Adam Torres and Doree Donaldson discuss Doree’s new book.
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Show Notes:
New book alert! In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Doree Donaldson, Co Founder of Convoy of Hope, VP of Convoy:Women. Explore Doree’s new book, Mission Matters: Mission-Based Leaders Share Inspiring Stories on Power and Purpose (Women Leaders Edition, Volume 1).
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About Convoy of Hope
Convoy of Hope is a faith-based organization with a driving passion to feed the world through children’s feeding initiatives, community outreach, and disaster response.
In partnership with local churches, businesses, civic organizations, and government agencies, Convoy strategically offers help and hope to communities around the world.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today is a very special episode. We’re welcoming back onto the show, Doree Donaldson, who’s Co-founder of Convoy Hope, and VP of Convoy Woman.
I’m Doree. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much, Adam. Great to be with you. All right. So we, we got a lot to cover today. First off as a return guest and for those that have been watching this series for a long time, you know, that Doree is an author in what was our upcoming book and now is our newly launched book.
So we’ve been putting together this book for the last, oh, year, year and a half also with with Dr. Nancy as well. And and women connect for good. It’s been a lot of fun and a lot of work bringing together all the authors, but I’ll tell you after the finished product, which we’re going to get into as well, which is a Dori’s contribution to the book as well.
The door, the domino effect, a global call to empower women. So we got a lot to cover, but Dori, just to get us kicked off here, we’ll start this episode the way that we start them all with what we like to call our mission matters minute. So, Dori, at Mission Matters, our aim and our goal is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, women, thought leaders, experts, and really to, to amplify their voices.
That’s our mission. Dori, what mission matters to you? Well, it’s the mission of Convoy of Hope, and we are a non profit faith based organization that really is determined to alleviate pain and suffering throughout the world, and we do it in a variety of ways, through disaster relief work, through children’s feeding, women’s empowerment, which is what we’re focusing on today, agricultural initiatives, and a variety of other strategies as well.
But the goal is to alleviate pain and suffering. And we know there’s plenty of it in this world and to bring hope to people and tangible help. Great to have you back. And you know, some, we’ve been blessed, the show’s growing and we have a lot of new listeners, new visitors. So I want to take a step back here before we jump into the book and everything else.
And for those that didn’t catch the first episode that you and I did together Doree, let’s get into just convoy of hope and maybe some of the backstory and how all that began. Yeah, it really is a story that was birthed out of a tragedy. My husband’s parents were hit by a drunk driver when my husband was 12.
He was the oldest of four children and his father was killed instantly and his mother was injured very severely. She was in the hospital for months and they didn’t have insurance, nor did the person who hit them. So they were forced to go on welfare and survive on food stamps and handouts. And it was really the pain of that experience.
For cause them to experience the kindness of people as well. And so through neighbors and church friends and family members that would bring groceries to their doorstep. And when they saw that the kids had holes in their shoes, they would take them shopping. Some of those practical things that really helped them get through those difficult years.
That, that power of kindness really helped him not become bitter. And also caused him to eventually one day as an adult realize that other people are suffering and he did have the power to do something about it really through an encounter as well with Mother Teresa that was quite pivotal in his life.
He was on a trip to Calcutta, India to write a book for some people. And while he was there, they said, we have someone we’d like you to interview for our book. Lo and behold, it was Mother Teresa. And so he had the opportunity to sit down with her. And in the course of the interview, she turned the tide on him, the tables on him and said, young man, what are you doing to help the poor and suffering?
And he says, well, I’m really not doing much of anything. And her response to him really made an impact. She said, Everyone can do something. Just do the next kind thing that God puts in front of you. And so, you know, he went back to his hotel room that night and he just really began to have some self reflection about what his life had looked like and what he had been doing with it.
And from that point on he just really began to change some Just some desires of his heart and what he wanted to accomplish in life and his goals and dreams. So we had no idea where it was going to go. And now we’re celebrating our 30th anniversary this year at Convoy Pope. And according to Forbes, we’re now the 35th largest charity in America out of 1.
8 million. So who knew? We certainly didn’t know at the time. But wow, been an amazing journey. It’s an amazing story, an amazing journey. And you and you wrote about some of this in the book as well, which I was, I was just really pleased with as I, as we kind of went through when I, when I did, then you don’t know this, this is our first time talking since it’s really been published, published.
And I had some things I wanted to tell you. And I did. So the way that we, we order the chapters is by alphabetical order. So the second chapter is your chapter in the book. So when we’re, which of course, you know that, but when, when, when I was doing the final edit and the final read, it went like, I was doing this kind of like on maybe a Saturday morning or something, I thought, you know, it’d be a nice light, like let go through read.
Cause a lot, we publish a lot in the business sector.
To say, I didn’t quite have my mind ready for what I was going to like, what I was going to take in. So I, I get to Year Chapter by the end, by the time I’m done with Year Chapter, like, I don’t normally like, Get misty eyed at our business books. No offense to any of those authors, by the way, but they don’t necessarily pull at my heartstrings and make me want to go out there and make a difference in the world and the sense of like, like it really, it really hit me.
Like by the time I was done with, with your, the first chapter was amazing. I get to your chapter and, and it just. It hit me like it hit me like I’m misty eyed. I’m sitting here. I’m like, all of a sudden it’s a Saturday morning and I’m just like, Oh, it’s like, it’s heavy, but it’s inspiring. And it’s so layered.
And it’s so it’s complex. But then it’s, it’s also the human like journey and the struggle and like, and like the story of what it took to make a difference. So first off, I just want to thank you because you’re, you’re Like you bringing that type of work to this. If it hits me this way and this is my, my, my business as well as a publisher, then for the readers, I’m just like, I feel that words, that stories really have the power to change and to change things.
It’s very kind of you to say, well, I’m, I’m grateful. And I hope that it will make a difference and spur us all on to, to do more. Because we all have the ability to do something and we just have to look at what’s in our hand for the multitude of compassionate people around the world that have linked arms with us.
It’s really been a movement of kindness. You know, individuals, churches, businesses, civic groups, government agencies have all come together to make a difference. And it’s, it’s time, it’s treasures, it’s a myriad of, of giftings that people have chosen to make a difference. Hmm. And now, as you mentioned, you know, I believe you said 30 years later I mean, hundreds of millions of people served.
I was kind of thinking about, like, even from just as, as a, as a writer, as an author like how you were able to, and what your process was to maybe pull some of the stories or the case studies or things that you shared, like, cause it’s a lifetime of work. Like that must, that couldn’t have been easy.
Yeah well, I think when something hits you personally and it becomes your own experience, that’s what, that’s what you want to share, right? It has to touch your own heart. And so the stories that I shared in the chapter are women I’ve met that really changed me. In fact, I probably was more changed than maybe.
They’ve been changed by interacting with them. Honestly, you know, sometimes we feel like we’re the ones going in and we’re going to make a difference. We’re going to, you know, save people. But honestly, the transformation that happens in us is, is as big or bigger because we find out who we are and that we’re really lucky to just get to be.
a part of it. And that’s how we feel. We feel just really lucky that we get to be a part of it. And we don’t certainly take any of the credit for this because I think you know, we’re people of faith. God wants to help people more than we do. And that’s been proven true through all of this. There are people who’ve, you know, We don’t even know that have said, yeah, I want to be part of that.
And so that’s really what’s made Convoy of Hope what it is today. Amazing partners, volunteers nearly a million volunteers through the years have been a part of it. So we couldn’t do what we do without them. I want to go a little bit into some of the stories that you shared as well to give the audience a little bit of a flavor for like what to expect when they pick up a copy.
So let’s maybe start with Merida, Merida, if I’m saying that correctly. Merida. Merida. Okay. Let’s start with Merida’s story. Yeah. She’s a mom in Ethiopia, has three children and, She was forced to live on the streets because her husband abandoned her and having no skills of her own due to lack of education, which many times women just don’t have the opportunities that men have, that boys have.
Girls are not sent to school sometimes. If a parent has to choose who to send to school and due to early marriage, lots of, lots of reasons, right? Where women just are at a disadvantage. And Marita found herself in that. situation. And so she lived on the streets, but to protect her daughters, this is the part, this is the part that I can hardly say without crying.
She would strap them to her legs so they wouldn’t be taken during the night. If you can imagine, I can’t even imagine that kind of anguish that she experienced as a mother. And then when she came into our program and she got the ability to produce income. Made all the difference. And now she can send her children to school and she’s making engineer, which is a popular kind of a sourdough kind of tortilla bread that they make in Ethiopia.
If you’ve ever had that. Oh, I have delicious. They have a little Ethiopian town in in Los Angeles and I love it. It’s so good. It’s fun. Yeah. Tasty. Yeah. Kind of spongy. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, her life’s never been the same and I was able to visit her in her home and it’s just a tiny little home, but she was so proud to have us visit.
And she went over the minute we walked in. First thing she did was she went over to her little China cupboard, believe it or not, it was beautiful. She had a key in her pocket. She pulled it out, opened the door, cupboard door, and pulled out her business record keeping book. And she wanted to show us how all the money that she’s making and how she’s keeping careful track of it all.
Wow. Her earnings and her expenses and how she’s learning all these business skills, which is what the women are taught is as part of their training is that leads them into their vocational training. And the women are taught about their, their personal worth as well. So we really address every part of a woman’s life from her Personal life to her financial skills and then on to the vocational training so that it’s really a holistic approach to Helping someone become healthy on every front in their life And this really like when you talk about these business skills and things like yeah, and that they’re being taught I mean, this is breaking like generational cycles, right?
Like this is still like her children for like, can you talk a little bit about that? Yes, I feel and and The chapter title is the domino effect. And really the domino is you start with one woman and it changes everything in her family because her children now see an empowered mother. So her sons are going to look at her differently.
They’re going to look at women differently. She has the ability to send them to school, doesn’t have to choose. Who to send. She can send both her boys and her girls to school for the first time, perhaps in her life. I’ve met many moms who said, Oh, and now we can have chicken. We can have chicken on the weekends.
And we couldn’t even have meat before. And now they can have healthier food, so they can be healthier. And when kids go to school, they have a future. And so that next generation is changed and the cycle of poverty is broken. So eradicating hunger, Can start first with mom, you empower mom, because moms want what’s best for their kids, and they’ll do anything to ensure that they survive, but that they also thrive.
Yes, I want to let’s also talk about another story that you talked about in there. So Magrath. Am I saying that accurate? Mm hmm. Close enough. So tell us a little bit more about, about the story that you share with Mag, Magrath. Can you pronounce it right for me? I want, I don’t want to mess up her name.
Magrath. I think Magrath Magrath. There we go. Yep. That’s all on me. That’s not on the Magrath. Yeah. That’s okay. It’s a lot like Margaret, but not quite. She’s from Tanzania and I met her just a little over a year ago and she has been a widow for over 20 years. Mm hmm. Seven children. And she is a very talented Maasai jewelry maker.
And so we came to her home and we watched her and two of her daughters, they were actually making jewelry. We got to see how they made it. It was absolutely fascinating, but she is in demand. So she provides jewelry for several vendors. She also has a farm, but she’s built homes for both of her sons and now her daughters who we got to speak to her daughters and they told us, That they are so happy because now they have the business that they’re doing with their mom, but pretty soon she won’t have to do it anymore because they’ll be able to take care of her.
Right? So that generational training has, has been passed on to her children and of course her grandchildren. So the whole family has become healthy as a result. So I just think that’s incredibly powerful. Yeah, it’s, it’s amazing. And, and I mean, the amount of, and these stories, I know you, you have them for days and days because you’ve helped so many people in convoy of hopes helped so many people through the years.
I understand there was even a study that the university of London did on a convoy of hopes, women’s empowerment program, maybe talk about that a little bit. Yes. Well, there’s, there’s a few. Intellectual terms that I don’t quite all can’t repeat to you. But amazing what they found. They found that as they studied in three different countries women who had gone through our program, and many of them Have gone through a lot of abuse.
So there’s a lot of psychological scars and unhealthiness there And they found that as the women move through the program That the program kind of has an inoculating effect on them because By the end of it when compared to women of higher socioeconomic level of Less trauma in their lives that the women in our program were happier for just as well off, if not more well off than those women because of what they learn, how they’ve grown and what they’ve experienced.
So it was just living proof to us that it’s, it’s working. And it is it’s being successful and it’s really accomplishing what we had hoped, far more than we had hoped, actually, from the time we started in Ethiopia back in 2010 with a grant from USAID we had no idea. Truly how successful it was going to be and how important it was going to be.
And now it’s really become one of our strategic initiatives. That’s a part of children’s feeding and agricultural training, really helping entire communities to become sustainable. And that’s the goal is to come into a community, feed the children. Empower the mothers, train the farmers so that they can feed their families, their communities, and then we can move on to the next community and help them become healthy, but they don’t need us forever.
We always want to go in with an exit strategy because we don’t want to be feeding their grandchildren. Yes. We want to help them have tools so that they can feed their own eventually. And that’s really Convoy’s goal is to, to go in and do asset based community development to say, what do they have, what, what’s in their hands, what do they have that we could take and we could help them capitalize on and and not, so we’re just not giving handouts all the time, right?
We’re helping them grow and use what they have. And I just think that’s. a really beautiful part of the whole process. And now with so much I guess, obviously a lot of progress has been made, but then you look at something like also, you know, COVID 19 happening and, and, you know, hundreds of millions of people worldwide being, you know, thrust back into like, like extreme poverty.
Can you maybe talk about like for the audience that we don’t necessarily get this information every day, like, like what’s, what’s happening, like what’s taking place? Well, I mean, I think we were on a trajectory of, of hopefully ending poverty eventually, but COVID 19 absolutely sent more than 130 million people back into poverty.
And poverty is, extreme poverty is considered making less than 1. 90 a day. So when you think about that that’s, that’s huge. It doesn’t take much for a tipping point for a family to be desperately in need. And that’s, you know that’s really what we’re, we’re striving to work with is people who are the lowest of the low.
And even America’s working poor. We know that our, the situation in America is desperate as well. And so Convoy works here in the U. S. as well through disaster response. Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to throw up our hands and say, well, it’s too big.
We can’t do anything because that’s not what we’re supposed to do. We have to keep striving forward to make a difference because it matters to every single person that we’re able to touch and, and just give that hand up. It’s really a hand up, not a handout, it’s a handout. Yeah. I, I see this and I see that, you know, more work needs to be done, not just from, you know, convoy hope.
I mean, just in general, like all of us getting involved in all of us, like awareness, even just awareness about what’s going on, because, you know, we live in our own little, you know, echo chambers or bubbles or things like this. And like, that’s why I’m excited to have someone like yourself on the show to, you know, let people know.
People know what’s going on and why this matters, you know? Yeah. I had a fascinating interview with Dr. Henry cloud or heard it, I should say with Malala and he asked her, he said, why, why should we care about what’s going on around the world? Why should it matter to us? And her answer was so incredibly powerful.
She said, we all must see the world as our home and everyone in it as our brothers and our sisters. That says it right there. We all need to care because it does matter. It does matter. And if we aren’t helping feed children, helping empower mothers, then the terrorists probably will be, they’re going to get that bowl of rice from somewhere.
And I would rather it be for me than somebody else. So yeah, the need is tremendous. It truly is. But we all can make a difference. And wherever you are in your own backyard, there’s always needs, right? Just Open your eyes and see what they are and jump in. So speaking of getting involved Dorie, how do people get involved with Convoy of Hope, Convoy Women?
Like how do people participate in this? Well, you can always go to our website, convoyofhope. org, pretty easy to find. If you want to know more about women’s empowerment, you can learn some there. You could also go to the Convoy Women website and that’s convoyofhope. org. dot org slash women. Advocacy is huge.
You can follow us on social media at convoy women at convoy of hope instagram, facebook, you name it. We’re all there. Those are great ways to share the stories. Use your voice to be the voice for those who don’t have one. Of course, you know gifts, financial gifts are huge because we can’t do what we do without financial gifts, but we’re able to leverage your gift through all the partners that we have and the gifts and kinds that are provided to Convoy of Hope.
We were able to, are able to leverage those gifts four and five and six times, sometimes even more than that through amazing partners like Cormel and Home Depot and Target and Walmart, all of those amazing partners of ours that really help us do what we do as well. Amazing. Well, Doree, thank you so much for coming back on the show and I’m thrilled to continue to spread the word and the message of convoy of hope.
And then also to get this book out so that more people can hear the stories and it can make a difference as well. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t hit the subscribe or follow button yet, we welcome you to do that. This is a daily show every day.
We’re putting out new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspirations. And, and whatever your mission is and accomplish that and Doree, again, so much fun. Thank you so much for coming back on. Really appreciate you making some time for us. I enjoyed it so much. Thanks again.