I quit my job, moved to Malawi, and discovered my life's purpose.
It was an act of desperation, with the hope that I would find meaning and direction for my life. It didn’t take long.
My mother emigrated from Ecuador when she was a young woman. She and my father gave me a great upbringing. We lived in the suburbs outside of Washington D.C. and I attended private schools all the way through college. When I graduated, I got a standard corporate job and began to work my way up the ladder.
After some early success, I knew something was off. I was being rapidly promoted through the organization, and yet...I was unhappy.
In an act of desperation, I quit my career and found a teaching job all the way across the world in Malawi, Africa. Knowing almost no one in the country, I impulsively moved there with the hope that I would find meaning and direction for my life.
It didn't take long. A few months after moving, a local Malawian man named Blessings asked if he could take me to a nearby village and show me something. I was curious, hungry for adventure, and agreed to go.
He drove me out to meet a lady named Rosina. She was 70 years old, she hadn't eaten in a week, and her house had a big hole in the roof. As someone who grew up in wealthy America, meeting Rosina face-to-face was shocking. I knew extreme material poverty existed. But now it was standing in front of me, looking me right in the eye.
Blessings said Rosina needed $700 to build a new house. I instinctively handed him my camera and filmed my first-ever video that I would send to donors asking for help.
After successfully raising $700 and building the house (a day before the first big rain of the year), Blessings started taking me to meet more people in need. He introduced me to a young girl named Emily who was an orphan because her mother couldn't afford a $20 trip to the hospital.
Over and over again, I was shocked by the material poverty of the people I was meeting. Given my upbringing, I knew I had a responsibility to explain what I was seeing to my friends and family back in America. So I kept making videos, and I kept fundraising. I was discovering my life's purpose.
In 2016, after the completion of many fundraising projects, Blessings came to me with a big ask. He wanted us to raise $100,000 to build a fully-sustainable girl's high school. Up until that moment, I had only raised a few thousand dollars.
I put together a fundraising video and launched it on social media. There was an explosion of excitement from my network back at home. Every week I would release new videos showing the progress, and asking for help to complete the next stage of the school. People back home loved seeing the impact and joy they were creating in real-time. And after a few months, the whole thing was funded and built!
The first class at Girl's Shine Academy was 120 students, and today there are over 300. After this experience, I knew the world needed a way to fundraise for needs like this all over the world.
Girl's Shine Academy's first day of school was on September 6th, 2016. A few weeks later, I launched DonorSee. From the beginning, DonorSee has always had a two-part mission. We want to bring hope to those in need, and we want to share the joy of that hope with those who made it possible.
Believe me, it hasn't all been a smooth ride. There have been many difficult and trying moments along the way.
From humble beginnings, DonorSee has grown into a global community that is empowered to directly help people in need.
Today, the DonorSee community has raised over $4.9 million and changed countless lives. We partner with 100+ non-profits in 38 countries and continue to grow.
We've been featured in USA Today, HuffPost, TEDx, Acton Institute, National Review, and Forbes just to name a few. We've also raised over $2,000,000 - much of that during a pandemic - and we are only just getting started.
I now live with my wife and daughter in Fairfax, VA, and run DonorSee with the support of my family and our amazing team. We are all passionate about what we do, and we work hard to provide the internet's best experience for online giving.
It was my first international trip since 2019. And it was a wake up call, in two ways.
First, the past 18 months had been very hard on many people. I saw it in their eyes, and heard it in the stories they told me.
Second, the impact the DonorSee community has made is famous throughout the developing word. It's is a symbol of hope for so many who have desperately needed it.
On June 24th 2022, we lost our inspirational Founder, Gret Glyer.
Just before his passing, Gret wrote about the launch of the DonorSee Humanity Fund, a rolling fund that gets money directly to the poorest 10% of the world.
At DonorSee, we are determined to continue the mission Gret has envisioned.
Join the Humanity Fund today and be part of the global movement to end extreme poverty.
