Small & Gutsy: Nonprofit Stories with Heart

Small & Gutsy Features Home Care Partners, Filling the Gap for Elders in Need

There is a gap in elder care that almost nobody knows about until they land in it: too much income to qualify for public assistance, not enough to pay roughly $40 an hour for private help. Host Dr. Laura Scherck Wittcoff sits down with Marla Lahat, who has spent nearly four decades in that gap — building an Alzheimer's home care program in 1986 when people told her adults with dementia could not possibly live on their own, and running Home Care Partners since 1999. It is a conversation about what Medicare actually covers and doesn't, about aides who walked through a frozen city to reach their clients, about the private-pay division this nonprofit's own staff refused to run, and about a question Laura is living through herself while her mother sits in a memory care unit several states away. Marla Lahat, MSW, LICSW, Executive Director, Home Care Partners. Marla has been a leader in the field of aging and caregiving for decades. She began her career in nursing homes — work most people don't enjoy, and she loved, particularly engaging residents with Alzheimer's and other dementias at a time when, as she puts it, staff simply weren't taught how to communicate with them. She joined Home Care Partners in 1986 to develop its Alzheimer's home care programs, which were then essentially unheard of, and became executive director in 1999. She has authored articles and presented seminars on Alzheimer's disease, caregiving, and home care services, and serves on several community-based committees working to improve care for older adults and their families. In 2013, she received the EXCEL Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Leadership. What is Home Care Partners? A private nonprofit serving vulnerable adults across the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area — D.C., Maryland, and Virginia — so they can remain safely and comfortably in their own homes. The mission is to preserve dignity, independence, and quality of life through home care services, support for family caregivers, and home modifications that make aging in place possible. Critically, it is built for people who cannot afford essential home care and do not meet the threshold for public assistance. The home health aide program is the core of the work — help with activities of daily living: bathing, dressing, light housekeeping, and the smaller tasks that quietly determine whether someone can stay home. Safe at Home does home modifications and fall prevention. The logic is that you can't fix one part of a person's life in isolation: providing an aide doesn't help much if the client can no longer manage the stairs and is effectively stranded on one floor. One fall can be devastating for an older person. The D.C. Caregivers Institute , funded through the D.C. Department of Aging, supports and trains family caregivers — who are still providing the bulk of care in this country. Social workers and nurses on staff , which is unusual in home care, carry out the assessments that determine what level of support someone actually needs. Funding comes from donations and grants alongside public support in the region, including the D.C. Department of Aging, agencies on aging and human services departments in Arlington, Montgomery and Prince George's counties, and the Veterans Administration. A graduated model. One of the areas they've expanded most is care for people who need only a little help — not daily assistance, but someone to do the laundry, take out the trash, or wash the hair they can no longer reach. Key Topics Covered "They can't possibly live on their own." When Marla began building an Alzheimer's home care program in 1986, the condition barely had a usable name — people were still saying senility, organic brain syndrome, old age forgetfulness. The program eventually specialized in something people told her was impossible: supporting adults with dementia who were living alone. Her answer then and now is flat. Yes, they do. They can. They need support. She's still proud of it. How you know it worked: The measure of success came years later and in an unexpected form: the separate Alzheimer's program stopped being necessary. Every aide — both licensed home health aides and certified nursing assistants — was trained and supported well enough to work with that population, so dementia care was folded into regular home care. She's quick to add that it isn't all they do: plenty of their clients, in her words, are sharper than she is. The gap almost nobody knows about: Most people assume Medicare covers home care. It covers a small portion of it, tied to very specific nursing needs. It does not cover the help people actually need — bathing, dressing, light housekeeping. Nor, as Marla points out, will a private insurer. The result is a large population of older adults who need daily support, can't get public assistance, and can't afford roughly $40 an hour. That's who Home Care Partners was built for. Easing into being helped. Nobody likes change, and accepting help is a particularly hard change to accept. So rather than waiting for a crisis, they offer a smaller tier of service — someone who comes twice or three times a week. Marla puts it in the client's own voice: I have a wonderful aide, Miss Mary, who comes to see me. Maybe she can come a little more often now, because I really do need a bit more help. And I trust Miss Mary. The point is that trust gets built before dependence arrives, not after. Why the training is in person: Being a home health aide is isolating work. You leave your house in the morning, you go to your client, you come home at the end of the day, and you've seen no one else. Aides in the D.C. area need 12 hours of continuing education a year, and it could be done online or through packets. Home Care Partners insists on doing it in person anyway — partly for the quality of the training, mostly so the aides actually see their peers. They never shut down. Through COVID, the office stayed open. Aides were going out into an extremely confusing situation and needed somewhere to pick up personal protective equipment, which in the early days Marla describes as gold — unobtainable, and ruinously expensive if you found it. Clients who canceled at the start were calling back within weeks. Training moved temporarily online and to printed packets, and went back in person as soon as it safely could. "Without our aides, we don't exist," Marla says she's focused on two groups: the people receiving care, and the people providing it. The organization fundraises specifically so it can offer better pay and benefits to aides, on the straightforward logic that quality staff produces quality service and people who aren't treated well don't stay. It isn't a program; it runs through everything, and it's written into the mission statement. The policy argument: Marla's broader wish is for greater public support and for insurers to cover far more of this than they currently do, on the obvious preventive logic — a fall and the rehabilitation that follows cost far more than the help that would have prevented it. Her diagnosis of why they don't: a trap of medicalizing everything. The services she provides aren't medical in nature. They support health and wellbeing, but they don't require a physician's order. What matters is what people need day to day in order to go on living well. Learn about services, programs, and ways to give: HomeCarePartners.org Connect with Small & Gutsy Website: SmallandGutsy.org Email: Laura@SmallandGutsy.org Do you know a nonprofit or social enterprise doing incredible work? Send them our way!

Small & Gutsy Features Harper for Kids, a Program that encourages every child (& adult) to be their best self

Two former competitive tennis players spent their careers inside a sport where somebody wins and somebody loses every single time — and watched the disappointment on parents' and coaches' faces when it went the wrong way. Host Dr. Laura Scherck Wittcoff sits down with Tim Harper and Peanut Louie Harper, who built a free character education program around Coach John Wooden's definition of success and brought it into roughly 50 California elementary schools, with the single goal of getting children to measure themselves against nobody but themselves. It's a conversation about why Wooden was teaching this to college athletes who were never going pro, what happens when you ask a room of critics which blocks they'd take out, and why a third grader settled an argument the adults couldn't. Tim Harper, President and Co-Founder, Harper for Kids. Tim has spent his life working with young people to help prepare them for a successful future. He owns and operates ITP Design — a graphic design, advertising, marketing, and publishing business — and is an avid painter and tennis instructor. He and Peanut met during their competitive playing years. On the recording, he's candid that nobody ever asked him as a child what he was good at or what he liked to do; his father's position was get an education, then get to work. He says it wasn't until Harper for Kids that he found the thing he genuinely loves doing, and that he still runs Wooden's standard on himself daily: am I doing everything I can today to be the best Tim I can be today? Peanut Louie Harper, Co-Founder, Treasurer and Program Director. Peanut played professionally for 16 years, reaching a career-high world ranking of No. 19 in 1985. As a junior, she won 14 USTA national titles, reached the final of the Wimbledon junior singles championship, and held the national No. 1 ranking in the United States in her age groups. She is a co-author, with Coach John Wooden and Steve Jamison, of the award-winning children's book Inch and Miles: The Journey to Success , illustrated by Susan F. Cornelison. She runs the program side of the organization, handles the school relationships, and does the asking — including the cold outreach to prospective guest speakers. What is Harper for Kids? Harper for Kids is a nonprofit character development program, founded in 2008, that helps schools implement UCLA coach John Wooden's Pyramid of Success — a teaching tool built around becoming the best you are capable of being rather than measuring yourself against anyone else. Based in San Francisco and now in its nineteenth year, it is the only charity working with the Wooden family, and Tim says that it was the only character development program Coach Wooden himself authorized. It's free. Always has been. As Peanut puts it, they don't want there to be a hurdle for kids not to learn about this. The only cost is commitment — specifically a school-wide commitment carried through the full school year. Scale. Roughly 50 schools across California, plus some out-of-state schools that find them. They began with a single school around 2010. How a year runs. Schools get a sample calendar that typically opens in September with hard work and enthusiasm — the cornerstones — and adds a block each month through May, finishing at a personal best. Beyond that, teachers adapt it however suits their classroom. Visits. About 30 minutes, to a whole school, a grade, or a single class — reinforced continuously through the year rather than once and done, which Zoom has made far easier. Special guests. Hundreds to date: Olympic champions, engineers, writers, and, recently, an astro farmer working on how to grow crops in space for long missions. Every guest is asked for a word or phrase they use for positive self-talk. The core exercise. Students are asked to write down, on paper, how they define success — so the definition is theirs rather than inherited from social media or from home. A clearinghouse, not a curriculum company. Teachers send in their own lesson ideas and classroom projects; Harper for Kids collects them, keeps them as shareable PDFs, and posts them so nobody has to reinvent the wheel. "We're not expert educators," Peanut says. "The teachers are the expert educators." Key Topics Covered Why two tennis players built a program about not winning. Tim's framing is the premise of the whole organization. In tennis somebody wins, and somebody loses every match, and Peanut spent her career watching the disappointment land on parents' and coaches' faces — and then there's another tournament next week. What they want children to understand is that success isn't about winning or losing, and isn't about fame or fortune. It's whether you can find the thing you genuinely love, give it your best effort, and be a decent person while you do it. Nobody asked him what he was good at. The block on Wooden's pyramid that hits Tim hardest is enthusiasm, which he connects to happiness — what are you good at, and what do you like to do? Nobody put that question to him as a child. The instruction at home was get an education and get working, and while he says he's had a good life, it took founding Harper for Kids to find the work he loves. That gap is a large part of why the program exists. Wooden wasn't coaching only future pros. The clearest explanation of the premise. Most of Wooden's UCLA basketball players were never going to play professionally — he was trying to set them up for a happy and successful life regardless. So Tim and Peanut asked the obvious next question: if it works at the college level, what happens if you start at elementary school? "Then we'll be way ahead of the game." How the children's book happened: Steve Jamison, a professional author, was a member at the tennis club where Peanut practiced. She read the first book he wrote with Wooden and immediately thought the material belonged in a book for parents and kids. Jamison had heard the same request from others, including Wooden's granddaughter, a teacher. Getting Wooden to agree to anything with his name on it was normally hard — he was, by Jamison's account, deeply humble and uninterested in attention — but a children's book was the easy yes, because it was for kids. Then at book signings teachers kept telling them they were already using Inch and Miles as a character education program. A philanthropist friend and Wooden fan told the Harpers that if they became a nonprofit, he could support them. That was 2008. Teaching kids to be proud of nothing external is Peanut's most quotable line, and the one aimed squarely at the world children actually live in now. She and Tim grew up without social media; today's students see comments about themselves constantly, which she calls deeply detrimental. What she wants is for kids to find a way to be proud of themselves based on nothing external at all. The companion idea: Wooden's philosophy locates success inside the person — so a child without much support at home can still believe it's still within me. Two founders, two takes on failure. Peanut notes that every single special guest they have ever hosted treats failure as a prerequisite for success rather than its opposite, and that the pressure on kids today is nothing like being told to go outside and play. Tim goes further: throw the word out entirely. It carries too heavy a connotation. Things go right, and things go wrong, and if they went wrong, the only useful question is what do I need to do to get to my goal. Role models, and the ones you choose. Asked how teachers counter role models who model the opposite of all this, the answer is notably apolitical: talk with students about who they surround themselves with. What traits do you admire in other people — and if you admire them, why wouldn't you want them for yourself, and look for them in the people around you? Laura adds a useful corollary: a good role model isn't someone happy all the time. It's someone who, on a bad day, says I'm having a tough day rather than putting it on somebody else. Energy as a superpower: A radio host friend came into a school with them and asked the students whether they could feel the energy she was putting out — then asked them to send it back. Without saying a word, you can sense it. You also always know whether you're raising the energy of a room or lowering it. Be mindful of which, and people want to be around you. The stories that tell them it's working: A sixth-grade teacher in Chino Hills who's worked with them for years was invited to the high school graduation of former students — who wrote her notes mentioning the Pyramid of Success. A school in Indio sent their yearbook, where a fifth grader's artwork of the book's two characters became the cover. And early on, when they were getting feedback that it was simply too many blocks for young children, Peanut's answer was a question: which blocks would you take out? Then she asked a third grader after an assembly what he thought of the pyramid. He said it's always with me. She asked what he meant, and he pointed at his heart: it's right there. "And I said, okay. I'm done. I'm good. We're keeping all those blocks." How to Get Involved Schools and teachers: Harper for Kids has an inquiry form, and Peanut replies to submissions generally the same day Volunteer as a special guest. This is the easiest and most concrete way to help. The ask is roughly 30 minutes to talk with students about what you do, how you define success, and any words of wisdom someone passed to you. They host Olympic champions and engineers and writers — and they are actively looking Follow along: Harper for Kids on Instagram and Facebook Read Inch and Miles: The Journey to Success by John Wooden with Steve Jamison and Peanut Louie Harper Website and donation details: HarperForKids.org Connect with Small & Gutsy Website: SmallandGutsy.org Email: Laura@SmallandGutsy.org Do you know a nonprofit or social enterprise doing incredible work? Send them our way!

Small & Gutsy Features Blue Faery: The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association

Title: Small & Gutsy Features Blue Faery: The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association At twenty-two, Andrea Wilson Woods took custody of her eight-year-old sister. At twenty-eight, she came home from teaching and found that sister — fifteen, straight-A, thriving — curled on the floor saying she couldn't breathe. Six hours later, a doctor said the words: tumors in her liver and lungs. Adrienne lived 147 days. Host Dr. Laura Scherck Wittcoff talks with Andrea about the years before the diagnosis and the twenty-four years since: a rejection that accidentally founded an organization, a medical dictionary bought because no patient materials existed, and the public health message Adrienne herself wanted people to hear. It is a conversation about grief that doesn't resolve, about what it costs to run an organization whose patients almost always die, and about the difference between justifying a loss and learning how to carry it. A note for listeners: this episode includes frank discussion of a child's death, parental addiction, and the guest's own experience of suicidal thinking in the year after her sister died. Guest Andrea Wilson Woods, Founder and CEO, Blue Faery: The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association Andrea was twenty-two, newly graduated from USC and living in Los Angeles without financial stability, when her mother called the day after Christmas and said she no longer wanted to be a mother. Her sister Adrienne, eight years old, had arrived for what was supposed to be a two-week visit. Andrea told her mother that if she took Adrienne then, she would not be giving her back — and later went to court and won full legal custody. She raised Adrienne through her entire twenties, working four part-time jobs at one point and eventually becoming a teacher largely so she could be on her sister's schedule. Adrienne was diagnosed with stage four hepatocellular carcinoma on May 16, 2001, and died 147 days later at fifteen. Andrea founded Blue Faery in Adrienne's memory, is co-author of multiple academic articles on HCC, launched the podcast Better Off Bald in 2017, and published the medical memoir Better Off Bald: A Life in 147 Days in October 2019 — a number one Amazon bestseller in multiple categories and the winner of several awards. What is Blue Faery? Blue Faery: The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association is dedicated to preventing, treating, and ultimately curing primary liver cancer — specifically hepatocellular carcinoma, or HCC. When Andrea went looking in 2002, not a single organization in the country was working on it. The name comes from Adrienne, who loved Ireland and fairies and preferred the older spelling, faery ; the logo is modeled on a picture of her face. Three pillars from the start: research, education, and advocacy. Research. The Blue Faery Award for Excellence in Liver Cancer Research, launched in 2009, funds investigators working on HCC. Education. Patient resource guides distributed through oncology centers, physicians, and nurse navigators — more than 115,000 copies in under five years, in English, Spanish, and Chinese. Community. A moderated, HIPAA-compliant patient and caregiver forum — deliberately not a Facebook group, for reasons Andrea states plainly in the interview. Structure. Five full-time employees including Andrea, plus volunteers, vendors, a board of directors, and a medical advisory board. The team is entirely remote and distributed, which Andrea credits for both talent access and low overhead. Funding. No government money. Revenue comes primarily from corporate grants and sponsorships, with diversification as an active goal. Key Topics Covered The afternoon of May 16, 2001. By her first year of high school, Adrienne had let go of everyone else's expectations and was, in Andrea's words, a hundred percent herself — a 4.0 student, a gifted artist and writer. The house rule was homework first, so Andrea usually walked in to find her at the kitchen table. That day she found her on the floor, crying, saying she couldn't breathe. Six hours later, after the pediatrician and the local ER, a doctor told them there were tumors in her liver and lungs. She was transferred by ambulance that night to Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Fifteen years, and fifteen years old Within two days Adrienne had imaging and a biopsy, and the diagnosis came back Stage IV HCC. The doctors asked why Andrea had custody and what their mother's history was, then tested Adrienne for hepatitis — and found chronic hepatitis B and C. They believed she had acquired both at birth: there was no prenatal hepatitis B screening in 1986, and hepatitis C had not yet been identified or removed from the blood supply. When Andrea later found the literature, she learned the average interval from chronic hepatitis B to liver cancer is fifteen years. Adrienne was fifteen years and one month old. Had they known of the exposure, she would have been under surveillance with scans at least twice a year — and at her age, if caught early, she would have been eligible for a liver transplant. The rejection that founded the organization: At the first anniversary of Adrienne's death, Andrea was acutely suicidal. Her partner John, who had been present for most of the years she raised Adrienne, said one sentence that stopped her and sent her looking for somewhere to put the grief. She approached the largest liver disease nonprofit in the United States, offering to volunteer — writing the liver cancer content their website didn't have, for free. They refused; she learned years later it was an internal policy against touching the subject. She admits that if they hadn't said "no", Blue Faery wouldn't exist. Then she found that no organization in the country was working on HCC at all, and remembered a line attributed to Lily Tomlin — " I thought somebody should do something about that, and then I realized that somebody was me." A medical dictionary and a stack of photocopies. The education pillar came first, and it came from a specific grievance. When Adrienne was diagnosed, Andrea was handed one-sheets about the chemotherapy and nothing at all about the disease. She asked the doctor who performed the biopsy for more; he told her nothing like that existed, then photocopied pages from his medical textbooks and brought her a stack she couldn't understand. So she bought a medical dictionary — which she still has — and a copy of Gray's Anatomy , and began translating it into plain language herself. Writing the book was not cathartic. Andrea is direct about this because people keep assuming otherwise. The first draft took two years, and she describes it as cutting yourself open every single day, letting it start to scab, and cutting again. The organization came first; the book came later. Why leaving Los Angeles made the organization national: Andrea moved to LA at eighteen for USC and never expected to leave. Adrienne is buried at Hollywood Forever. She left in 2014 anyway, and says the organization genuinely took off afterward — the board could no longer meet in person, which forced a national focus, and she began meeting the advisors who helped it grow. She didn't become a full-time employee until 2020. The distributed team also meant that when COVID arrived, Blue Faery was already remote, already equipped, and not dependent on events for revenue. Why liver cancer is caught late: The liver has no pain receptors. If you don't know you have underlying liver disease — and most people with liver cancer do, but not all — and you aren't under surveillance, the cancer is usually found by accident. In Adrienne's case, her liver had swollen enough to press on her diaphragm, which is why she kept saying she couldn't breathe. Her only other symptoms were acid reflux, which can mean anything, and right shoulder pain, which turns out to be a sign of advanced liver cancer because of a nerve running from the liver to the right shoulder. Her pediatrician had seen her for that shoulder two weeks earlier and misdiagnosed it — which Andrea is careful to say was not his fault. Fatty liver disease is now the leading cause. For a period, hepatitis C was the most common underlying cause of primary liver cancer in the US. With curative hepatitis C drugs on the market, that has shifted: fatty liver disease — MASLD, and its more severe form MASH — is now becoming the most common cause in the US and in some other Western countries. What frustrates Andrea most is how the diagnosis gets delivered. People are told they have fatty liver and advised to lose weight, and nobody tells them it puts them at risk for liver cancer. Her instruction is plain: if you are told you have fatty liver, you need to be screened for liver cancer. Worldwide, there are more than 900,000 cases annually and almost as many deaths, around 800,000; in the US, roughly 42,000 cases, which still classifies HCC as a rare cancer — with a death toll nearly matching the case count because it is found too late. "I didn't know she was a drinker." When Adrienne was diagnosed, the only thing Andrea knew about liver cancer was that it came from drinking. She wasn't alone. More than one of Adrienne's friends' parents said, out loud and in front of Adrienne, that they couldn't believe it — they hadn't known she was a drinker; she was a straight-A student. Andrea and Adrienne laughed, because how much would a fifteen-year-old have to drink? You'd have to start with the bottle. Andrea says Blue Faery was born partly out of Adrienne's own wish that people understand the real underlying causes. What she'd tell another founder: two lessons, both stated against her own instincts. First, pay yourself. Blue Faery was proudly all-volunteer for years and couldn't grow; if you aren't taking a real salary, your numbers don't reflect what the organization actually costs. She mentors a younger nonprofit leader and told her flatly, having looked at her 990, that she was underpaying herself. Second, don't found an organization with your friends. Blue Faery's founding directors were all people Andrea knew, and the result was early drama, misunderstanding, and lost friendships — including one friend who later revealed she had thought the whole thing was monthly group therapy for Andrea rather than a corporation registered with the State of California. How to Get Involved Patient and caregiver resources, the liver cancer guide, and the moderated community: BlueFaery.org Clinicians: patient guides and professional resources are available to order through the site Read Better Off Bald: A Life in 147 Days , or listen to the Better Off Bald podcast Andrea's own site, including speaking: AndreaWilsonWoods.com Corporate grants, sponsorships, and donations — inquiries through the Blue Faery site Connect with Small & Gutsy Website: SmallandGutsy.org Email: Laura@SmallandGutsy.org Do you know a nonprofit or social enterprise doing incredible work? Send them our way!

Small & Gutsy Features ScentsAbility Candles: A Beautiful Journey of Love & Resilience

Small & Gutsy Features Nepal, One Day at a Time, the Beautiful Journey of Trekking, Literally and Philanthropically

What does it take to turn a single moment of compassion into a lifelong mission? After a career spent supporting children in Vancouver's inner-city classrooms, Patti Shales Lefkos set out on a journey that carried her far beyond anything she'd imagined — into the remote mountain villages of the Nepali Himalaya, where a village asked her to help rebuild a school that was falling down around its students. She didn't promise anything. A year to the day after she stood in that village, the 2015 earthquake flattened it. Host Dr. Laura Scherck Wittcoff talks with Patti about the schools, homes, and scholarships that grew out of that moment, what she learned about listening instead of assuming, and why, at 79 and about to turn 80, she's packing for Kanchenjunga. Guest Patti Shales Lefkos, Founder, Nepal One Day at a Time Society. Following a rewarding career as a teacher, administrator, and advocate for Vancouver inner-city children, Patti studied journalism at Langara College. She's a graduate of the University of Toronto, Toronto Teachers College, Simon Fraser University, and a wilderness leadership program. She is the author of Nepal One Day at a Time: One Woman's Quest to Teach, Trek, and Build a School in the Remote Himalaya and Grounded by Granite , a coming-of-age story of family connection and personal resilience framed by summers on a remote island in the Canadian Shield. A third book, about the 800-kilometre Great Himalaya Trail trek she completed at 77, is currently seeking a publisher. She founded the British Columbia nonprofit Nepal One Day at a Time Society to support education, health care, and home building in Nepal, and lives near Silver Star Mountain in the BC interior. What is Nepal One Day at a Time Society? A small British Columbia nonprofit that funds education, health care, and home building in remote Nepali villages — the kind of places that sit at the end of the road, where children walk two hours each way to reach a classroom and the nearest bookstore is a two-day journey to Kathmandu. The organization works through long-standing relationships with a Nepali trekking company and its affiliated NGO rather than parachuting in. Two partner schools. The first, whose original 55-year-old building had a condemned top floor and rain coming through into the classrooms below, now runs kindergarten through grade ten and serves roughly 350 students. The second, a small primary school in the far northwest reached during the Great Himalaya Trail trek, serves about 150 children in classrooms with dirt floors and bare cement walls. Three homes rebuilt after the earthquake, at roughly $15,000 USD each — a two-room house with an outdoor bathroom and a front porch, built to post-earthquake standards with rebar corners. Student sponsorships. Rosina, sponsored from grade five in the village, is now 23, has graduated in physiotherapy, and lives in Australia. The guide's 12-year-old son is next. School supplies and technology. A first gift of $500 for library books — the school had none — followed by $6,000 for supplies, more books, and three computers for a staff that had none. Low overhead. The partner NGO is staffed by young people from the region who handle administration through the trekking company, keeping admin costs to roughly 3–5%. Funded by Rotary clubs in Vernon, BC, and Kingston, Ontario, profits from Patti's books, photo art cards of Nepal and Tibet, speaking engagements, and individual donors. Key Topics Covered A book in grade ten, and forty years of waiting. Patti grew up an outdoor kid on an island with no electricity, drinking straight from the lake, long before screen time. Then a novel on the grade ten curriculum — Lost Horizon — put the magic of the Himalaya in her head, and she filed it away. A year of high school in Switzerland got her a passport and a taste for adventure, and then she did all the expected things: university, teachers college, a career. It was only after retiring, and after journalism school, that she and her husband picked up passports again and started walking. A coast-to-coast hike across England was the shakedown. Tibet was next, including a three-day circumambulation of sacred Mount Kailash at an altitude she'd never experienced. She was hooked. The decision to go alone. They'd planned to return to Nepal together to visit their guide's and porter's villages and volunteer as teachers. Days before departure, her husband ruptured his Achilles tendon. Friends and family were getting sick. Her reasoning was blunt and worth hearing: you don't know what will happen to you next. With her husband's blessing, and with the same guide and company guaranteed, she went by herself. "Would you help us build a school?" After her volunteer teaching, her guide Raj took her to a village at the end of a road that had never received outside help. The school building was 55 years old, built by the villagers themselves. The top floor was condemned. They were still using the main floor, with rain coming through from above. The villagers asked her directly. Her honest first thought: they think all Westerners are rich — what could I possibly do? She promised nothing and went home to think. A year to the day, while still in Nepal, she'd met a Buddhist monk in Upper Mustang who was building a school for children with no access to education at all, funding it by giving teachings in Singapore five months a year. That conversation about what was possible stayed with her. She came home, mulled it over, looked into what starting a nonprofit would take — and then, a year to the day after she'd stood in that village, the earthquake hit. The area she'd visited was at the epicenter. Every home in the village was gone. Her husband, an outdoor guy who hates computers, built a slideshow. They showed it at Silver Star Mountain and raised $1,000 the first night. Then she joined her local Rotary Club, and everything scaled from there. Coffee, tea, and the discipline of listening. The most transferable lesson in the episode, and it comes from Vancouver, not Nepal. Trying to get parents involved at an inner-city school, Patti's team put out coffee every morning for the grandmothers dropping off the primary kids. They didn't want coffee. They wanted tea. She carries that into every village: don't decide what people need. Ask them. When she stood on that school playground in northwestern Nepal, the question she asked was simply, " Do you have any library books? Would you like some"? Being told about her own privilege, Patti recounts a former staff member giving her what she describes as a long lecture — that as a white, middle-class woman whose parents and grandparents went to university, she was operating from privilege. Her response, decades later and on the record: "that was really good for me to hear." Laura connects it to the reason the relationship works — the villages hold parades for her, which is not how a colonial dynamic looks. How she vets where the money goes: Patti admits she was long reticent about charities and what share actually reaches the work. Her answer has been to build relationships rather than write checks: a good feeling about the head of the trekking company that a first trip confirmed, a principal who traveled two days to Kathmandu to buy books and sent photos back, a guide who translates and vouches, and a partner NGO whose admin is handled by local young people at a few percent of the total. 800 kilometres at 77 In 2023, believing they had one last long trek in them, Patti and her husband designed their own route on the Great Himalaya Trail, which runs the length of Nepal. They walked 800 kilometres over 75 days with a guide, a cook who had cooked as high as Camp Two on Everest, and a donkey man with five or six animals carrying food and camping equipment. In the first 50 days they met perhaps seven or eight other Westerners — which is exactly what they wanted, because it meant being with Nepali people the whole way. She journaled daily and photographed a wipe-off sign each night recording the day number, kilometres walked, total distance, and altitude. Why she doesn't trek with big groups anymore On the Tibet trip, a man on their trek died of altitude sickness — a man who had climbed Kilimanjaro the year before. On her first Nepal trek, feeling sick at 12,000 feet, Raj simply said they'd stay put another day and see. She was fine. In a group of thirty, she notes, you're pressured forward: go ahead when you don't want to, or lose the group. Being able to make your own call is the whole point. How to Get Involved Learn more and see photos of the schools, the children, and families in their new homes — and reach Patti directly through the contact form — at her website PattiShalesLefkos.com Follow the September trek: Patti will post to her Facebook page as reception allows Read the books: Nepal One Day at a Time and Grounded by Granite — profits go back into the projects, an idea Patti took from Conor Grennan's Little Princes Photo art cards of Nepal and Tibet are also available, with proceeds supporting the work If you are a nonprofit or want to donate goods directly to a nonprofit, check out Givelink: www.https://givelink.app/en ? Connect with Small & Gutsy Website: SmallandGutsy.org Email: Laura@SmallandGutsy.org Do you know a nonprofit or social enterprise doing incredible work? Send them our way!

Small & Gutsy Features Character -Wise, the Youth Character Development Program that Works!

In this episode, Dr. Laura Scherck Wittcoff speaks with Keith Lietzke, Co-Founder of Character-Wise, an innovative after-school program designed to address two critical challenges facing young people today: the mental health crisis and the declining state of civil discourse. Character-Wise teaches seven character strengths to third graders through interactive, experiential learning while simultaneously creating meaningful volunteer opportunities for recently retired adults. The Connection Between Civil Discourse and Character Development - How the way we argue reflects who we are becoming - Aristotle's belief that character is formed through habit and repeated action - The role of respectful disagreement as a moral exercise The Origin Story of Character-Wise - Keith and Mark's concerns during COVID about mental health and during the 2020 election about civil discourse - Discovery of positive psychology research from the 1970s-80s showing that building character strengths leads to improved individual well-being and better interpersonal relationships - The decision to focus on elementary school students, specifically third grade Why Third Grade? - Third graders have the mental ability to understand concepts like fairness and courage - They are still receptive to adult guidance The Dual Mission of Character-Wise - Building character strengths in young people - Providing meaningful volunteer opportunities for recently retired adults seeking purpose and community contribution - The name "Character-Wise" reflects this dual focus **Program Structure** - 8-week program with 7 classes focusing on individual character strengths plus one wrap-up session - Classes include: quick introduction, group activity, read-aloud, and small group breakout sessions - Students create leaves for a tree visual metaphor, writing how they demonstrated each character strength - Free add-on to existing after-school programs at elementary schools, Boys and Girls Clubs, and YMCAs - Intentional sequencing alternates between other-centered and me-centered strengths **Teaching Methodology** - Minimal adult lecture; maximum student engagement through activities - After sitting in school all day, kids respond with enthusiasm when given hands-on activities - Read-alouds performed by adults to avoid shaming students with varying reading levels - Small group discussions before leaf-writing to help kids who struggle with ideas - Visual posters and slogans to reinforce concepts **Pilot Program Results** - Kids were deeply engaged and understood character content - When a class was cancelled due to a coach's illness, students were disappointed and looked forward to the program - When asked if they'd recommend the program to friends, responses were enthusiastic, with all hands raised - Four volunteer coaches in pilots; only one had previous classroom experience - All coaches expressed desire to continue coaching - Program uses a manual with activity prompts and ongoing support for coaches **Parent Engagement Component** - Weekly emails to parents about the character strength being taught that week - Suggestions for group activities families can do together - YouTube readings of character-themed books - Video recommendations aligned with weekly topics - Future plans include more robust parent materials **Future Vision and Goals** - Currently piloting in the Northeast - Rolling out in fall to full production mode - Audacious goal: 1,000 character coaches across the United States - Plans to expand office hours and peer mentoring among coaches - Potential integration into public school curricula - Website under development: character-wise.org - Interest in partnerships with influencers in the retirement community About Small & Gutsy Small & Gutsy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit podcast spotlighting nonprofits and social enterprises with budgets under $10 million. Recently ranked: - Number 8 on Feed Spot's Top 30 Social Impact Podcasts - Number 3 and Number 9 by Million Podcasts for Top 30 Volunteer Podcasts and Youth Empowerment Episodes, respectively --- Contact Information **Character-Wise:** - Email: keys.lipski@gmail.com - Website: character-wise.org (launching soon) **Small & Gutsy Podcast:** - Email: laura@smallandgutsy.org - Website: smallandgutsy.org

Small & Gutsy Features TechTainment®,Part 2 the Trend Predictor for the Confluence of Entertainment, Technology & the Law

Every legal dispute comes down to a judgment call made with incomplete information — and wherever there's judgment, there are mental shortcuts quietly shaping the outcome. Host Dr. Laura Scherck Wittcoff sits down with Tricia Schafer, a full-time neutral who mediates and arbitrates cases nationwide, ahead of her TechTainment panel on implicit bias in tech-driven mediation. Together they unpack what implicit bias actually is (a normal function of the human brain, not a character flaw), why it matters most in entertainment and intellectual property disputes where there's rarely one objectively correct answer, and the practical, sometimes surprising strategies practitioners can use to design bias out of a process instead of pretending it isn't there. Tricia Schafer, Tricia Schafer Dispute Resolution PLLC: A full-time neutral and former litigator with 31 years of experience across all aspects of commercial controversies, Tricia is known for connecting people and concepts to outcomes that transcend the sum of their parts. She mediates and arbitrates cases nationwide, both privately and through the American Arbitration Association, handling commercial, real estate, health care, and consumer matters, and was recently approved as a mediator for the United States Postal Service. Based in Arizona, she also volunteers with the state court system in civil and probate matters and offers reduced-rate work to select Arizona nonprofits. She first attended TechTainment in 2024 at a friend's suggestion — arriving knowing exactly one person and leaving with roughly two dozen new friends — and has been a loyal follower since. At this year's conference, she co-presents on implicit bias with longtime friend and colleague Maria Crimi Speth, a partner at Jaburg Wilk in Phoenix and a career intellectual property litigator. What is TechTainment? TechTainment is an annual, one-day conference produced by LAIPLA, now held in partnership with the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University (ASU) at ASU's California Center in downtown Los Angeles. The conference brings together leaders in technology, entertainment, business, academia, and law to discuss the issues reshaping every industry, long before those issues become mainstream news. This year's conference: Friday, October 16, 2026, at ASU's California Center in downtown Los Angeles Tricia's panel: "Implicit Bias in Dispute Resolution and Mediation", co-presented with Maria Crimi Speth of Jaburg Wilk What implicit bias actually is: Implicit bias is not prejudice or intentional discrimination. It's a mental shortcut the brain uses to make decisions under incomplete information, limited time, or uncertainty — a normal part of being human, not a character flaw. Tricia's example makes it concrete: a Mercedes pulls into your driveway versus a beat-up pickup truck, and you've formed a judgment about the driver before you've seen them. It doesn't matter until you have to help that person resolve something that matters in their life. Why "neutral" is a noun: Tricia explains that "Neutral" is the catch-all for someone who serves as both mediator and arbitrator — a private-pay, secure way to resolve disputes outside of court. She also walks through the tradeoffs of arbitration: it's faster, it's private, it never becomes public record, and critically, you get to choose your decision-maker. File in court and you may draw a judge who spent 20 years in family law and just moved to the civil bench. Through the American Arbitration Association or another provider, you can ask for an environmental lawyer, an engineer, or a water lawyer. The cost: you pay your neutral's hourly rate, and there is almost no right to appeal. Positions versus interests, and the last orange in the house: Tricia walks through the foundational mediation exercise: two kids fighting over the last orange, and a parent's instinct to cut it in half. The better move is to ask each child why they want it — one is hungry, the other needs it for a science project — and suddenly there's a solution that makes both of them happy. As she puts it, a position is what you say you want and an interest is why you want it. Do you really want the money, or do you want the security of knowing you can keep the house? The related insight: "No" is never permanent. "No simply means I'm not going to change my position based upon the available information that I have right now." Designing bias out of the process: Tricia describes wanting software that would strip law firm letterhead off position statements before she reads them, and assign parties fake names, so she isn't forming judgments about counsel or making assumptions from the ethnicity of a surname — the same logic behind employers removing photos from resumes. She also shares a technique she uses now: she dumbs the fact pattern down, renames everyone, and spends half an hour working through the dynamic with an AI assistant. Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith fighting over a commercial building becomes Bob and Larry fighting over a pickup truck. The AI has no idea who anyone is, which is exactly the point. Where implicit bias shows up in entertainment and IP: Assumptions about how long creative work should take a human, and whether AI could do it faster. Assumptions about what a market wants and will pay for, made without consulting anyone who lives and works in that market. Confirmation bias in data used to argue for one direction over another. And the structural disadvantage facing independent creators, who often lack the resources to register, protect, or aggressively enforce their intellectual property — so their disputes get read as less significant. Tricia names the persistent disconnect between the rooms where decisions get made and the people actually watching and streaming the content. Dispute resolution is dispute prevention: One of the episode's most quotable lines, and the practical center of Tricia's advice. It's not if a dispute arises, it's when . Mediation clauses are now common in contracts — and, Tricia notes, most people don't realize those clauses are negotiable in any contract involving personal services or securing talent. "We'll mediate before we arbitrate before we litigate" means very little on its own. For how many days? What kind of mediator — an entertainment lawyer at $1,000 an hour, or a court-appointed one? In person or on Zoom? In good faith, and what does good faith mean? She points listeners to the sample clause language published by the major providers, including the AAA's ClauseBuilder tool, and notes you can even name the specific mediators you'd accept. Strategies for creators and practitioners without deep pockets: For anyone younger, newer, or under-resourced walking into a negotiation: go in without defensiveness, but look in the mirror first and ask what the other side is likely to assume about you — then stay ahead of it. On the other side of the table, for the corporations and the streamers: you know statistically what your audience does, but you don't know what's in their heads or why they're watching what they're watching. Follow the data, and also build a team of decision-makers with genuinely different perspectives. Normalizing bias instead of denying it: Tricia's hope for what people take away from her session: bias is not bad. Bias is not negative. She'd like to see the same shift the culture has already made around therapy and health tracking — from something you'd never mention to something you say out loud. Her image of what that looks like in practice: a mediator who can say "I feel like I'm getting a little biased from this room, I need to take a five-minute break." Laura's response: when you pretend it doesn't exist, it creeps in anyway. How to Get Involved Register and learn more: LAIPLA.net/techtainment Pricing: Multiple tiers are available, including discounted rates for in-house attorneys, law students, LAIPLA members, and ASU alumni Attend: The conference includes breakfast, lunch, and extensive networking opportunities Connect with Tricia: TriciaSchafer.com Connect with Small & Gutsy Website: SmallandGutsy.org Email: Laura@SmallandGutsy.org Do you know a nonprofit or social enterprise doing incredible work? Send them our way!

Small & Gutsy Features TECHTAINMENT, 2026: the Intersection of Technology, Entertainment & Law Conference

For more than a decade, one conference has been getting ahead of the headlines instead of chasing them. Host Dr. Laura Scherck Wittcoff sits down with Mark Treitel, founder of TechTainment, and Konrad Trope, the conference's co-chair, ahead of this year's event to talk about how a niche gathering on technology, entertainment, and the law grew into one of the country's premier forums for examining AI's legal, ethical, and business impact, and why staying "gutsy" enough to tackle hard conversations before they go mainstream is the whole point. Guests Mark Treitel, Founder, TechTainment A senior intellectual property and technology litigator with Quinn Emanuel, Mark recognized 12 years ago that no conference was seriously addressing the intersection of technology, entertainment, and the law. Rather than wait for someone else to fill that gap, he created TechTainment under the auspices of the Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Association (LAIPLA). What began as a small gathering of a handful of speakers has grown into a full-day conference featuring more than 30 speakers and nearly 200 attendees from across the country. Konrad Trope, Managing Shareholder, Trope and Trope Konrad comes from a family of eight attorneys whose legal careers date back to 1954, when his father, Eugene Trope, and his uncle co-founded the law firm Trope and Trope. Over the following 75 years, the firm has represented some of Hollywood's most illustrious names, including Cary Grant, Alan Ladd, Nicole Kidman, and Nick Cassavetes. Konrad has focused his own practice on entertainment and intellectual property litigation for the past 40 years. He was introduced to Mark and TechTainment in September 2022 after chairing a panel on ethics in the age of digital media at the seventh annual conference, and became co-chair in January 2023, since carving out a niche recruiting panelists and keynote speakers who are defining the boundaries of artificial intelligence. What is TechTainment? TechTainment is an annual, one-day conference produced by LAIPLA, now held in partnership with the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University (ASU) at ASU's California Center in downtown Los Angeles. The conference brings together leaders in technology, entertainment, business, academia, and law to discuss the issues reshaping every industry, long before those issues become mainstream news. This year's conference: Friday, October 16, 2026, at ASU's California Center in downtown Los Angeles Keynote: David Alpert, CEO and co-founder of Skybound Entertainment, known for transforming intellectual property like Invincible into television, film, games, and tabletop products Panels include: recent developments in AI and entertainment law; recent developments in IP and entertainment law; how AI is changing greenlighting decisions in film and TV (moderated by Konrad, featuring Craig Wagner of Paradigm Talent Agency); managing AI data and addressing bias in prompt design (featuring speakers from Tokyo Broadcasting System, Microsoft, Lexus, DLA Piper, Amazon, and Oracle); algorithms and arbitrators, on implicit bias in tech-driven mediation (featuring Tricia Schaefer and Mike Murray of Vertex); a civility and professionalism panel featuring Dr. Wittcoff, the dean of Washington University School of Law, and a leading Southern California legal ethics expert; and a secret panel still being finalized at the time of recording Panelist Tracy Freed has spoken at all 12 years of the conference Key Topics Covered A new civility requirement for California attorneys Beginning April 1, 2026, every California attorney must annually affirm a civility oath, pledging to conduct themselves with dignity, courtesy, and integrity, alongside new required training on civility and mental health awareness. Mark and Konrad discuss why professionalism and ethical conduct matter more than ever as AI transforms how lawyers practice, and why the legal profession, historically slow to prioritize wellbeing, is finally catching up. Clients "playing lawyer" with ChatGPT Mark shares how attorneys across the profession are now spending more time managing clients who arrive already convinced they've diagnosed their own legal issue using AI tools, requiring lawyers to sort fact from AI-generated assumption before real work can begin. His takeaway: these are powerful tools, but only tools, and lawyers still need the expertise to use them ethically and effectively. The pushback against "AI slop" Mark points to a growing cultural backlash against AI-generated content in entertainment, and a corresponding renaissance of audiences seeking out simple, well-told, human stories, citing the independent film Obsession and anticipation for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey as evidence people still want real actors and real storytelling. Reading, learning, and the future of legal education Both guests raise concerns about AI's effect on critical thinking, particularly in law schools, where the traditional grind of close reading has historically been what makes lawyers effective. Mark argues bluntly that if students lose the ability to read and analyze because AI is doing it for them, the consequences extend well beyond the legal profession. The bigger picture: AI, dystopia, and the future of work The conversation turns to bigger-picture anxieties around AI, from military robotics to questions about what a society looks like if AI eliminates the need to work, framing these as exactly the kind of uncomfortable, ahead-of-the-curve conversations TechTainment exists to have. A shared love of things "AI can't replace" In a lighter moment, Mark reflects on losing an entire digital music collection to digital rights management, and his frustration with ads creeping into the modern moviegoing experience, both examples of technology's tradeoffs even in entertainment he loves. Why they're still doing this after 12 years Mark closes by reflecting on the sheer number of hours he and Konrad have poured into the conference over more than a decade, admitting there were plenty of moments he could have walked away for more billable hours or family time. His answer for why he hasn't: a genuine, long-term commitment to the vision, one he hopes people are still gathering around in 10 or 20 years. How to Get Involved Register and learn more: LAIPLA.net/techtainment Pricing: Multiple tiers are available, including discounted rates for in-house attorneys, law students, LAIPLA members, and ASU alumni, with early bird pricing through the end of August Attend: The conference includes breakfast, lunch, and extensive networking opportunities Sponsor: Sponsorship tiers include Matrix, Luminary, Beacon, and Circuit level sponsors; interested organizations can reach out directly Connect with Small & Gutsy Website: SmallandGutsy.org Email: Laura@SmallandGutsy.org Do you know a nonprofit or social enterprise doing incredible work? Send them our way!

Small & Gutsy Interviews Mint To Prosper Foundation, The Pathway to Financial Literacy

What if the fastest way out of predatory lending isn't a lecture on budgeting, but $50 saved at a time? That's the model behind Mint to Prosper Foundation, a savings marketplace built for asset-limited households to step away from payday loans and rent-to-own traps and build their first real financial cushion. Host Dr. Laura Scherck Wittcoff sits down with founder and Executive Director Nesha K. Brown, who turned the loss of both her parents and a period of homelessness into a peer-cohort savings program now operating in two states. Guest Nesha K. Brown, Executive Director & Founder, Mint to Prosper Foundation Nesha is a social impact strategist focused on financial empowerment and systems design, specializing in structured savings pathways that help asset-limited households step away from predatory lending and reach long-term stability. Her work is rooted in personal experience: after losing both parents by age 19, she was pushed into homelessness and had to unlearn and relearn everything she knew about money. What began as her own financial "social experiment" grew into a program that has since served over 1,500 people. What is Mint to Prosper Foundation? Mint to Prosper Foundation is a nonprofit savings marketplace that helps unbanked, underbanked, and asset-limited households build their first financial safety net and move away from predatory lending. Its core offerings include: The Community Savings Program, a 12-week hybrid cohort model combining an in-person opening retreat, virtual workshops, one-on-one financial coaching, and an online peer community, culminating in an in-person closing retreat and certificate Purpose, a fintech app currently in production that helps users build micro savings habits and connects them to safer financial pathways, expected in app stores by late 2026 Active programming in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (Nesha's hometown) and Tulsa, Oklahoma, with each region running its own opening and closing retreats Key Topics Covered From personal crisis to nonprofit After her father's death at work, Nesha discovered her survivor benefits, meant to be her safety net, had been misused due to his financial illiteracy. Determined to change the trajectory for herself, she began teaching herself financial literacy and sharing what she learned online. Within six months, at age 20, she had earned $55,000 simply talking people through budgeting and credit basics, an accidental start that organically grew into Mint to Prosper Foundation. The pilot program In 2024, Mint to Prosper received a grant from Louisiana State University to run a social experiment with 30 unbanked or asset-limited participants, in partnership with Chase Bank, helping them build a first $500 safety net over ten weeks. The average participant was 34 years old, had never saved more than $800, and had experienced some form of financial trauma, insights that shaped the program's focus on micro habits and behavior change rather than large, intimidating savings goals. The pilot's success, including one participant who leaned on her cushion during a Louisiana hurricane rather than meeting the full $500 goal, evolved into the current 12-week Community Savings Program. The highlighter exercise After her father passed, a financial coach had Nesha print her last bank statements and highlight her spending into needs and wants. Seeing her spending laid out visually was an awakening, showing her that her "wants" had surpassed her needs, and became a simple, repeatable technique she now teaches others: assess your reality, then ask what you're willing to sacrifice to change it. Predatory lending, up close Nesha shares her own early experience taking out a payday loan against a paycheck stub at triple the typical interest rate, and describes how loans marketed as two-week solutions trap borrowers for an average of five months. She and Dr. Laura also discuss rent-to-own furniture schemes, using Nesha's own washing machine and dryer purchase, paid at $30 a week, as an example of how affordable-looking payments can end up costing double the item's value. Nesha notes that the predatory lending industry has been extracting wealth from vulnerable communities since before World War II, an estimated $280 billion industry today. Turning awareness into action Rather than only warning people about the risks of predatory lending, Mint to Prosper reframes the conversation: showing participants what they could have done with the money instead, whether that's a certification, child care access, or another upward-mobility opportunity, so people see themselves as part of the solution rather than victims of the system. An intergenerational cohort Participants range from age 18 to their mid-60s. Nesha shares the story of a participant in her late 50s, a grandmother, who told the group she'd made "careless mistakes" raising her own kids but was determined to get it right for her grandchildren. For Nesha, it was a powerful reminder that it's never too late to reset, regardless of age, and that the work is fundamentally intergenerational. Advice for anyone feeling stuck Nesha's core philosophy: start small. Before you can save $500, you need to know how to save $50. She encourages people to assess where they are honestly, choose a micro starting point, and remember that, as she puts it, "Rome wasn't built in a day," but the bricks still count, no matter how small. How to Get Involved Personal website: NeshaBrown.com Instagram: neshakbrown LinkedIn: neshakbrown Nonprofit: Mint to Prosper Foundation https://minttoprosper.org/ Connect with Small & Gutsy Website: SmallandGutsy.org Email: Laura@SmallandGutsy.org Do you know a nonprofit or social enterprise doing incredible work? Send them our way! If you are a nonprofit or want to donate goods directly to a nonprofit, check out Givelink: www.https://givelink.app/en ? Check out this episode!

Small & Gutsy Features Theodora Africa, Women empowerment with a Purpose

What if the fastest path out of exploitation isn't aid, but a paycheck? That's the premise behind Theodora Africa, a nonprofit that helps disadvantaged women in Ghana escape poverty and exploitation not through short-term assistance, but through real, paid work. Small & Gutsy host Dr. Laura Scherck Wittcoff sits down with Theodora Africa Founder and CEO Michael Podolny to trace how a business consulting trip to Ghana turned into an organization named for a 6th-century empress who rose from actress to co-ruler of the Byzantine Empire, and reshaped the systems that once judged her. Guest Michael Podolny, Founder & CEO, Theodora Africa Michael brings decades of experience coaching businesses and building professional networks in the US. He had no intention of starting a nonprofit when he traveled to Ghana through Rotary International to offer free business coaching. A chance introduction to a young woman named Mary and the discovery that her polished business plan was written by a woman surviving through sex work with no other options redirected his mission entirely. What is Theodora Africa? Theodora Africa takes a market-first approach to social impact. Instead of starting with aid or training alone, it starts with paid, in-demand work, specifically virtual assistant services for US-based solopreneurs and small businesses, and builds skills, training, and a pathway to greater independence around that income. The organization operates two connected entities: a US-based corporation that handles client billing, and a Ghana-based company that covers salaries, rent, and operating costs, with funds flowing directly from US clients to the women providing the services. Key Topics Covered The Empress Theodora connection Empress Theodora, born around 500 CE, rose from a low-status background as an actress and performer to become co-empress of the Byzantine Empire, actively shaping policy and using her position to improve protections for vulnerable women. Michael, a self-described history buff, chose the name deliberately: it's a symbolic through-line for women moving from constrained circumstances into agency and influence, and it resonated immediately with the women in the program when he shared the story with them. Mary's story Theodora Africa's origin traces back to one woman, Mary, whom Michael met while coaching small businesses in Ghana through Rotary. After a couple of meetings, Mary revealed she was a sex worker, having been left on her own as a teenager, unable to find legitimate work despite writing a genuinely strong business plan. Michael began teaching her marketing skills, newsletter tools, and connecting her to a built-in network of business contacts who owed him favors. That one relationship became the model for the entire organization. Mary is now Theodora Africa's operating manager in Ghana and sits on the board of a Rotary Club focused on ending human trafficking, with plans to become its president in 2027. Jobs first, not just training Michael is direct about what sets this model apart from many social service and anti-trafficking programs: most offer job training and placement, but placement often doesn't hold. Theodora Africa instead built its own small virtual assistant business first, so women are earning income and building real client relationships from day one, rather than being trained and released into an unsupported job market. Navigating cultural change Michael speaks candidly about the friction of building a US-style participative management culture inside a system shaped by generations of distrust, a legacy he attributes in part to the historical effects of the slave trade on West African society. He describes a period, worsened by COVID-19 fundraising collapses, when he was forced into day-to-day operations he wasn't suited for, and a crisis where staff felt he had favorites. His advisors, he says, often let him make mistakes rather than warning him in advance, believing that was the only way he'd truly learn. "Self-trafficked" and the illusion of choice Michael shares a phrase one of the women in the program used to describe her own path: "self-trafficked," the feeling of having made choices when, in reality, a lack of alternatives had made the outcome nearly inevitable. He describes this as one of the most effective forms of gaslighting, and frames Theodora Africa's economic model as a way of restoring real choice, not by preaching or condemning individual decisions, but by building better options. Scaling the model Theodora Africa currently supports five women with about 15 US-based clients, each biller earning wages that place them solidly in Ghana's middle class. New trainees go through roughly a year of training, paid throughout, before taking on their own clients, with recruitment and training handled through vetted partners like local Rotary clubs and the Muslim Family Counseling Service rather than direct outreach. Michael describes a "champion" model for expanding into new markets or regions: a US-based partner who understands a specific market's needs, paired with a local partner on the ground, tested and iterated over roughly a two-year pilot period. The organization also maintains an internal resource hub, "Theodora University," to help onboard and train new team members as tools and best practices evolve. A note on inspiration Michael describes his path into this work as something he didn't set out to do, framing it in spiritual terms as a kind of unexpected calling that reshaped his plans after arriving in Ghana with an entirely different mission in mind. How to Get Involved Learn more about the nonprofit: TheodoraAfrica.com Hire a virtual assistant or explore services for your business: TheodoraGhana.com Connect: Theodora Africa is looking to build a community of people and organizations who share similar goals and are rethinking how social impact is delivered Connect with Small & Gutsy Website: SmallandGutsy.org Email: Laura@SmallandGutsy.org Do you know a nonprofit or social enterprise doing incredible work? Send them our way! If you are a nonprofit or want to donate goods directly to a nonprofit, check out Givelink: www.https://givelink.app/en .