163. How New Story Uses Innovation to End Global Homelessness - Sarah Lee
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Overview
Meet Sarah. The best days are when we get to talk with some of our nonprofit hero organizations🤩🙌🏘 Sarah's the COO of New Story - one of the most progressive nonprofits tackling homelessness worldwide. Building differently is in their DNA. And you won't believe how they're doing it. Sarah lives at the intersection of fundraising and brand, so she works to push ideas, values, and engagement beyond the typical donor experience to impact more families in need. The story is fascinating. You know we're salivating about this one. Tune in to hear how little monster house slippers became the symbol of hope for children experiencing homelessness🤧
Today’s Guest
Sarah Lee, Chief Operating Officer, New Story
“Today, there are about 1.6 billion people who lack access to adequate shelter. By 2030, that number could be closer to 3 billion. And homes are a very expensive problem to solve. Our team is focused on how can we find innovation solutions, tools, processes, etc. to impact the speed, cost or quality of building homes.”
Episode Transcript
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Episode Highlights
Sarah’s story and journey to where she is today (3:00)
New Story’s experience being a part of Y Combinator (7:00)
The history, mission and work of New Story: pioneering solutions to end global homelessness. (9:00)
Driving forces that are leading more people to experience homelessness (11:00)
3D printed homes and the live changing impact stories at New Story (12:00)
Local partnerships and community design (17:00)
The primary driver: dignity for the families they work with (18:50)
Leveraging an innovative mindset to dream bigger for your organization (21:00)
New Story’s monthly giving program: The Neighborhood (23:40)
A powerful moment of philanthropy in Sarah’s life (29:00)
Sarah’s One Good Thing: Surround yourself with people who push you further. (33:00)
Powerful quotes
“At that point, there were only four full time team members, and no one was focused on the donor experience right at that point it was everyone was doing a little bit of everything and sure the donors was getting, we're getting some things but nobody was really waking up thinking about how do we improve this experience and so that my first year really focused on setting up the foundation for that.” -Sarah
“For me, it was a clear line between our brand and our donor experience with getting more people to join new story from a financial level.” -Sarah
“New Story was one of the first nonprofits accepted into Y Combinator.” -Sarah
“That was really a pivotal milestone for the organization and for our mindsets moving forward, because it gave us a different lens.” -Sarah
“Today, we have built about 2500 homes across Haiti, El Salvador, Bolivia, and Mexico. And over the next 10 years, we're really focusing more in depth in Latin America, our goal is to house a million people over the next 10 years in Latin America, really specifically trying to prove the most effective system to house million people. Because if we think if we can do that, in one place in about 10 years, that the years after that, we can scale that to less time more locations, and really work to put a dent in this problem.” -Sarah
“3D printing for us is a fraction of the total work, we do a really sexy one, but still a fraction. But it's one that we think has a lot of flexibility and use cases moving forward.” -Sarah
“What we know is if we don't really listen to the communities that we're working in before we implement a solution, it's far more likely that that solution is not going to last long term.” -Sarah
“The primary driver, if I had to say one thing that really influenced our mindset that broke into action plans, it would be dignity for the families we get to work with.” -Sarah
“Before we move a piece of dirt in any community that we work in, we invite all of the families who will be receiving homes to speak into the home and community design.” -Sarah
“We all know that a community is more than just homes, right? It's how do people interact? It's how are their lives improving over time. And so we make sure that we monitor that over time so that we can learn right, every community we've built has not been perfect, but every community we built, has been a learning ground for us to grow and improve for future communities.” -Sarah
“Bold ideas attract bold people.” -Sarah
“Ultimately, if you're willing to dream big, and have these bold ideas, that is going to attract a certain type of person. And that is the person you want to attract, if you want to implement these bold ideas.” -Sarah
“The work that we do as nonprofits is really freaking hard. It does not matter what you're doing. If you are in this line of work, it's really hard. There's a reason that these problems have not been solved. And that's because they're very hard.” -Sarah
“I think that the easiest place we can all compromise in our lives is having friends, having family having co workers who are just like comfortable being where they are. But I think the more we can push ourselves to be surrounded by those people who push us further.” -Sarah
Connect with sarah
connect with new story
Website / LinkedIn / YouTube / Twitter / Instagram
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Watch the full Family Reach story mentioned in the midroll below! 🎉
Episode Sponsored by
Studio Selfie
Studio Selfie! Jonathan McCoy, Sarah Lee, Julie Confer and Becky Endicott
