What a blast

Last week's event was a blast. I have to admit. It beat even my own ambitious and so-I-thought-unrealistic expectations. From an initial target of £15k, we had soon realized we had been too conservative to want to build only one water well with such an evening. By the time the lights were on and the event started we were well over it, net of costs. The moment the auction had the first bids we knew we already had secured another well, only with the starting bids. But the night went on. The speeches, though a bit long (including my own), went very well. People were touched and impressed by how little it would take to achieve so much. And that is in the root of all of our fundraising - asking people for little gestures, to get great helps. 
I will admit, my own expectation was at £50k, assuming the evening was a success. But truth be said, I was far from the almost £70k raised and still counting, pre-matching and with some gift aid to go. What a blast. 
More important than having been fun, entertaining, a blast and a productive evening, is the fact that this money will allow us to give the first kick to the 2 water wells in the pipeline, assure the full year of pre-school funding for the 2 schools we work with, start another 2 family huts and leave an endowment for water wells for the remaining of the year and 2013 as well. what a blast. That is all I could say. 
When I came home that evening, I knew it had been good. I just did not know it had been awesome, using my once continent-mates expression. I had to count it that same evening. B knew that and I know he was curious as well. So he patiently sat in the sofa while I went through each bidding sheet. Funny enough, half of the bidding sheets were missing, and I was already missing £15k, so I decided to call it a night and email the trustees with the results. What was I thinking... The excitement mixed with tiredness and stress of the last days mixed it all into us leaving the bags outside our own door. So even though it was past midnight, here we go again, computer on again, and we start counting one more time. I could not believe my own eyes and I went to bed unable to sleep. B was patient and heard me tell every story, every person that talked to me, every comment that was made. I think I will remember them forever.

One more thing?

Sometimes we just need to be happy about ourselves. We spend our lives trying to achieve something more (at least I do), one more task, one more event, one more dinner, one more friend, one more book, one more tv show, one more project, one more dream. It is hard to draw the line between dream and reality and say what you realistically are able to do and what you are just never going to get to. I have that with loads of different things - I keep thinking about all the friends I wish I spent more time with, about all the books I keep starting and not finishing (which never used to happen), about the business plans I want to start one day, about the places I want to visit for a weekend, about the things I should buy, about the plans I should be making, about the strategy focus I should have. Eventually, it gets to a point where all of these are conflicting and I do, as always everything last minute. Except when I accept that life is about choices and choices can actually help living your life better. The first day at Harvard they said schedule would be tight and there would be a lot of things to do at the same time, because that is how life was expected to be, so we should start preparing ourselves to make choices that same day (I may even have blogged about this before). I thought they were realistic, but from my perspective exaggerating it. After all, I was an M&A banker, with easy life of 18+ hours days while starting my charity on the side, as a junior analyst, organizing all the social events of my analyst class and still having time to do more volunteering and help out with mentoring at the Firm. I did not think it could get much harder and I was very much at ease with the choices I made - mostly it involved not sleeping and doing everything else. Looking back, I am glad business school told me that, not because I learned from it, but because it helps me feel more normal. To know that other people may be facing the struggle that I face every single day. Each day I go out for dinner with friends is a nightmare is 100+ emails from the charity that I leave for the next day, every Friday night I go out, means sleeping in on Saturday morning and not taking the 3 solid hours of work with no one around to do larger tasks for the charity, such as year end accounts, each flight I take to Portugal to see my friends is 2 more hours of work I can get not-interrupted but zero work at the weekend and no London friends to catch up with. Each night I do one more proposal for the charity is one more of my friends that may just give up on me and think that married life got into me. It is hard to win. On the other hand, it is also hard to just lose. Each of the choices brings up a gain, and we just need to sometimes feel happy about that. So today, I feel like I have achieved a lot, will stop doing my 2012 resolutions list and just live with it.

Not yet over

Today was a long day and it is far from being over. Today, if all goes well we launch our first ever Advent Calendar. Rather than a chocolate, for each day you will be greeted with a daily story to make you smile - a young mum that can now read, a child that can now drink milk, a girl that does not have to walk 18 km to go to school anymore.

In such a difficult year in Portugal, one of the members of the volunteer team had this idea - after the entire year fundraising, why don't we chose to give to the donors this month, give them back for all we were able to achieve. I thought that was a pretty cool idea. Really. I am not the creative one in the group, that is why years ago I thought I desperately needed someone to help on the fundraising side, so I am always wondered on seeing ideas bubble up. I definitely am a large contributor and still put the calendar together, with the help of many contributors - writing is my thing. But thinking of doing a calendar is not!

So today is the first and we are meant to launch the calendar but it is still "in the oven". We have a really reliable oven that always comes up with cool ideas so I am not concerned - it only means there are a couple of hours of work ahead.

And then the UK event.... In 2 months already and already taking away sleep.  I started my guest list but I am being very meticulous about it and taking it slowly as I send each personalized save the date. I will have to give upon personalizing too much at some point - just as I have to with the wedding thank you notes that are still laying in my night table.

And tomorrow I travel. Oh well.

(written December 1st)

Larger or Smaller

Sometimes I get depressed with the things you would most expect to make me happy... I just came out of the MSIF trustees annual reception. With my love for social action, you would expect me to be happy. Moreover, MSIF did make significant grants to A Little Gesture this year, in recognition of my volunteer work and in recognition of my fundraising efforts for the Jp Morgan Challenge. The charities there were inspiring and it is always re-assuring to see how much the Firm and broader colleague population are always so involved and keen to do more. They went through money donated, lives touched, volunteer hours logged - 16000 hours in one month, the equivalent of 8 years of full time employment.  Magic breakfast focused on the importance of providing breakfast to children in primary school, as a means to an opportunity.  But we started with the wrong foot - they said one did not need to go far and give money to far away children because ours needed and 1 in 4 children did not have accesd to a breakfast. It is surprising, true. So I started doing the maths - none of our over 800 children had access to breakfast. In fact, if I was to do proper maths i would probably say that 1 in 100 - in a good day - have access to breakfast. Actualy, I now want to go check the statistics to how many Mozambican children actually have access to primary school! Having said that they do a great job and I was impressed with te statistics and will make sure I get that power point slide with impact done one day.  Then we had ELBA - assisting with unemployment, in particular the young people in the area of Tower Hamlets. They did not need a big speech, because they brought a major asset along - Luiz- who is today an apprentice at the Firm and wants to be an engineer one day. Elizabeth was right - at his age of 18, I would not have been able to stand in a room full of over achieving bankers and told my story.  And then we had Save the Children - another stab to the heart. Hold on, nothing wrong against them, and also not because they did not interview me when I was out of Harvard thinking I could be full time in the social sector (true, not even a first round interview or a thank you but no thanks). And the work they focused on was really inspiring, as it is very close to our children. Prevention of mother to child contagion of HIV in the province of Limpopo - South Africa. Yes, south africa, it explains part of it. South africa is in the end the country suffering with more children dying of AIDS and I believe the one with the most infected population. Yes, that is why it got to Mozambique! That is why I need to work there... And then they said the magic number:325000 children with the funds provided.... That is when I almost lost hope. Is it all worth it? People say it is - small charities are more involving for donours and have a deeper impact per beneficiary. I like to think so - but working for endless hours to then hear that number will always make happy and sad. 

Running a charity

Running a charity can be challenging. People think lack of funds are your biggest headache and truth is all I miss are hands. I miss hands to help me organize events, hands to help me ask money to corporates, hands to help me ask money to foundations, hands to write proposals, hands to help me think of creative advertising and campaigns, hands and brains that allow me to be less of a bottleneck and more of a CEO. I struggle, everyone knows that and it is hard to chose where to turn. I do have to check the accounts to see where funds need to go, where we still have them and who needs them now. But I also should be networking, reading about the industry, getting educated on all we could do. This week was my first week in tweeter, I did not even know how it worked and how powerful of an awareness tool it was. I should also be thinking of finally getting my hands around social return on investment and establish a framework for us to evaluate all our projects in measurable ways. I did a lot of that in Harvard, even structured a social bond, but now I struggle to find the time. The problem is that so much of it is still in my head, no matter how much I write. So I guess I just need to keep typing...

 

Business Planning

Business plans always burn in my mind. I don't know why or who I got this from. I have certainly never thought to be risk prone. If anything, most my investment decisions have been towards more secure credit products (except in todays' world maybe, where the question is perhaps how do i convert the cash into little gold bits and will gold really reach $2k). No credit products for me today, unless perhaps I am short. It is funny. It took some years for me to understand the concept of the word short (other than referring to a person's height) and today I am actually able to use it in some mumbling by my brain. But off course I can use the word but with pure straightforward products that have some underlying clear thing that I can see. So I would be short credit because I think credit is bound to get worse because of liquidity problems - most people have not accumulated cash, they have accumulated debt, and they must hit a new bottom before they surface again. But that would be off course if I was not risk averse. But I am - so i don't invest in either cash or equities. I did open a trading account last couple of weeks, hoping for the day that i will decide to put my first order and go loooong MS. Don't get me wrong, I do not have doubts about betting for MS, but there is always something something stopping me from pushing the button. I guess I am risk averse.

But then business plans about start-ups burn in my mind, despite the conscious that like 1 in 10'000 businesses launched are successful. What goes through my mind then? It can not be that I think I am better than anyone else and I won't fail, because that is not the case. In the end i like thinking, organizing, planning, executing and that is what you need when you start a new venture. And there I am, laying by the ocean, eyes closed and I can see it all. Once i was in Mozambique and in under an hour and no piece of paper I could visualize my own "volunturism" resort, by the beach, with high quality but modest accomodation, good food and a focus on short term volunteer opportunities. I had the design, the cook, the manager, the services offered, the decor, the sales model and a swot analysis. I even had how I would partner it and launch it. I like to think this idea is one of the key reasons I went to Harvard. At least I repeat it a lot. Even though these days I have no intention to go ahead with it (despite the fact that I still think it is a great business opportunity) I like to think that was part of the reason of going to business school - so I would have time to draft a proper business plan and so I would learn how to do one. 

I had a bit of the second not that much of the first. Some businesses require you to launch it and execute it until it goes smoothly, more than others, and that was not going go happen from another continent. And personally it became evident I was not going to move there. But at least it gives me a rational reason to have chosen business school, as if I needed one some times. And in a way I did achieve it - I achieved the ability to see critical requirements for something to work and critical issues that one has to counteract to achieve success. And even if admittedly i may not be able to see all of them, truth is the issues I saw were enough to tell me that unless I was willing to live by the beach in Mozambique (not a bad thought) miles away from family and friends (quite a bad thought) then there was no point pursuing it. And it will always be my baby one, the first idea I pursued and put to bed. But then again others come and make its way because now I am meant to think like an entrepreneur.

I must say I was a bit schocked in my first entrepreneurship class. The professor started the class saying we were going to talk about people that had done it, and gave examples from the students in the class. I was one of the examples and my reaction was - Why? I think until that moment I had not realized that I was indeed an entrepreneur. I had not realized that Um Pequeno Gesto was indeed an enterprise. I did not see myself as willing to risk and use the resources available to get there. I may not have felt that for a long time. Today, as we struggle to get enough money to get us through the next 2 months, i see the risk that I took - I did not take personal financial risk, but I took on the psychological pressure of feeding 800 children this year without having all the money in my hand. Does that make me an entrepreneur?

Daydreamer

Daydreamer. As Adele plays on my ipod and the large hat coverd my face in an unusual way, protecting my sun obsessed self from the heat of this sunday afternoon in the beach i lose the will of just laying down still tanning the way i always do.

Nothing that usual about this afternoon really. First, I am hiding my head from the sun, which, on its own, is already unusual given I have the strong belief I am constructed as a solar panel and the more sun I receive the happier I am and the more and better I function. And it is not only about sun accumulation, and hence the importance of always having my face turned to the sun. As I know what I am going back to in 24 hours I also feel the need to see remains of sun for the next 30 days that I will be in the island of rain. This is always the most sun focussed weekend of the year given it is the last bank holiday of the year and the last real weekend in the summer (that is assuming you have a summer). So having some colour on my face that distances itself from my usual green or yellow that makes my friends ask me if I am ok, when I arrive here, just after the short hi while they gaze at my face and wonder if this could really be the same person that had a base decent tan year long and used to have her algebra notes by the beach in february. It was easy enough for me to finish off Uni spring semester early to ensure early days in the beach, no study notes, no calculator, just taking it off on the ocean. I mean, one of my bridesmaid (who is really a godmother rather than a bridesmaid but the habit of living abroad just makes it easier to call it a bridesmaid - more pc and universally recognised) actually has as first reaction to my wedding gown trial said "you will catch some sun before the wedding right?". But today has started actually yesterday, with a migraine that is on its second day even with the medicine that always kick it out for at least a monh and the 5th day of migraine of the last 10. As it is common to say this days, outlook is negative.

The other unusual thing is that I am listening to music on the beach. Part of the beach ritual of relaxing and just letting it go is to have the sound of the ocean on the background. Unfortunately, it is a Sunday and this is not the desert beach one would hope for. To keep myself from the wind I need to be closer to the world and that means to be surrounded with people. Being surrounded always gives you a nice feeling of belonging somewhere which I sometimes need to have. Living abroad for 7 years and having the conflict of calling home to my little place in the Island makes it hard to where you want to belong and where you feel you belong. So rather than going around like crazy to make sure i fulfill all my "emigrant" duties and I make everyone happy, i sit in the middle of the mess of tbe outside world and that can be almost comforting. But today i am really not in the mood for all the noises a Sunday afternoon in a somewhat crowded beach with more families than people wanting to rest has. Don't get me wrong. I love kids. But I get disturbed by them sometimes like anyone else. Including I am sure their parents who just have a better ability than I do to filter noises out and let the sound of the ocean prevail above it all. So as i put the music louder to avoid the mixed feelings of a new set of three 6-year-olds that have found the empty space next to me to be the best playground in the whole kilometer of beach Adele keeps trying to calm me down while still allowing me to get some ocean music. I just try to consider myself lucky that I was actually able to find the ipod that is by now so nano that I have barely used it since I bought it a couple of months ago because I can never find it. My next step is to buy a case that in some way makes this bigger. Music relaxes me as long as I do not spend 15 minutes each time trying to find my 1.5 inches music device.

And the list of unusuals keeps running i start realizing how often I have been alone in the beach in the beach for the last 3 months and I cant help noticing it. I always wonder if the time abroad made me lose the ability of always having someone to go to the beach. I like to think it is the fact that I am always running and finding slots of time between my multiple appointments to get 2 hours of sun. Or the fact that people that have real holiday and live here all year long actually don't feel the need of going to the beach on a Sunday in August. And the other thing is, I always knew I would marry someone that loved the beach. But not one that would love the beach when it is unbearable for everyone else. Yes, my husband is a kite surfer and that means my friends know the beach tends to suck when he wants to come. I kind of changed a bit my standards and I can now stand it with a bit of wind. Having eye surgery obviously helped as well, contact lenses make it impossible for one to enjoy a windy beach as opening your eyes is mostly out of the question. So I guess my suggestions of going to the beach always bring the understanding that you may have to bring a sweater along. I rather think of all those excuses than the first one, about being abroad. I am not ready to think about that one just yet.

(28 august 2011)