Rich Johnson is the co-founder of Spark Ventures, a nonprofit focused on international community development in Zambia, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Along the way, Spark Ventures began to facilitate engagement trips for the mutual benefit of supporters and partner communities abroad. In this episode, Rich discusses his past challenges, fundraising, creating a separate business venture called Ignite, Board development, trends in impact travel, voluntourism, and more. Rich Johnson Reading List The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change The World by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan Rich Johnson Show Notes  In 2006 Rich Johnson was hanging out with two friends when they decided to go to Africa They went to Zambia and found a community organization there called HOPE that was helping children affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis Previously, Rich had been doing marketing consulting with Fortune 500 companies Shortly after, Rich returned to Zambia with 16 students at the university where he worked HOPE lacked resources so Spark began to raise funds back in the US “What is it do you need? How can we support you?” they asked HOPE Spark Ventures helped HOPE with strategic planning, leadership development, and capacity building A friend become a major donor They organized a fundraising bar night where 300 friends showed up They raised $25,000 at the event “What systems and process can we put into place?” They started with weekly calls, monthly reports, quarterly visits, annual audits with their community partners In Nicaragua, they spent too much money on buying land that they ran out of money to start the farm project they had intended to start. They struggled because they lacked expertise in agriculture The farm in Nicaragua now has 70,000 plantain trees and 40,000 cacao trees. Disease has been a problem Rich was running Spark Ventures part-time for four years before it became full time In Nicaragua, many children were devastated during the civil war. Las Tias was an organization that helped them in the city of Leon. Las Tias didn’t have just one leader. They used a co-leadership model with 3 leaders. During their ten year anniversary, Rich did an internal asset audit and re-examined trends in the social impact industry Over 500 people had traveled with Spark during its first 10 years Companies and friends wanted to participate in impact travel, adventure, and cultural exchange Rich Johnson created Ignite, a separate business that specializes in impact travel. The separation prevents mission creep and also allowed him to invest more into marketing and sales A portion of the trip fees for Ignite go to support the partner organizations 60% of the trip fees are poured into the local economy Ignite raised money in the beginning to make the initial hires Some nonprofits are better geared for grant fundings. Others are more geared towards corporate funding or government funding. Many grassroots organizations

55: Lessons on impact travel—with Rich Johnson from Spark Ventures

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