Starting a Non-profit

Tuesday, July 24, 2007


One month ago I quit my job to begin a non-profit organization with my wife Elizabeth that exists to help people use their gifts and talents to make a difference and generate hope. Our organization is called Creative Differences and our first project (1000 Words of Hope) will involve providing family photos for African families affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis. In many African countries, the AIDS epidemic has created a humanitarian crisis wherein children are orphaned and left to literally fend for themselves on the street alone. Two- and three-year-old children are left to take care of their baby siblings because all of the adults in their family have died. Elizabeth saw many scenarios like this first-hand when she visited Ethiopia a couple of years ago.

It was after this experience that we began to think about ways that we might be able to help, even if it was in a small way. Neither of us is a doctor or engineer, which would be required in many cases for providing necessities for survival (health care, clean water, etc.) However, Elizabeth is a photographer so we started to brainstorm ideas of how this gift of creativity could be used to infuse a little hope into the African situation.

So, we teased out a plan to go into remote villages with digital cameras, wireless transfer devises, and fast printers in order to set up an on-location photo shoot for hundreds of people at a time, leaving each family with a sheet of photos to divide among themselves, so that each person has a picture to remember his/her family as it once was.

The more we thought through the idea the more it occurred to us how we take for granted the sense of identity that comes from seeing old pictures of our families. We remember where we came from, or how life was back then. We see the resemblances of our parents in our faces as we grow. Our hope is that the memories generated by the pictures we take will help the children who will be orphaned in Africa hold on to a hope for a better life and a family of their own.

We are currently in the process of simultaneously setting up the nuts and bolts of the organization and planning our first trip. In September we will be setting out for Ghana to try out our idea full scale. It is a daunting task to hammer out all the details of shooting and printing so far from home. All the equipment as well as those operating it have to be able to function in some pretty intense circumstances (heat, dust, etc.). Our contact assured us that it will not be as hot in September--only 100 degrees! Even in the midst of all these details, Elizabeth and I are extremely excited about the possibilities of a trip like this. We are going to learn a ton and come back with lots of ideas to refine the process for the next trip and future projects.