Generous $15,000 #GivingTuesday Match For Nuru International

It's been a while since I posted on this blog, but today is just too important to not post. A generous West Virginian has committed $15,000 to match every donation that Nuru International receives today in honor of #GivingTuesday.

Over the last nine years, our entire team at Nuru has been hard at work developing leaders who have the passion, the drive, and the commitment to making extreme poverty history in their homes and their communities. One of those leaders is the gentleman next to Jake in the photo above, Josephat Marawa. Josephat was one of the first farmers Jake met when we launched Nuru in Kenya in 2008. Josephat was struggling to grow enough food to help his family address hunger and just like any parent, he was longing for his children to have a better future.



I can remember multiple occasions where I had the privilege of being with Josephat in the field and meeting with other farmer households. He is an incredibly soft-spoken and thoughtful individual, and in the years since he first started farming with Nuru, he has grown in both his ability to provide for his family and his ability to serve his community. He is now a field manager for Nuru Kenya's Agriculture Program, and is helping about 500 farmers to improve their livelihoods and to chart a better future for their families.


Josephat is one of many leaders that Nuru International has poured into. And you might wonder, why invest in developing leaders? Why not just provide something to meet immediate needs? Well, the answer is simple. As a result of investing in leaders like Josephat, Nuru's Western staff were able to leave Kenya in 2015 and watch from afar as local staff continued to adapt and expand programs to serve their communities. They are helping other leaders grow and expand their reach, and the impact will continue for many years to come!



And it's not just happening in Kenya. In Ethiopia, there are leaders like Tekalign Teferi and Temesgen Berihun, who are training up Nuru Ethiopia staff on the importance of servant leadership, of putting others first, and of helping to build the capacity of those around you. And in the near future, Western staff will be leaving Ethiopia and watching locals continue to serve new communities. And they will do it even better!

And today, you have an opportunity to invest in these leaders with double the impact. As I mentioned before, a generous West Virginian has committed to match every donation received today, up to $15,000. That means if you give $250, it becomes $500. If you give $50 it becomes $100. If you give $500, it becomes $1,000. None of this work would be possible if it weren't for the generosity of friends like you. Will you give toward maximizing this match and helping Nuru serve even more communities in the future? Thanks for all you have done and continue to do to help more and more families lift themselves out of extreme poverty for good!

Cultivate Hope With Nuru International On #GivingTuesday

This year Nuru is working to raise $300,000 to expand its efforts to 1,500 new households in the southern highlands of Ethiopia. And today, on #GivingTuesday, a generous donor from West Virginia has stepped forward to match every donation received up to $15,000 today. Will you make a donation to help maximize this match and help Nuru serve even more families in 2017? Every bit helps!

Since the summer of 2007, I have had the incredible honor of working together with a few of my friends from my undergraduate days, namely John Hancox, Jake Harriman, Andy Cogar, and Trey Dunham to make our own unique contributions to a massive global problem. The problem is global extreme poverty. And, while the problem by itself is huge, the very fact of its existence leads to the proliferation and thriving of an array of other problems including global instability, violent extremism, child soldiers, slavery, and human trafficking just to name a few. 

Back in 2007, we had no idea what might be in store in the years ahead, but we had a plan, a ton of passion, and a number of really smart and committed leaders contributing their skills to building an organization that could make a tangible impact in the lives of others. As we launched Nuru International in September 2008, a number of our friends had thrown their lot in with us and committed time and money to helping spread the word about the issue, and Nuru's unique contribution to the problem. In a matter of months, Nuru had grown from an idea to an actual organization that was serving approximately 2,500 people in southwestern Kenya. 

And as of this year, that number has grown to more than 100,000 people. That's more than 100,000 lives changed for the better because people like me and you stepped into the arena and chose to do something rather than stand by idly as our global neighbors suffered. And we are just getting started. In 2015, our western staff left Kenya for good, and local leaders are continuing to adapt and improve their efforts to address extreme poverty in their country. They are cultivating hope in areas of the world that are all too often forgotten by most.

Earlier this year, I had the honor of traveling with Jamie to visit our second country project in Ethiopia. The area where Nuru works is high up in the mountains of southern Ethiopia, and it is about a 2.5 hour drive from the nearest city to the area. Together, Jamie and I listened to stories from farmers and their families about the transformation that had taken place for them since Nuru's arrival. They talked about increases in crop yields and being able to feed their families. They talked about improving their savings and their health, and they talked about things I didn't think about with regard to programs. They talked about how their marriages were healthier because they were not frustrated by conversations about money or frequent discussions about children being sick. Their marriages were healthier because they were developing skills to improve their livelihoods. There are so many aspects of our lives and our relationships that improve when people have the ability to make meaningful choices for their future! As we walked along and talked with these families, we also witnessed how Nuru had equipped these families to be able to cope with one of the worst droughts in Ethiopia to occur in many years.

Farming is risky business, and farmers are inherently risk takers; it’s always been that way. All over the world, our food supply relies on farmers taking risks. All over the world, parents want a better life for their children than the one they had. Amarech Sama was among the first individuals to enroll in Nuru's programs in Meteka Mele Ethiopia in 2014. Her community was deeply affected by the drought, but because of Nuru, she and her family are thriving. In fact, Amarech just gave birth to a baby boy, and has not only improved her own financial literacy, but she is participating in programs to learn to better care for her newborn in Nuru's healthcare training programs (and teaching others) ways to better care for their infants as well! Please watch and share this video to learn more about Amarech and the work of Nuru in Kenya and Ethiopia as well.

This holiday season, you can help change the lives of thousands of our global neighbors, and cultivate hope in the southern mountains of Ethiopia and beyond. Will you share this post and make a gift to support women like Amarech Sama and move Nuru's mission forward today?

#GivingTuesday 2015 and Nuru International

A generous West Virginian stepped forward to match every donation (up to $15,000) that Nuru receives in honor of Giving Tuesday today. And that has me doubly grateful. It's not just about the match that I'm grateful, its also incredibly gratifying to see more and more people from my home state step up and join Nuru's efforts. I'm deeply proud of the strong West Virginia roots of Nuru, and at the same time, I love the fact that there are people from around the globe choosing to join us in this fight.

A little over seven years ago, Nuru was an idea. But in seven years, we have seen incredible change taking place. In fact this year we are celebrating the fact that together with the help of generous and selfless people like you, we have been able to help more than 81,000 people lift themselves out of extreme poverty in Kenya and Ethiopia.



With your help, we will be able to do even more in 2016. We are planning to take Nuru's programs to even more families in 2016. Over the next month we are working to raise a total of $300,000 dollars. Want to help? Here's FIVE ways you can! 

1) Donate online to Nuru, and encourage others to do the same!

2) If you are on Twitter, Share the link to our Holiday campaign page. Here's a sample tweet.

Join me in supporting @IAmNuru. Up to $15K will be matched today! http://bit.ly/1MRAPH #GivingTuesday

3) If you are on Facebook, share the link to our Holiday campaign page on Facebook. Here's a sample post.

Friends, I'm a proud supporter of Nuru International. Watch the video in this link and you'll discover why. Will you join me in supporting Nuru as your way of celebrating #GivingTuesday? Each donation given today will be matched up to $15,000. Every bit helps! http://bit.ly/1MRAPHZ

4) Nuru sent out an eNews reminder December 1 about the campaign. Will you forward the eNews to five friends and add a note to tell them why you believe in Nuru?

5) Create your own fundraising page--you could invite friends and family to donate to Nuru this year. 

Your support means a lot to me and to our entire team at Nuru, but it means even more to our farmers. Thanks for all you have done and continue to do to help their lives become better! Let's keep changing the world together!!!

#Giving Tuesday and Nuru International

The woman in the photo above is a farmer named Amarch Sama. She lives in an area called Meteka Mele, Ethiopia. Earlier this year, she was sharing with Nuru that for the last several years her family has gone through a six month hunger season. This hunger season  has led to a lack of savings, and even difficulty buying seed and fertilizer for the next year. Rather than opportunities and choices, her life was defined by anxiety. “How will I be able to feed my children? What happens if someone becomes ill? How will we save for the future?”

This year, all of those anxieties began to melt away. Amarch and 487 other farmers in Ethiopia joined Nuru and began to learn better farming techniques. They began farming as groups, and the community grew closer. When harvest came, Amarch and her neighbors were thrilled to see incredible yields of maize and beans because they knew that hunger would not be part of their future.

And this year, Nuru is working hard to help 1,700 farmers like Amarch to begin to lift their families out of extreme poverty for good! To do it, together we need to raise $350,000 this month to begin implementing our programs. Thankfully, to help us get started we had a generous donor step forward to match every donation that comes in TODAY (December 2 2014), up to $15,000. So if you give to Nuru in honor of #GivingTuesday, your donation will be doubled! How cool is that?

Will you help us maximize this match by donating today? With your help, Nuru can raise $30,000 today and be far along the way to raising $350,000 by the end of the year!

Also check out this video if you would like to learn more about Amarch, about Nuru, and about Nuru's plans for 2015!