then it ends with this, the modest proposal, like it’s recipes for how to cook Irish babies.
Ria
Stop.
Daniel
Yeah.
Ria
It was actually published?
Daniel
Oh yeah. It’s great it’s called A Modest Prop—
Ria
Was it a joke?
Daniel
No, it’s a, well yeah, its satirical. He no, yeah, so yeah, he, uh, he—he’s who wrote Gulliver’s travels.
Ria
Oh.
Daniel
Which is also satirical, you know?
Ria
Yes.
Daniel
So, um, But so he, I feel like the world needs a new modest proposal. So like one of, you know, there are all of these issues with development, but I think that my, because Global Partners had this history from being World Runners, which was their mission was the end world hunger.
Ria
Okay.
Daniel
So, um, I thought, you know, the world needs a modern day, like modest proposal like that. And so mine was like, well, we should, we should invent the cheeseburger gun, like.
Ria
Oh.
Daniel
Cause it’s, cause it’s easy, right? You can Mount it onto helicopters or onto tanks, and you could just like.
Ria
You’re just gonna drop cheeseburgers?
Daniel
Cheeseburgers have lots of protein. No, no shoot them at poor people, right? So, um.
Ria
Daniel! The images. We’ll all be like “cheese!” It’s like, like Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs almost.
Daniel
Yeah, but its like feed the world, right? So, it’s like, I think like the world needs a, but I mean, obviously it’s satirical because it’s like, this is the problem with top-down aid
Ria
Okay
Daniel
Or even with other systems. It’s just like, people get like, the idea of trying to end things is, I mean, it’s strange, right? Like, the idea that like, oh, we could make this system like, yeah, you could feed people by shooting cheeseburgers, like, you know, but it doesn’t solve their problems, and there.
Ria
So, what are, what are the. Because we talked about solving the big problems and ending things. What are these things that people have claimed to end? I guess, like what you said with World Runners, are trying to end world hunger. Is it just not realistic or the way they’re going about it is not realistic? We shouldn’t think about ending world hunger or bringing peace to the entire world. Is that just some fantasy or how do you think?
Daniel
So, I’m really optimistic. I think we live in a world where things keep getting better. Um,
I think that the problem becomes the inner, if the focus is too much on those things. So, like we obviously people like have these ideals. We want to live in a peaceful world.
Ria
A utopia.
Daniel
A world without all these things, but it’s really nebulous. And it’s really hard to know what that looks like or means. We live in a world where there’s great disparity, right.
There are people that have so much, and there’s people that have so little and so, I think we need to figure out how to address that. So, and those things aren’t about these ending these isms, like ending, it’s like they’re more grounded in real things like people need, it’s not complicated. It’s not rocket science.
People need health care. People need roads, people need functioning governments. Like we kind of know what works, but what happens I think is, and this is definitely like a product of the world we live in where like this idea, like business is going to save the world. I think like innovation is great and those things are going to continue to improve our lives.
But if we still have to solve these other problems, like, you know, like we’re not going to, like, we just see it a lot in our work and they’re just not going to be this device that just like you push a button and it’s going to feed people or end poverty. They have to have these functioning systems like that they fit into and those things aren’t that complicated.
So, I think we see it’s like we get foot, people are really seduced by those innovative ideas because they sound amazing. Like, so the ones I hear about right around right now, or like these like solar companies around the world, or like in West Africa were they’re like “oh, they’re ending energy poverty.
Ria
Oh okay.
Daniel
Which is fine, like obviously like, and then they’ll have these narratives about like, oh, well there’s all these people don’t have energy and imagine like having surgery under candle light or like these things, but it’s like, yeah, hospitals need electricity, right?
Like we, but this idea that there’s energy poverty and solving it it’s going to be this thing is more like, no, there’s just like, there’s a lot of problems that need to get solved for those people. They, they need, there needs to be development and I think that the fixation on these innovative ideas takes away from more practical ideas that are locally led and simple, that just need to happen for people to thrive right?
Ria
Okay, and so is that how Global Partners works as far as they’re not trying to end or fix, they’re more talking to local communities about what they need in that immediate moment?
Daniel
Yeah, I think the whole, so I think that Global Partners fell into this niche of grassroots work. So, when they were World Runners, they were on this movement of ending hunger—
Ria
Okay
Daniel
in the world and they were doing it by running marathons and raising money, but then they were just ultimately giving money to large entities.
Ria
Oh.
Daniel
International entities that were doing that type of poverty work. And I think they realized, they’re like, well, we actually want to be able to give money directly on the ground to schools and women’s groups and people that are—are living in that poverty and doing it. So that’s how global partners came to be.
And so that’s those. So, I think that for those founders that were doing that, I think that there, they were still trying to move the needle of like infant child mortality and hunger.
Ria
Okay.
Daniel
But their idea was the way to do that isn’t by funding these top-down things, the way to do that is to go down and ask people what they need and to be able to, it’s not even just asking. I think it’s more; it just has to be steered by local people, it has to—local people have to invest in their own projects, and it has, you know, and ultimately like it is about capital.
They need capital to be able to do, you know, they could have all the hopes and dreams and organize or be given all of the amazing aid or innovation or mosquito nets or whatever, but ultimately at the end of the day, it’s like they need to have their own civic engagement and organization. I think that was what was going on with Global Partners.
Ria
And so, who’s actually doing the work and making the projects move along? Is it Western countries coming in and doing it, or is it the local people doing it? How does Global Partners work as far as getting the projects done?
Daniel
Yeah, so we have, so we have East African staff on the ground that implement that, but mostly the way that happens and historically that happened through partnerships with other local entities, like really small CBO community-based organizations.
Um, and also just local leaders in the communities where we had been working for many, many years, so.
Ria
And how do you find these leaders? Do they find you, or do you approach them?
Daniel
I mean, at this point now it’s through a network of people that we’ve developed relationships with. I think, you know, when, you know, initially when we went to East Africa, we went to Nairobi and there we worked in the slums in Nairobi and that was like how we got engaged there, but from there, the network just expanded.
So, I think there, I would say like there’s a network throughout East Africa and Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Brundi of elders, of organizations that we’ve worked with. And so, some of those were like women’s group Mussai women’s groups that had like 20 members when we met them and now they’re organizations that are larger than us.
And, um, I think that’s the kind of work that I’m passionate about. It’s like finding those—so it’s similar like startups, right? Like high, what is it? High risk?
Ria
High reward.
Daniel
So, um, when I see a lot of grassroots funds or people that are saying that they fund grassroots work, the, the barrier to receive that funding is so high, that even Global Partners will barely qualify, right? But they they’re saying they want to be doing that work with local people. So, in our work that I’m really passionate about, it’s like we can identify local people that don’t have an entity form.
Ria
Okay.
Daniel
That maybe don’t even have a CBO but are already doing work in their communities and help them to build an organization and scale that and fund projects with them and then build a partnership so that they, under—they can become that organization that maybe then can tap into those other types of grassroots funding.
Ria
Oh, that’s great. So, you kind of set up a system where then they can help themselves after that.
Daniel
Yeah, a lot. I mean, and then practically a lot of our work on the ground right now is, and what our team in Kenya does is we, we identify low performing schools in a particular region, and we do infrastructure projects with them.
But from that, we, that’s also a way that we identify new partners to then do work with.
Ria
Okay. That’s interesting, and so in your time with Global Partners, from the first time you went to East Africa to how long have you been with Global Partners now?
Daniel
Nine and a half years.
Ria
Wow. How many, how many trips to East Africa would you say you’ve done in nine and a half years?
Daniel
Um, twenty-something.
Ria
Oh my goodness. Have you seen kind of an evolution, or have you seen just from like projects you saw when you first started to now, does it have, do you see an impact?
Daniel
You know, I mean, this is, I think our work is, is great. I mean, I see an impact, you know, it’s also, I think that the world is developing, so, you know. Or I see organizations take credit for things that they do.
Ria
Okay.
Daniel
Right? Cause it’s like anything like you can go in and influence something and then be like, look, we built this and then that led to all of these other amazing things in this community. You know, we gave this community some cows and now they’ve built rocket ships. Right?
Ria
Where’s that correlation?
Daniel
Yeah, I know like we’re going to take credit for those rocket ships.
I think in our work that, you know, what’s interesting about traveling with some of the founders is, you know, we funded projects with women groups and parts of Uganda, where now there are these really massive organizations. What’s really interesting about it is the work that they’re doing civically and politically and how that’s growing and what that’s changing in their environment.
And like, you know, we have, you know, historical scholarship recipients that have done amazing things. I mean, so I think it’s really weird to take credit for those things, because I think that even without Global Partners or any organizations like progress is happening.
Ria
Yeah.
Daniel
And yeah, and yeah, so.
Ria
So, what are we getting? What’s our plan here with this podcast, like, we’re going to talk to these people, these experts about what they know well, and is it going to relate to development, to philanthropy? What do we want to get from these experts on a, on a whole? Just a conversation? What are you, what, what is our end goal of trying to figure out how the great minds think about philanthropy and development?
Daniel
Yeah, well, I mean, one is, I want to do to them what you didn’t do to me, which is make me have to like, be certain about something.
No, I like the idea, like people have to do this, right? Like these experts in their field have to have, you know, they’re there where they are for a reason and they know about something. So, I’m curious to see what people can talk about, that they like a subject they understand really particularly well and can speak to and say, I know this thing, and this is what I believe or know, and this is why.
And like at the base, that’s just initially what I want to be able to get from them.
Ria
Okay.
Daniel
Yeah, and then from there, I think it’s then having a dialogue about their field and being like, what are the problems in your field? What are the things people are saying that you don’t agree with? Like what, you know, like those kinds of things and I, you know, politically, I think people have to speak with their hands tied a lot,
Ria
Okay
Daniel
Because there’s like the things you’re supposed to say, and there’s just the way things are and it’s, it’s interesting to hear people when we can, you can get them to be like, well, this isn’t what, this isn’t working, and this is why I think, but this is why it’s not happening, why isn’t not changing.
So, um, I think there’s a lot, I think we actually are in a moment where the intentions are there for people to—and we have a lot of really great academics and knowledge about how to solve poverty or like how to make the world better, but we can’t agree about them.
Ria
Okay.
Daniel
And then also we don’t know how to implement some of those things and they’re not getting implemented.
And there’s lots of excuses for why and, so I think like while we live in an era where we have a lot of the answers, I think we also right now have a lot of people that are working on bad projects and so many fields, but this is my—I mean, you know.
Ria
Yeah, and what kind of, what I kind of love, just to bring back up the cheeseburger gun, is I, I think when experts talk to each other—breaking pens.
Daniel
Yeah
Ria
He’s Hulk now. Um, what I like about the cheeseburger gun is I, I think when tech experts speak to each other, they have this high level of speak that they understand each other, whereas I’m not from this world. So, your cheeseburger gun thing, that makes sense to me. Like I needed to, I need to be able to understand it just like any lay person could understand it.
Daniel
Yeah.
Ria
Um, so that’s really helpful.
Daniel
Yeah.
Ria
I mean, I don’t know, are you can work on that?
Daniel
Yeah, gotta work on that.
Ria
On your cheeseburger gun.
Daniel
Yeah.
Ria
Is it In N Out? Is it McDonald’s? Is it BK Broiler?
Daniel
Oh yeah. Also, there’s Fatburger.
Ria
Oh, oh. Not White Castle?
Daniel
Not white castle. I love the White Castle burgers. Those are easy, I, yeah.
Ria
Oh, don’t get us started on food. Oh, you know, this is going to end forever.
Daniel
Thank you, Ria.
Ria
All right, thank you, Daniel, and I can’t wait to talk to all the experts in their field and figure out how we’re going to not and world hunger and not bring world peace, but do it in ways that are manageable and actually scalable. Thanks. Daniel
Outro
At Global Partners for Development, our mission is to advance community-led initiatives that improve education and public health and East Africa. We envision a world in which every East African community has the capacity to implement dynamic, sustainable solutions to the challenges they face to learn more visit GPFD.org.
