Moments With Matt - Q1 2020
What is top of mind for you in the pursuit of empowering communities to lift themselves out of poverty?
After decades of time and an enormous amount of money, we as a developing world have made a great deal of progress in helping the least developed countries get ahead. But there are still challenges in certain parts of the world that are persistent; that require innovation, more internal motivation, and independence for these communities to get ahead and tackle some of the things that continue to plague them. We try to give them the ingredients for success and the know-how instead of dictating what to do. Empowerment is key.
What are you most excited about as you look forward to 2020?
I look forward to more involvement with the donor and philanthropic community. I’m especially eager to engage with people and organizations that want to move the lever in areas like we excel—topics like WASH, post conflict-resolution, teacher training, basic education, and agriculture.
I also can’t wait to visit more people in more places who can benefit from being trained to make videos. I’m still enamored with our projectors, even though I use them all the time. I’m a projector evangelist! It’s always exciting to show a new person what a projector looks like. I love to be of help, and I want to continue doing more of the same.
2020 marks the beginning of the 12th year of illuminAid. What’s different from when you started and now?
Really, at the beginning of our time at illuminAid, there was no such thing as a cordless projector. They hadn’t been developed yet. But we knew from the start that we wanted local origination— any training we delivered had to be created in the area it would later be distributed and in the local language. That’s the bedrock of what we do.
We started off with audio messages that were delivered by radio. I was all about giving local communities the power to make recordings and have control over when it was delivered. This was important because at the time, NGOs could only distribute audio by purchasing radio time. The messaging only went out at that specific broadcast time. Our intervention, using portable audio machines that could play a customized message, gave them freedom to share information on their own schedule.
When portable projectors started appearing on the scene a few years later, they were extraordinarily dim, but still such an incredible way to share information. Fast forward a decade, and our projectors are incredibly bright now. Each year they cost a little less but are a little bit brighter.
In terms of curriculum, I’ve always believed strongly in incremental steps forward. We’ve had so many amazing partnerships during which we iterated, updated, and changed our curriculum to match the needs of our partners and their beneficiaries. It’s nice to always be adjusting so we’re better and better.
What good book or article have you read/do you recommend? Why?
The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren. That was a life-changing book for me.
What is one thing you do everyday to stay focused and motivated?
I meditate most mornings. In general, I reflect on how good I have it. I have coffee and warm clothing. We are so blessed. Because I regularly go to places that are trying and difficult, that contrast is persistent for me. Helping people feels like what I was made to do. Always being grateful for and being keenly aware of what your blessings are is really important.