Disclaimer: This Founder Series was originally published on DNF Newsletter Substack and now merged as one.
Dear NGO Founder,
Welcome to the second founder interview. I am sure you learnt a thing or two from the first one. Today’s guest is a founder that I respect and a leader that I have had the opportunity to learn from as a volunteer. Before I reveal any other information, I’ll let him introduce himself.
Pelumi: Hi Founder, Welcome to DNF’s #FromFoundertoFounderSeries. Can we meet you?
Special Guest: Hi DNF, my name is Dare Asobele. I’m a Lawyer, project manager, and the founder of Executives Helping Initiative, and Anti-suicide and Depression Squad. I’m excited to be here and to connect with fellow founders.
Pelumi: Thank you for being here. In few sentences, what are the missions of the Executives Helping Initiative (EHI) and the Anti-suicide and Depression Squad ( ASADS) ?
Dare: The joint mission for both organisations is to develop people, that is our volunteers. The goal is to help them see that nothing is impossible.
Independently, the Executives Helping Initiative is focused on providing necessities and catering to the welfare of orphans, extending kindness to prison inmates, community development, and providing financial aid for; cancer patients; sickle cell warriors, and individuals struggling with their mental health.
ASADS on the other hand provides a buffet of mental health solutions to help people struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. We have first aid mental health listeners, discounted therapy by professionals, a community group, and periodical online sessions on various issues surrounding mental health and wellness.
Pelumi: That’s a lot. So how do you balance leading both organisations with your personal career?
Dare: I’m not going to lie, it’s not easy, because a lot of people don’t know I have a 9-5. But I’m grateful for my team and I have been able to create a structure that allows for effective flexibility, whereby we get new team members that can ensure that things are done well and work can go on. I still oversee activities and ensure everything is running fine. I still struggle a bit, but I think we’re good where we are at.
Pelumi: You are the founder of two non-profit organisations. What led to the decision to build the second one (ASADS) as a separate organisation from the first? And would you recommend that to anyone who has multiple ideas?
Dare: This is a great question. Honestly, I won’t advise people to do what I did. But ASADS was built separately because of my personal experience with my mental health. I knew it was going to be stressful to build it as a stand alone, but there was a strong burden to do so. In my journey, there have been other issues that I’ve taken interest in, but I have had to tell myself that I can’t be setting up new NGOs for all the problems in the world.
For other interests that are important to me, I advise or encourage organisations or support organisations that are carrying out those works. I think what I would say is volunteer, or assist organisations that are doing things that you would like to support. If you have the capacity, the finances, the system to set up multiple organisations, go for it.
Pelumi: In ten years of being a nonprofit leader, what are five lessons that you’ve learnt?
Dare: The First lesson I’ve learned is to know your why. Your why is very important. Why are you doing this? There’s a lot I can say on knowing your why. It will help you when you don’t get support from friends and family for example, and they think you’re wasting your time or even crazy. It would help you when you’re frustrated or tired.
Second, identifying the type of people you need around you to succeed is very important. You need the right teams, made up of people with the right mentality, who will reduce your burden. Trust me you can’t do it alone. Even if you have money, you need people.
Third, this is still on people. I’m going to make a confession here. In my early years I made some mistakes in how I treated people. So I’ll say be careful how you treat people. Someone can disagree with you and not hate you, they are just seeing things differently. People are important on this journey.
Fourth, always document your progress. You might be the type of person who just wants to do it and you don’t care if you’re noticed. But you’ll need things like this when you apply for grants, and so that you can even help more people. Documenting your progress will help you see how far you’ve come.
Fifth, all glory belongs to God. It’s very easy to say I did this all by myself. But God has always been at the centre of my organisations. He has been kind to both organisations and sent us people. I’ll advise you to take your spiritual life seriously.
Side comment
I always say that 100 years before we came to this earth, problems existed. After we leave, they will still exist. The world just needs people who are willing to take action and help others.
Pelumi: If you had the opportunity to start again, knowing all you know, what would you do differently ?
Dare: I would say document more. Treat volunteers better and not overstretch them. Related or unrelated, I wish that I didn’t go through depression personally. But at the same time, coming out of that process is what helped me understand the pain and to start ASADS.
Pelumi: A number of past volunteers in your organisation have become founders of non-profit organisations themselves. Do you think there was anything you did intentionally to influence that?
Dare: Yeah. I’m really happy and proud to see them succeed. They must have learnt lessons, whether it’s how to be or how not to be as a founder. I hope it’s how to be as a founder though. I’m glad that they are able to replicate some of the systems we have here in their organisation as well. If you come across this, keep being amazing and inspire other people. There’s no competition in making the world a better place.
Pelumi: Both organisations that you lead have partnered with corporate brands on social impact projects. Could you share some tips with us on partnerships?
Dare: I know there’s the part of positioning yourself, but personally we’ve gotten a number of partnerships where we didn’t reach out. It was people reaching out based on the work we have done. For example, our partnership with Chipper Cash came because someone on their team who I met when he used to work at Uber (we partnered with Uber some years ago), reached out to us for the project. So people are watching. Do genuine work. It will take time, but people are watching.
In addition, leverage your network. We’ve been able to get some partnerships because of my network. There are things I’ve signed up for just because of the network of people that I want to meet. So you have to learn how to join networks and give value. I have paid for masterclasses just to meet people and other founders and see what they are doing. ASADS partnered with a person outside of the country because of a WhatsApp group chat. I saw a video of him on the group and I reached out to him on Instagram (IG). We spoke, I told him about my plan for a project, and he committed to supporting the project monthly.
Finally, my friends. They have seen me do this consistently for years. Some of them now work in companies and various positions. So they are able to help as well. Generally, the fact that it is clear that we’re legit, no bad press, you can see what we’ve done, it makes it easy for corporations to trust us with large sums of money. And we only take on projects and partnerships that align.
Pelumi: Are there any resources or training you’ll recommend to a non-profit founder who wants to grow in capacity?
Dare: You need to learn project management and how to manage stakeholders, you can check out Udemy. You also need to learn emotional intelligence. You need to read books on management and leadership. I recommend joining programs like the African Social Innovators Bootcamp (GEDA). They have a broad course outline on the different areas of your nonprofit or social enterprise. I’ve found that a lot of founders struggle to see why they should invest their money in training. Be willing to spend money to gain knowledge and take advantage of the freebies as well. Don’t forget to invest in developing your volunteers and don’t just take and take from them. It’s our free training season at my organisations.
Pelumi: Complete this statement. To build a non-profit in Nigeria you have to……..
Dare: To build a non-profit in Nigeria, you have to be passionate about what you do. You have to be willing to take risks. You have to be willing to do things yourself and sometimes alone. You must be a team player, and lastly, you must be consistent.
Pelumi: We have come to the end, thank you for agreeing to speak with DNF.
Dare: Anytime you call on us, we have no choice but to answer.
Dear Founder, the rest of the conversation is what you’ll call flattery. But If you’d like to connect with this founder or his organisation please click here. See you in two weeks.
Disclaimer: This Founder Series was originally published on DNF Newsletter Substack and now merged as one.