Meet Jessica Jackley, Founder of ALLtruists and Kiva.org, from Wexford, PA

Dave Jackley:
Today, I’m really excited to be able to interview my daughter, Jessica Jackley, Founder of ALLtruists. Learn today how to do at-home, kid-friendly, volunteer projects that connect them to the world’s most pressing problems. Here we go.

So Jessica, I got to tell you, you have so many roles. You’re a mother of four, you’re a daughter,you’re a serial entrepreneur. You’re a wife, you’re a sister, you’re a venture capitalist. You’re starting up a new company, how do you hold it all together?

Jessica Jackley:
You’ve seen my house, right? I am ruthless in my prioritization, that’s a real answer. And I do what is needed to get the job done. And then I go overboard trying to lavish time attention on my kids. So they get the lion’s share of everything. And, you know, of my time and my focus, my attention, and my energy. But I’ve gotten pretty efficient. I think, over the last 20 years, I learned to focus on knowing what needs to be done, getting those things done, and not worrying about the rest. I also have to say, I have the most amazing teams around me, that inspire me and help focus me and do a ton of the work too, so we all work together really well,

Dave Jackley:
Fantastic! So you’ve gone through this unusual path to arrive at where you are today. And some of our audience may or may not know about kiva.org, the thing that I think you’re famous for in the public domain,. But why don’t you start there and tell us how you got to ALLtruists today.

Jessica Jackley:
Perfect. So out of college, I knew I wanted to be of service to the world, I didn’t have a specific plan. There are not a lot of nonprofits that have the funding to show up at a bunch of college career fairs. I didn’t know what to do, and searching for a role, you know, at a first job, by virtue of just looking at a sector that is defined by what it is not for, that is not for profit or nonprofits. I mean, I didn’t have a really good strategy for figuring out how to do the first thing inside a temp job. I just sort of took the first job that I could it happened to be a temp job in a place called Stanford Business School, where everyday people were thinking about using business skills and entrepreneurial thinking to solve social problems.

So even though I had no interest in business, or entrepreneurship, I just didn’t think that was my thing. I did not want to take money from people selling them things they didn’t mostly need. I wanted to be a giver and a contributor. So didn’t seem like my my place or my people. But it turned out that I learned in those first few years in my temp job, that there were all sorts of amazing ways to build entities to build ventures that could do anything you want. You could do something good, bad, or weird. You could build teams and build organizations and direct them in whatever direction you wanted to. It was all sort of the same set of tools. So I wanted to learn those tools. And I wanted to build something that would be useful and helpful to people.

I learned about micro finance.: so financial services for the poor, for people living with economic need. Anyway, I wanted to build something in service of kind of catalyzing micro lending in particular small loans, that $25, $50 $100 Sometimes that can be used to really push forward to catalyze small business activities. And so I might, the first thing I wanted to do is get close to the people I wanted to serve. So I quit my job at Stanford, I moved East Africa, I was in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania for a few months as you well remember. And I realized there was a different story to be told around poverty and potential, a hopeful story and entrepreneurial story. And I realized, once you hear a different story you want you can respond differently. And so the response wasn’t going to be a donation. It was alone. I know, moving quickly. But basically, Kiva was one of the first platforms way back in 2004 / 2005 to provide a way for people to participate in this weird thing called crowdfunding. We weren’t even calling it that back then because it was so early in this idea. You can go to the site even today and do what you did that which is if you have a credit card or a PayPal account, you can come lend $25 or $50 or $100, whatever, a small amount of money to another individual that has a small loan need 0% interest to you. And over time you get to hear about their journey. You get your money back and everyone’s better off because of it. And what’s really fun to think about over time because we’re going to fast forward now to the present. Kiva has facilitated . .

Dave Jackley:
Yes how many millions of dollars?

Jessica Jackley:
Billions! Yes, 1.7 billion dollars in loans? Kind of crazy.

Dave Jackley:
So, I mean, from your dad’s perspective, I look back and remember how you would say that you wanted to help people. I know that’s nice, but I have no idea how to go about that, or how that would work out. And yes, those are some pretty amazing results. And what are your figures? I mean, what is it like 1.8 million businesses? So you’ve got to figure that something like 30 million people have been affected.

Jessica Jackley:
You know, the website’s always smarter than I am. So it’s all on the kiva.org website. I don’t want to quote any stats, because I don’t know these days. But it’s a lot. And it’s been a really beautiful thing to be a part of

Dave Jackley:
Well, let’s shift gears into some of the things that came after Kiva

Jessica Jackley:
There is a bunch of stuff, but we can we can fast forward to now because that’s the most fun thing.

Dave Jackley:
So that’s the Kiva story. But after Kiva, like in kind of rapid succession, there’s been a lot happening that brought us to today. So run us through that. And yes, bring us to ALLtruists. .

Jessica Jackley:
So I teach at USC, I teach a course they’re called entrepreneurial solutions to the global goals. I wrote a book I started other ventures for profits and others started consulting firm at one point anyway, a bunch of stuff, I did a lot of investing through wonderful, really interesting funds, that focus on seed stage, the seed stage of the journey of, you know, venture, so really early investments, and then I started my own fund with my partner, Yohei, in the last two years, called untapped capital, we invest pre-seed and seed stage. But the thing I know that we wanted to get to as my other venture that started over the last few years, oh, also in the last decade or so, four kids later. So 10-year old twins, a six year old little boy, and a 20-month, oh, my gosh, she’s almost 21 month old little girl. And I noticed, especially during COVID, we weren’t, certainly weren’t interacting with the world in ways that I wanted to. We were at home, staying safe as we should. But, you know, things would arrive or meals would be delivered or whatever. And I just felt like it was this endless stream of consumption. And I wanted to give back as that’s always been part of my life. And so I was frustrated, because it’s already difficult to find the schedule about volunteer opportunities. It’s like nearly impossible with kids, especially different ages and abilities. And you know, naptime schedules and snack for whatever, like, it’s just crazy. It’s crazy out of the house with four kids, let alone volunteer and go be useful somewhere.

So ALLtruists is a solution very selfishly, to my own problem. But I think a problem that many parents face, we provide every month we create a new box. And we provide a way for families to volunteer at home with their kids kind of anytime that fits their schedule, each box is focused on a different issue. So we have on homelessness, one on saving the pollinators (bees), one on hunger, one on refugees. Next month, December is on clean water. And we partner with best in class nonprofits to create they were sometimes reinventing it creating brand new volunteer opportunities that are appropriate and really engaging for kids and families. But we’re also providing this experience around it. So it’s not just a volunteer activity, there’s learning and empathy building ahead of the activity, through content that we draft and stories of kids who encounter this issue in a very different way than most kids using the box. And then there’s a $5 donation included in the box was also a give component and then do more. We provide a bunch of other activities and resources for families that want to keep going. The volunteer activity, if I can speak for like 30 seconds on this is really the heart of it. So for example, in the box that’s on housing insecurity, we have this beautiful project we developed with our partner, new story. They’re a nonprofit that builds houses for individuals, they were primarily now in Mexico and they’re just an incredible powerhouse, but organization but um, they worked with us to design a keychain making activity so kids make this beautiful, colorful, beaded keychain, and then mail it with a little card that they color in as well to our partner in Mexico. And then when these families move into a brand new house is built for them by New Story, their first house key is handed to them on this keychain created by our community of kid volunteers and it’s really special we are we are trying to repackage and redistribute the opportunity for families to serve together.

Dave Jackley:
That is so wonderful. And I think what I’d like to ask you about this. So we have something really fun here a fun, family project. Everybody gets together, it has a positive result and it is introduces volunteerism. But there’s a, there’s a story behind that, right? I mean that there’s a larger picture about volunteerism in general. And I think the people would really like to hear about that.

Jessica Jackley:
if the people want it, the people will have it. Well, I told you sort of the personal, you know, nagging need that I had as a parent to serve with my kids more, I mean, the twins just turned 10. And I’m like, I can count on one hand, the times, we’ve actually recently gotten out of house to do anything useful for anyone other than ourselves. And so it’s meeting my own need, and I built from that I’ve designed based on that. But if you look at it, from the zoomed out perspective, with sort of the entrepreneurial lens, which I like to geek out, I love to geek out on that stuff, especially with you, dad. And so I’m super fascinated lately by the volunteer economy or this, the idea of that. So you have, you know, 90% of people say they want to volunteer more, only about a third of us end up getting around to it. Of the third, you know, of the 30 35% ish of the population that does volunteer in a regular way. You know, each year they’re contributing in terms of time and talents, hundreds and 300 ish, billion dollars worth of value. And they’re doing so if you look at that, as a market, again, I’m really geeking out here. But if you look at that as an exchange, like why are they really giving that away for well, they have an a very justified true belief that their contributions are meaningful. Unfortunately, it’s really a pain in the butt to like, make it all happen. I mean, you look at the hoops that people have to jump through the hurdles they have to overcome to like, get to the place where they’re able to give their time and energy away. I want to make that easier. I also want to provide a more rewarding experience. And, again, appropriately, so nonprofits very often aren’t spending the time and energy and maybe don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do, you know, to focus on the design of the experience for volunteer. So like nonprofits that don’t roll their eyes at the idea of volunteers kind of getting in the way like there are many nonprofits that can utilize volunteers, but it’s a lot of time and energy to do so. So I’m trying to help build this bridge in the middle between would be volunteers, even existing volunteers who want a different way to engage and nonprofits. I’m trying to take the burden away from them to design something, and also provide this wrapper particularly for kids to understand really complex problems, sometimes really complicated interventions, solutions to those problems, you know, the mechanics of water filtration for clean water box, like we think we help explain that. We talked about moving water through pipes underground, and the whole urban water cycle like we we break it down in a way that is not intimidating and not difficult so that parents and kids can, you know, engage together? Because I mean, I have so many stories on this, but I have been the parent thrown everyone in the minivan driving to the soup kitchen and like on-the-fly answering super sensitive, difficult questions about homelessness and about what we’re about to go do. And then it’s, it’s just a really tall order for parents. And I think I have wanted, I think parents want a guide anyway, you wanted me to talk about big picture. So big picture, I’m psyched to kind of organize this giant space with so much potential to unlock more volunteers and their ability to contribute. And also to make it easier for nonprofits to receive like legitimately useful contributions. In a way that my goal, my dream is that it catalyzes greater involvement over time.

Yes, and I was quite interested to hear this. I’m sure our listeners would be too. Just walk us through because this is so fundamental. The key difference between a normal for profit business and volunteerism, because, yes, it’s like, it’s obvious, but it’s not obvious.

We’re talking about my class, and one of my intro lectures that I give to my students at USC. This is really basic, but it’s super fascinating, I think, but I’m the teacher. So in a normal in a traditional for profit business, you have buyer, the buyer and the recipient are the same. So I need a house, I can pay for my home. I go to Dave Jackley:, I say help me find him and so great. He has opportunities for me, I choose one I pay I receive a simpler equation is I need new shoes. I go buy new shoes, and I pay for those shoes and I wear the shoes myself now. It’s a very traditional market loop, right? You know, if you’re selling shoes that are good or that work or that people want if they buy the shoes, it’s very straightforward.

Now, let’s take a nonprofit people everyone needs shoes. Some people cannot pay for that. Some people have extra capital and are able to pay for shoes for other people. So it’s it’s broken open that loop. You have buyer and recipient, to different individuals and sometimes different entities depending on what you’re doing. So the nonprofit has this really interesting task of making shoes that work and that are that are good and useful. And, you know, an effective intervention for the person that has that need the beneficiary, but the donor is the person that needs to contribute money to buy those shoes for that individual. And so there’s this additional task of storytelling and an accurate and authentic way, which is also a whole other follow acts, but nonprofits have the burden of reporting on what’s happening out with recipients in a way that inspires and educates and, you know, walks through the opportunity to would be donors to be able to provide the capital and pay for the thing that is needed by the recipient. So anyway, it’s a broken open kind of market, if you will. And it’s I think it’s why, one of the reasons, one of the many reasons, I really am fascinated by the nonprofit sector. Although I will say one caveat, there’s so many structures, so many ways to build a machine to get things done in the world in terms of ventures, it’s a tax and not a religion, you can have nonprofits that are like really inefficient, and not making good shoes, right? Or that make great shoes, but don’t tell a good story, and unfortunately, can’t get donations. And it’s really unfortunate. So you have broken organizations on that end of the spectrum, and you have some traditional for-profit companies that are just evil, and you have traditional for-profit companies that are amazing and doing really good things for the world. And there’s everything in between. So it’s not about good guys, bad guys, nonprofits, for-profits being in this black and white, you know, very polarized spectrum of impact. It’s all very blurry. So I think as an entrepreneur, I want to build things. I feel really privileged to get to build things that have the impact that I want. And I after thinking through how I’m going to get that done. Only at that point, do I choose the structure that makes the most sense for that machine to deliver the impact that I want to make. Anyway, I love this stuff. I wish I could say, listen into my classes, I think there might be some online but yeah, that’s one of my little mini mini mini lectures, I guess is a glimpse into what I get to talk to my USC students about and I’m teaching the class. Thank you for the question, Dave Jackley:.

Dave Jackley:
So tell us just a little bit about the four or five steps that are come with an ALLtruist box.

Jessica Jackley:
Well, I’d love to. So in fact, I have it all behind you. But I’m not going to dig into you know, Exhibit A. So there’s learn first you you there out there five little mini books that we write, and then we check with all sorts of experts, the one on them. I was really proud of us for the refugees when I mean, we have like 10 entities sort of give a thumbs up including like UNHCR (the United Nations Refugee Agency), and we have amazing expertise that is fed into these into these materials. So step one, you learn to 1000 word kind of primer on the issue at hand. So fun facts, not so fun facts, like good news, bad news, about the reality of the world. But we always are very optimistic and end on like, here’s what’s great, here’s what people are doing to help, here’s what you can do to help. We also include in that sort of learn booklet, answers to really tough questions. I think we might have talked about this, my friend had the funniest quote, she was like, Oh, my gosh, I would be happy to talk, you know, birds and bees with my kids, because at least I know the answers to those questions. But like, Please don’t ask me about climate change anymore. I don’t know what to say it’s terrifying. So like, parents want to guide I will guide you know, so we try to create a nice guide to to have these very important conversations about big, complicated issues in the world that’s learned connect series of a series of stories of kids who have experienced homelessness or have you know, didn’t have access to clean water for a period of their life or have been refugees, right. So we provide stories of kids that have encountered these these things and have had a very different life experience, perhaps than many of the people many of the kiddos and the families walking through this together.

So Learn, then Connect and Act is the volunteer experience itself. I mentioned the keychain activity. Other activities include, you know, we’re really as a parent who has received subscription boxes and loves them, it can be very wasteful. So we do our best to have this very eco friendly experience. And as an example, the volunteer activity for the Save the Pollinators box is take these kids make a out of the box itself, but it comes in they make a pollinator hotel, and it’s sort of this disappearing box experience where there’s like nothing to throw away or recycle at the end. It’s very strange and kind of amazing. So there’s all there’s a wide variety of like service projects and volunteer activities, but many of them include actually like sending the thing back out into the world to be used and received by people who need it. So Learn, Connect then Act gives five bucks from each box goes to the nonprofit partner do more is a whole set of other activities. So the boxes are not just a typical, you know STEM project and you do for 15 minutes, and it’s down, there’s three, four, sometimes five activities in each box that really help flesh out, you know what this issue is about.

So Do More, there’s often a bunch of other activities a bunch of other, you know, information on like other pieces that are in the box, little tools or toys or treasures. So for example, spoiler, but in the water, the clean water pumps, you know, there’s an activity to do water filtration, there’s an activity to, we get kids to LifeStraw out, they can, but they probably shouldn’t. It’s up to parents that could go like drink out of a puddle, or the toilet or something. But anyway, it’s amazing, like personal water filtration gadget that like is a legit tool. There’s like a pipe building activity. There are these little stickers that you can put all over your house little vinyl clings actually not stickers, because adhesive on glass and mirrors. No, I’m not gonna bring that in your home. But that remind you to you know, turn off the water while you’re brushing your teeth or soaping up. So there’s all sorts of stuff to make sure that it’s a flexible set of activities that will be intriguing and interesting to kids of different ages. And certainly if there’s multiple siblings sharing the same box, which we think is great, there’s kind of something for everyone in there. So the steps in each box are Learn, Connect, Act, Give and then Do More. So search on line you can be subscribers and recipients you can buy single boxes or subscribe.

Dave Jackley:
Jessica, I just want to thank you for taking the time. it is a pleasure and and she’s our local star. I she grew up in the Wexford area. So that’s why we talk about being involved in the community and yes, and buy local and all that stuff. But what’s interesting about this is that it’s a way for your kids to get involved both locally and with global problems. For the people and for the planet. So I am not biased at all. I’m so proud andI want to thank you. Thank you for taking the time. And remember: Tune in again next time for another edition of ExactlyAtHome North of Pittsburgh. We’ll see you soon.