116. The Mission of Hope for Haiti: Defining and Living Out Your Core Values - Skyler Badenoch and Christina Baptiste

CommunityInnovationValues

May 12

Written By Julie Confer

Hope for Haiti, Skylar Badenoch and Christina Baptiste, We Are For Good Podcast

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Overview

Meet Skyler & Christina. He's the donor-turned-CEO of this incredible nonprofit serving thousands in southern Haiti through education, healthcare, water/sanitation and economic development. She's the Haitian-American sociologist who's collaborating with numerous entrepreneurs to obtain grants/loans and technical support to help them grow their business. Together, alongside a powerful team of Do Gooders, they're infusing their time-honored values into a culture that's thriving and valuing all people equitably. Only tune in if you want to be ridiculously inspired.

Today’s Guests

Skyler Badenoch, CEO, Hope for Haiti
Christina Baptiste, Economy Program Manager, Hope for Haiti

“It’s about coming up with core values that really embody who we are as an organization, who we are as individuals, and findings ways to use them that is meaningful, drives us, and inspires us in our work.”

— Skyler Badenoch, CEO, Hope for Haiti

Episode Transcript

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Episode Highlights

Skyler’s Story - 3:25
Christina’s Story - 7:34
The mission of Hope for Haiti - 9:52
The values of Hope for Haiti and an example of discovering your organizational values and living them out - 16:12
The next 10 years: strategic planning and casting vision - 24:57
What is the state of Haiti right now? - 32:03
Fundraising from miles away - 36:51
Fundraising in the digital age, and innovative approaches Hope for Haiti has implemented this year - 43:53
Skyler’s One Good Thing: “Intelligence and ability are equally distributed throughout the world, but opportunity is not.” - 51:01
Christina’s One Good Thing: Always learn about people’s stories. - 52:59

Powerful quotes

“Hope for Haiti really led the way and showed us how to do this kind of development work by empowering others, specifically doctors and nurses in Haiti, to make a difference during the time of the earthquake. Since then, I've just been a huge fan and supporter, and now the CEO of the organization. So for me, it's about the belief in the mission.” - Skyler

“For the last 32 years, Hope for Haiti has been working to improve the quality of life of the Haitian people, particularly the women and children. And we've been doing that by incorporating a holistic model for development.” - Skyler

“The model specifically is designed to help communities alleviate poverty, and solve significant problems as they relate to community education, access to health care, access to clean drinking water, vital community infrastructure and economic opportunity.” - Skyler

“She's (Christina) out there bridging the opportunity gap for businesses and entrepreneurs by supporting micro small, medium-sized businesses with grants and loans and providing business education. So that it's not just about providing the finance, but it's about you know, building a community, a network of organizations and like-minded individuals and businesses that are about supporting and building up the patient economy, specifically in the south.” - Skyler

“I think the thing that resonates the most with me is you get $18 million in gift-in-kind, and you can't use it all. So you spread it around. This is the difference between nonprofit and for-profit in many ways. If you have an abundance mindset, you don't care who gets the credit. You just want someone to be well, to live a vibrant and abundant life. And I love that you are partnering in any way to get all of that out. And that is just extraordinary.” - Becky

“If you can align with someone's values, it just makes the conversation a completely different type of conversation. Because if you're connected with people that value resilience, and value hope, you can put your strategic plan in front of them because it's gonna register on all those fronts and your team is locked in.” - Jon

“Our vision for Haiti is joyful children, healthy families, thriving communities, and the resources to make it so. And that's the vision statement.” - Skyler

“I really love these exercises and especially this one because it shows how aligned our values are with our co-workers. We can have this conversation and also have this vision.” - Christina

“Yeah, there's a lot of challenges in Haiti, there's always a lot, a lot of challenges when you're doing this type of work, especially in the fundraising, you know, world here know a lot. So you have to keep that you got to keep that hope alive and know that, you know, it's, it's about being resilient, and in being resilient in your hope.” - Skylar

“There are times when things are just not okay. And we need to talk about that.” -Jon

“It feels like, and this is this has been my experience in over Haiti, that we're not really fundraising in a position of desperation, but we're fundraising in a position of strength, we're fundraising in a position of a vision, and putting forth ideas and programs that can really improve people's lives. I think having that in place is has been one of the most beneficial parts of our fundraising strategy.” - Skyler

“We've partnered with this terrific organization called The Giving Block that helps nonprofits accept cryptocurrency. They also provide education around the cryptocurrency ecosystem and the philanthropy that's involved in all aspects of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. And they've been really helpful to us.” - Skyler

“The big gifts make it they help you build that foundation, build the stability so that you can even start having a discussion around revenue diversification.” - Skyler

“It sounds just normal like anyone can volunteer, but we all have other tasks, we all have our specific positions and tasks that we're doing. And we all were like, okay, we can take two-three days, put our tasks to the side and just go help this community. We saw how the community was just like super thankful.” - Christina’s One Philanthropic Moment

“I always think of the quote that always inspires me is that, “Intelligence and ability are equally distributed throughout the world, but opportunity is not.” We see it every single day that many of us have been blessed to have had incredible opportunity and privilege, right. But others who are just as smart, just as intelligent, maybe have not. And so, for me, it's something that that I think about almost every day, like, how do we bridge that opportunity gap?” - Skyler’s One Good Thing

“That is my one good thing that maybe someone can take with them is just always learning about people's stories. - Christina’s One Good Thing

“If we're employing that cognitive diversity by hearing other people's stories, it can change and sharpen our view of what's actually happening in the world and give us an opportunity to see how we can pour into it.” - Becky

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