Charles Lee

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing one of my good friends, Billy Williams, who serves at the Grassroots Movement Director for one of the most creative and well thought-through non-profits I know – Nuru International. I first heard about Nuru during a speaking engagement I had at West Virginia University earlier this year. I was immediately intrigued by their story, focus, and method for ending global poverty.

I regularly come across organizations that have great heart but very little infrastructure and planning. Nuru is NOT one of those organizations. Their business plan for bringing sustainable relief to the poorest of the poor around the world is really well thought through. Nuru’s holistic approach for justice includes developmental focuses in areas like education, water and sanitation, healthcare, agriculture, and community economic development. For an organization that has only been around for a little over a year, they have already impacted thousands of lives. I love what’s forming with Nuru!

In addition, they do a phenomenal job of telling their story via media as evidenced by their ever-improving website.

Here is Nuru’s story as stated on their website:

Nuru founder and CEO Jake Harriman attended the U.S. Naval Academy and served over 7 years in the Marine Corps as an Infantry Platoon Commander and a Special Operations Platoon Commander for an elite unit called Force Recon. During his career, Jake assisted in numerous humanitarian and disaster relief operations in the developing world including Indonesia and Sri Lanka after the Asian tsunami, and he completed 2 combat tours in Iraq. After witnessing the fight against terror firsthand, Jake came to believe that the war against terrorism won’t be won on the battlefield alone. It must be won by eradicating the root causes of terrorism: extreme poverty, lack of education and injustice. Jake left his old life in the Marine Corps and dedicated himself to studying humanitarian development, organizational leadership, innovation, and the problem of extreme poverty. He enrolled in Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) where he began learning at the legendary Center for Social Innovation.

Nuru International is the vision of Jake Harriman (CEO) and his friend John Hancox (Board Chairman), and was shaped by the innovation engine of Stanford University. Inspired by Jake’s vision, teams of Stanford GSB students joined together with top academics, social sector experts and humanitarian practitioners to conduct exhaustive studies of dozens of top humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). They identified best practices, key learnings, and cutting edge theories in a range of areas. When this research was analyzed they concluded that certain best practices work much better than others, and that by flexibly applying those practices in partnership with an empowered community, the poor can actually lift themselves out of extreme poverty.

Philanthropic foundations, venture capitalists and successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs invested seed money to get Nuru off the ground, as did Jake’s classmates at Stanford. Jake’s commitment to providing the best of the best for the poorest of the poor inspired top, young talent from around the United States to quit their jobs, take pay cuts, and in some cases raise their own salaries or volunteer to work full-time for Nuru. In September of 2008, the dream became a reality when Nuru launched its Pilot Seed Project in Kuria, Kenya.

Please take a moment to check out Nuru’s work. I have embedded a couple of their recent videos below highlighting their work.

Consider joining the movement… “I AM NURU!”

This post is tagged Billy Williams, Charles Lee, Compassion, Creativity, Extreme Poverty, Interview, Justice, Nuru, Nuru International, Poverty, Sustainability, Video Interview