This week on the Building Interest Podcast, Jay Tuli discusses pivotal moments and critical decision-making with Sasha Chanoff, CEO & Founder of RefugePoint, an inspiring author, humanitarian, and value-based leader.  

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Episode Transcript

Greg Farber: 0:00

Whether you're seeking inspiration, wisdom or a fresh perspective on leadership and entrepreneurship, the Building Interest Podcast has you covered. Together, We uncover the stories behind the success of groundbreaking leaders, the triumphs, the challenges and the invaluable lessons they learned along the way. Our discussions go beyond strategic decision making and delve into the personal hobbies and passions that keep these leaders inspired and grounded in

Jay Tuli: 0:21

Well, thank you for joining us today. Today's their work. episode on Building Interest, I am delighted to be here with the founder and CEO of refuge point, Sasha Chanoff, and on Building Interest, we really cover a broad range of topics that go beyond banking to leadership, mission, vision. And so Sasha, I think we're gonna have a fun discussion today, because I know you are involved with the wonderful organization, and you cover a lot of those specific topics. I thought we could just jump right in, Sasha, to the first thing I always find really interesting in people's not only in their lives, but their career trajectory is pivotal moments. And I often think there's, like, usually one or two or three of these, like pivotal moments where a whole trajectory of your life changes as a result. And so having having read up about you and some of your work, I thought we could go right into that moment when you're, I think, a 28 year old in the Congo, you're on this mission where your boss sent you to bring 112 people back on a plane, no more, no less, and you're dealt with this sort of very big decision because your partner, Sheikha, finds a tent full of people, additional refugees who need to be saved, but you don't have the space. And well, the question I have for you is, first, you know, tell us a little bit about that moment. But secondly, what was going through your head at that point in time? Because, as I think about it, that is such a hard decision to make, and I just love to know, you know, what was going through your head?

Sasha Chanoff: 2:13

Yeah, Thanks, Jay. I'm totally thrilled to be here with you today. I was working for the UN's Migration Agency focused on refugees. And as you said, I was part of a small team that was sent into the Congo, which was at war at the time, to evacuate people who are being attacked and killed there. And in this compound where my partner, the senior operations official, Sheikha, and I arrived, there were the 112 people who were on our list. And my boss, who is really a mentor to me and a friend, had given us explicit instructions before we flew into the Congo you can't take anybody who's not on this list. He said, If you do the Congolese officials that you have to collaborate with to get them, these people out to the airport are gonna take the people off your list. You won't get them out, and they might not make it out. They'll probably perish there. And when we got into this compound, as you just highlighted, Sheikha and I were there, and we found that 112 people on our list. But at the same time, there was a tent, and she walked into this tent, and I followed her, and in that tent there was a group of 32 widows and orphans who weren't on our list. They had just arrived in there, and a guy who was working in that compound. Who was next to us kind of leaned in and said, you see these people. They have lost many family members. They somehow survived some kind of death camp where a lot of their relatives and close family lost their lives. They're here right now. If you don't take them out, they're not going to get out. And Sheikha leaned over and said to a little girl holding a doll, hey, what's your doll's name? And all of a sudden, the doll's eyes opened, and we realized that it was a tiny infant that didn't look like it weighed more than about four pounds. So Sheikha and I left that tent, went back to kind of our Operations Headquarters, a hotel in Kinshasa, the capital of Congo and and she said to me, we have to take those people. And I remembered what my boss had said, you can't take anybody else. You're jeopardizing, jeopardizing the lives of everybody if you try. And I said, I know I want to too. We came face to face with them. I saw I saw them. I saw what you saw, but we can't risk the lives of everyone else. And we argued about it all night, and she finally said to me, Sasha, are we or are we not humanitarians? And Jay we can go into the background of my work, but I had worked for a number of years with refugees, and my own great grandparents came over fleeing anti semitism here, and I think that was part of why I was drawn to this work. But I was always interested in, like being closer and closer to refugee situations and helping in different ways. But here we were not outside of a situation, not in a refugee camp or in the US where people arrived, but right in the middle of a war zone where people were at risk of losing their lives. She convinced me. I was like, Okay, I agree. What do we do now? And. She said, Well, let's call our boss and tell him we're going to try. And we did. And he got really angry, but he finally said, listen, this is a US mission, If you get the US ambassador's approval, go ahead and try it. And we did. And so we had to get extra guards on all our busses, because we had an hour trip from that guarded armed compound. There were like armed guards on the outside, because these people were Congolese Tutsis, and they were being attacked if they were seen in the streets. We had to get them from there to the airport. So we got everybody on our bus in the last morning, we had about four armed guards per bus. We finally made it to the airport, and as we arrived there and tried to get everybody off the busses into the plane, we had waiting for us, the Congolese officials stopped us, and I thought, oh my god, we're not going to get anybody out here. And Sheikha went over and started talking to the head of Congolese immigration. And finally, they let us down off the bus, and we got onto that plane, and we flew out of there. And that's I wrote a book about that called From Crisis to Calling finding your moral center in the toughest decisions, but really, that experience, I think, shaped and changed my life.

Jay Tuli: 6:08

Thank you. I mean that story. I every time I hear it, it's just so incredible. I think about the sort of moral dilemma you're facing in that moment right, which is like you have this set of rules. You're there for a very specific purpose, and not going by that set of rules actually, perhaps endangers the people you were there to get. But there was something else right. There's this other like X Factor of kind of an emotional pull, a kind of in the moment situation that was not planned. And I just want to explore that more, because I find sometimes those those things you don't plan, they just try, end up creating this whole new journey for you. And so tell me about that moral dilemma, like, what, what? How did you wrestle between the two things?

Sasha Chanoff: 6:57

Well, it's interesting, Jay, because theoretically, if you had asked me before, like, are you gonna take more people or not when you get in there? The answer would obviously be No. My boss had the right argument. He's like, you can't try to take other people. This was the last in a series of evacuations, and had gotten really complicated, and the Congolese officials had stopped planes from going out before and held people back. And this was the very last mission in, like we weren't going back for anybody. We couldn't and so theoretically, when you think about that, you're like, Yeah, of course, you're gonna go in, you're gonna get the people out, you're not gonna take anybody else. But there's something different on a human level that happens when you come face to face with a situation yourself, and that's what I mean. I didn't have any experience in this sort of thing. I was like, had just arrived in Kenya, where I was based, and working across the continent, like, six months earlier. I was so new to this sort of thing, I really knew nothing and felt completely out of my depth. But what happened was coming face to face with people and seeing them and looking them in the eye and seeing what they had gone through is like, there's a moral situation that you're confronted with, personally that you can't turn away from. And Sheikha felt that and saw that immediately. I wanted to do the like, do the right thing, in a sense too. I wanted to do what she was saying, but I had my instructions, and so I think, I think one piece of it is coming face to face with something yourself, and opening your eyes to that situation, like when we walked into that tent, that was kind of like opening our eyes to the possibility that there was a different course. I actually didn't even want to go into the tent, as when the guy said, go into that tent and see the new people who came in. I said to him, sorry, we're not taking anybody else. We're not going to that tent. And Sheikha turned to me, and she's like, I'm going to go into that tent. Sasha, you stay here. And then I went with her. So I think to your question, it's like coming face to face with a situation, personally, opening your eyes to it, thinking about what the different options are, I think that can help you figure out at the deepest level what your values are and what you should do.

Jay Tuli: 9:10

So that sort of really highlighted your values. Also, she kind of like called into question your identity when right when she said, Are we humanitarians or are we not? And so now that that moment happens, and was that like the start of this whole new journey for you, or like, what what happened after that, when you got back? How did your life change?

Sasha Chanoff: 9:31

Well, what happened was that, everywhere I went across Africa, working in refugee camps and other places with people who are like fleeing Sudan and Congo and Somalia and other countries, I was tuned into the people who were overlooked and not on the radar. So, for example, I went to Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya after that to work with a group that's become really well known here in Boston, called the Sudanese Lost Boys and Girls, and this was a group of kids who were. Separated from their parents and orphaned during genocidal violence that the North perpetrated against South Sudan in the in the late 80s and 90s. And this group of children fled on their own and finally ended up in Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp, raising each other 60 minutes that I did a piece with about it said that it was like Lord of the Flies in reverse. It was kids raising each other in the most harsh circumstances and yet had turned into these amazing individuals. But when I was there, I saw that there were many girls who were not on the resettlement lists. And everywhere I went, I was tuned into those people who are off the lists in Nairobi, where I was living, I found that there were many people who'd actually fled refugee camps because they were LGBT, or were HIV positive, or were the wrong ethnicity in the wrong place at the wrong time and being persecuted there. So they fled, and they were getting no help in Nairobi. So place after place where I worked, I saw people who were overlooked and forgotten. And I felt that it was my calling, in a sense, to do something about that. And I also saw an opportunity to do something about that, because the US government has this refugee resettlement program where every year, our president sets the ceiling of how many refugees we legally bring in who go through an interview process overseas with security checks and background checks, and once they're approved, they can arrive here. And the ceiling is usually 70 or 80 or 90,000 people per year. This year it's 125,000 people. But back then, and this happened a little over 20 years ago, every year, 10s of 1000s of these life saving resettlement slots were going unused.

Jay Tuli: 11:42

Wow, that's incredible.

Sasha Chanoff: 11:43

So I was like, that's crazy. Like, that's almost criminal. You're my tax dollars paying for this program. That's a bipartisan program that started in 1980 with the Refugee Act, and Reagan was one of the biggest advocates for it, and brought in the most people. And then every president since then had done that as well, and yet slots were going unused. So I thought I could start an organization that would fill those slots, identify people who couldn't go home and were in danger, and get them to the US where they can build new lives. So that's kind of the origin of Refuge Point.

Jay Tuli: 12:16

So working with refugees. How? How? Tell me a little bit about about that. Like, you know, when you're, I guess, I guess a specific question I have that's coming into mind is like, alright, so you're from, you know, the United States, right outside of Boston, in your office is in Boston itself.

Sasha Chanoff: 12:39

Yeah, like a mile from where we're doing this podcast right now.

Jay Tuli: 12:42

And your work is taking you all, all throughout the globe to like, the poorest communities in in the world. And one question that was coming to my mind is like, how do you bridge the gap of both having to work with the system and network with the powers to be, which is often like, you know, sophisticated folks, high powered, successful people with a lot of money, and then at the same time, like switch and go, you know, on the ground into Africa with people who just don't even have clean water. And like, the the dichotomy between those two worlds. How do you how do you deal with that?

Sasha Chanoff: 13:23

Well, so first, the interesting thing is that refugees, right are people who fled their homes and they fled to a neighboring country, and they can't go home because of war, because of persecution and violence, and so they are really like people, just like you and me, they're they're bankers, they're lawyers, they're teachers, they're farmers, they're doctors, they're the whole range of humanity. They just were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and their country sunk into war, and they had to leave, and they can't go home. In fact, like horrible fact in the world right now is there more people who fled than ever before, and people often don't go home for over 20 years, they're stuck in refugee camps, which are really set up just to be a temporary holding place for people before they can go home, like you get a tent and food and basic assistance, with the idea that, Oh, next year, war will end and you'll go home, but next year turns into two years and five years and 10 years and 20 years, and people just don't go home. So yeah, these places are rough and brutal places where there's not enough humanitarian assistance, where people are restricted from pursuing livelihoods and building safe and secure lives and but I think the big point I want to make is like, you go into these places and you meet people who are just like you or me. You know they're in fact, I've met people who are like, Yeah, I got a master's degree in the US, but then went back to my home in Somalia. But then I had to flee, and now I'm in this camp.

Jay Tuli: 14:44

Just a personal story on my front my first real interaction I've dealt with, like several refugees, but the first interaction for me that really sort of drew me into this and sort of why I've started to do. Know, become more familiar with refuge point is so I was 2014 and my wife and I had just been on a vacation and in Thailand, and I broke my foot there. I wish I had a good story, but I would just sort of like tripped over a cinder block and I come back to the States, and it's my right foot, and I have a boot, and I can't drive. And so I said, All right, I'll try this thing called Uber, because back then, it wasn't as popular. And so an Uber black car pulls up, and it's this wonderful person who's who, in the course of the 20 minute drive, you know, I find out he's a refugee from a country in Africa that was going through a lot of political turmoil. He had been imprisoned. He had tried to escape several times, and he finally, on his third attempt, escaped and made it through the US, over the Mexican border, where there's asylum. And he kind of found his way all the way up here and but, but he was really well read, he was really well spoken. He just like a really good person in a really bad circumstance. And anyways, we became close friends, and we're still friends to this day. And it was amazing to me with just like a little bit of guidance, right? Because when a refugee comes here, they don't have a network, they don't know how things work, like real basic stuff we take for granted, just foreign to them. And so with a little bit of guidance, a little bit of help, they really flourish. And I always find that to be such an interesting situation. And it is such a it's, it's, you know, one, one thing for me that always kind of makes me sad is when there's unfulfilled potential. You know, if you see there's potential, someone they want to do something, but then they don't do it. That kind of like hurts my heart. And so with refugees, I feel like there's a great opportunity to help them fill that because they want to. They're motivated, they're here. They have a lot of skills, but they just don't know how.

Sasha Chanoff: 16:56

When I think about all the refugees in the world, the first thing that comes to my mind is they are the greatest untapped resource that our world has, because they are locked in situations where they're dependent on erratic aid and don't have opportunities to shine and show who they are. But as you just described with your friend, when they get here or have a chance to start supporting themselves. They become contributors in their community. They have such a drive to want to succeed because of all the rough stuff they've been through that they often do in extraordinary ways. I mean, here in the US, I just wrote a piece about the economic contributions of refugees, but you look and they contribute extraordinarily to local Boston economies to cities they go to that are depressed. They start businesses in there and regenerate depressed downtown areas and contribute so much. But it's really just kind of a dimension of humanity. Maybe the worse off you've been, the more drive you have to say, I'm gonna get out of this situation and improve my life.

Jay Tuli: 18:00

Yeah, that kind of, like, brings me back to the pivotal moments thing, because what you're describing is like, you know, helping that person in this very specific point in time is so crucial to everything that happens after. And it's, it's funny, because in banking and it's kind of, you know, in a way hard weird for me to compare banking to refugees. But one of the things we think in banking, yeah, compare it like...

Sasha Chanoff: 18:28

Go for it, what are you gonna say?

Jay Tuli: 18:29

No, but in banking, we always think about these pivotal moments too, like when, when a couple is buying their first house, or when you're helping a small business owner, like, especially during covid. Sasha is really interesting. Covid happened, and everything shut down, and all these small businesses were gonna fail, and so the government comes out with this PPP program, and this was the pivotal moment for these small business owners, where it's like, you could give them a loan at any other point in time, and it's like, fine, but you give them, you help them in this moment of time. It's the difference between survival or not. And fast forward, you know, four or five years later, seeing some of these small businesses, like flourish and grow and hire more employees and like, expand, and they're so loyal and they're so, like, grateful that you helped them at this one moment in time. And I think about that, like my friend and like, you know, the refugees you talk about too, it's like this moment when they're coming over and like helping them with a resettlement, that's the moment. That's the moment you have to get right, because after that, it's everything else follows.

Sasha Chanoff: 19:36

That's the moment. It's so funny you say that, because that's actually why we named our organization Refuge Point. I wanted to signify a moment in somebody's life that's transformational. Because what I've found is that when people come into contact with us and we help them overseas get into the US resettlement program, that is the transformational moment they might have been refugees for a year or two. Many years, and they might have been stuck in the same situation, and often that situation is really dangerous, but that's finally the moment when their life will change and transform.

Jay Tuli: 20:10

So now on the organization itself, like, talk to me about, like, leading the organization. So you have people all over the world, like, it's 175?

Sasha Chanoff: 20:20

Yeah, we have about 175.

Jay Tuli: 20:22

Yeah, and, and just, I'd love to know about, like, what in this, in building Refuge Point, what, what has been the most you know, gratifying piece of it?

Sasha Chanoff: 20:35

Wow. That's a hard question, because I think there are a lot of things, but what's the most gratifying piece of it? Well, I guess here's one piece that struck me that I didn't really consider when things started, which was first, as I shared with you, I felt a real kind of personal calling to this work. I'd been very drawn to working with refugees, and when I started here in Boston meeting people from Bosnia and Somalia and Iraq and other places, I was kind of hit in the gut with this visceral feeling that this is what I was supposed to do with my life. And then when I had this kind of transformational moment in the Congo, it was like a new path opened up within that space that I was supposed to start something new to help people, because nobody else was I understood the space and saw that people weren't doing what I felt was needed. And so I was able to tune into that feeling and that sense that this is what I'm supposed to do in my life, and start talking to people about it. But I immediately also brought a lot of people that refugepoint was helping to the table to start speaking alongside me, and what I found was that other people who heard our stories and what we were Where did you learn all your leadership and management skills doing approached me and said, I want to help. This speaks to me. This speaks to who I am. This speaks to what I want to see happen in the world. So I think when you present a vision of the world that is more equitable, that is rooted in protecting people who've gone through the worst things and who are often overlooked and forgotten, and helping them get to a better place so they can flourish and build new, safe and secure lives, and you articulate that other people are like, That's me. That's what I want to do. You're articulating my values. And so then you start building a community of people who are operating together to do that. And I found that both with staff, it's like they feel like this is me, and it's interesting, because some staff have even said to me like I started working. I remember one woman shared a story. She said I started working like soon after I lost my husband tragically and unexpectedly, and this work, like, helped me recover from that and and this is what I want to do with my life. So finding an opportunity that connects with you personally, and then seeing that other people feel a similar sense of inspiration and like commitment to that, so that then you don't feel alone. You feel like you're building a community around that, and then getting people who want to support you financially or people who want to work with you to do this, and refugees themselves who are working with us now to do this, it's like, builds this momentum around a better vision for the world that more and more people can get on board with. in building the organization over the years? Because, like, you know you're, you're originally came from, like, a government kind of agency job, and so you're it's, I would assume, like your role sort of shifted from just helping, you know, the mission, to also the business of the mission. Where did you pick up all those skills and things? I mean, I got, you know, like, a master's degree in humanitarian assistance. There was a program that has started up that I went to do at the tufts Fletcher School and nutrition school. And did that after working for 10 years here in the US and across and overseas, in Kenya and across Africa. But I don't feel like I know how to do a lot of things that we need to do to build our organization. I feel like I've brought a small and important piece of the pie together, certainly a vision for the world and articulating that vision. But really quickly, I remember we had a small board. One of them was president of a bank here in Boston, and a few other people, and I said to them, well, we have all these opportunities. We're doing this and that, and like we're going to the State Department working with them. And we were trying to evacuate a group of about 1000 people who had survived a massacre in Burundi who were refugees. And I wanted to, we wanted to get them to the US. And the board said, you really need a chief operating officer to work with you. And I was so fortunate to find the exact right person, this woman. Named Amy slaughter, who came on board and joined me and brought her own vision and abilities, and she was managing, I think, a big non profit with like 90 staff under her. I'd never managed more than one or two people, but she came on board and was able to help build this and had a lot of management experience. And then, as we've grown step by step, we've just brought all these incredible people are, like, part of refuge points leadership and part of the teams that are building this organization. So this is, like, this is really not about me. It's about a group of people who've come together who share a vision for a better world and want to make that happen.

Jay Tuli: 25:37

It, you know, it's, it's funny, you say that because kind of mission based leadership, I feel like, really, like cuts through, like experience levels, like socioeconomic status, like all sorts of things. And seems to, I think sports also does this a little bit too, but brings people together. And, you know, one of the things I've been trying to learn more about, you know, I've been at the bank 18 years now, but in the last since the pandemic, there's been so much ups and downs in the financial markets with people's money and savings, and we've sort of been trying to think about how our organization is a little bit more value based, versus just kind of like, you know, we're a bank. We do this, we make a profit. And for me, it's been super inspiring, because one, I believe it, and it really motivates me, but I've also seen it activate the team and the clients more, and so I totally resonate with what you're saying about your COO, because when, when there's a really good vision or mission, it attracts people to it.

Sasha Chanoff: 26:51

So I have a question for you, because I'm just right now, as we're talking I just left a leadership retreat, and I'll go back to that. But how, what are some of the ways that you, like, can build that values based leadership in a way where people see it Yeah, and say, I want that, or, like, I want to work there because of that, like, what's one?

Jay Tuli: 27:11

Yeah. So, I mean, it's definitely harder. It's not as obvious, I should say, in a financial services business, because it's not like, you know, we're helping refugee where, like, the product or service in of in and of itself, is just a great humanitarian thing. But the way, there's a few things, one, I think we're trying to bring, like, a level of transparency and authenticity in our organization that's not common, I would say, at a lot of other financial services. What I mean by that is, you know, it's a lot of like, rather than talking about how it should be, which is different from the truth. You know, we just want to be really clear with both our team members and our clients, like, No, we can't do that. We don't do that. We're not good at that. But yes, we're good at this. We're trying to offer an outstanding level of client service. One thing that happens in our industry is banks keep buying each other, and the banks get bigger and bigger, and the service goes down. So we've been trying to really double down on the client service, and in a way, save some of these clients from horrible service elsewhere, you know. And when you look at it with that lens, which I was really shy to do for a while, but after hearing the clients like, outpour, after they've done, like, a transaction with us, or banked with us, and be like, Oh my God, where have you guys been? It's super motivating. And it's also, it's also the thing we should double down on, right? Like, if we, if we are good at that, then we should double down on and do more of it and help more people and so and so. I think the outcome of this is both the stronger culture, but also attracting talent that also believes in that, you know, and that's that's been the fun part.

Sasha Chanoff: 28:56

I love that attracting talent we just we have this job opening for, like, a director of, I'm not going to get this right. It's, it's like we have a job opening for the person who's going to lead a network of organizations helping refugee families reunite. And we had over 700 people apply for the job as and some people have said this is the most sought after job this year in the like humanitarian field, but I have another question for you around that, because you said it's about clarity and transparency and providing really good services. But also I know Leader Bank to be a bank that cares very deeply about the communities where you work and invests heavily in those communities and does a lot of good philanthropic things in those communities. Is that also a value that comes through with people and that they care about?

Jay Tuli: 29:48

Yeah, no, you know, I always struggle with it, because I always kind of feel like, all right, if you're trying to do something good for the community, then I. Uh, how do you keep it pure versus, like, advertising it all over the world, right? Because once you advertise all over the world, you get a benefit too, and then it starts to get muddied a bit. So I will say, you know, we are very active in the community. There's some things we do just because we want to be good neighbor, and where their organizations, we believe in. There's also some things we do where we also get, like, a direct, like business benefit out of, you know, and I mean, that's just the truth. That's the truth about business, I think, more and more as we've been growing, the common theme is really relationships. So whether it's something we believe in or it's something that gives us some benefit, there's a relationship at the end. So it's a client we have, it's a business partner, it's a team member who believes in the organization. And that, I think, is a common theme for our community efforts. And that's basically the business we're in anyways. We're in a relationship based business.

Sasha Chanoff: 31:02

You know, it strikes me that what comes through for me when you say that is just a little about humility and about just approaching what you do with total honesty and humility and authenticity. And I love that. And it feels like what we also strive to do, and I think do, in many ways, at refuge point is like to highlight that, yeah, we're really good organization. There are a lot of other really good organizations, and collectively, we can make a big impact in the world.

Jay Tuli: 31:30

You get all these like awards everywhere, right? Which, which is amazing, because your organization does so much amazing stuff. How do you like, keep, like, a grounded head in a way, like, so what I mean is, like, you're getting recognized. The organization can recognize the White House, like, international stuff, all this. And then people start to, you know, I'm assuming, you know, think of you certain way, compliment you, right? And but at the same time, like, you need to do, like, real work at the end of the day, like, and be humble. I mean, you're dealing with refugees the end of the day, right? So you can't be like, on an ivory tower. How do you how do you not let that like, and I can tell it doesn't affect you. So how do you not let that affect your...

Sasha Chanoff: 32:19

Well, again, it kind of goes back to this idea that it's not really you. Like, yeah, when Refuge Point started, sure I was the one who started it, so, and that's was a good thing. And I think I have a lot of entrepreneurship in me, but building it, I mentioned a woman, Amy Slaughter, who came on to build it, and then many other people after her came on, and we would not be the organization we are today without all of those people and their insights and their vision and their hard work. So when I've been recognized with awards, my first thought is, why is there this award that's just for an individual? Somehow it feels like putting all of that attention and spotlight on one person and trying to elevate them into like, you know, a super good human being for doing what they do doesn't feel right to me. So, so I think that what you need to do is actually really share that love and share that recognition, and do it in every way you can. So for example, when the Schwab Foundation, Schwab foundation is the sister organization to the World Economic Forum, and they reached out to us and to me and said, Hey, there's this big award. It's the Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, we want to nominate you for it, and if you get it, you'll you'll go to the World Economic Forum, and you'll have a platform to talk about your work. I said, that's fantastic. We're doing such important work. I love it. But listen, this isn't about me anymore, like we've been doing this for a long time, and I have another partner, this woman who's been a co leader with me. Could she also get the award? If we, if we get through your vetting process and they looked at her background, they said, Yeah, cool. And so then Amy and I both got the award. Well, that's great. And then she had access to go to Davos, and that just made refuge point must.

Jay Tuli: 34:10

Yeah, right, right, right. When you talk to people who are like, supporting the organization and donating, we would usually find is the common like theme with them? Are they? Are they doing it because they feel they believe? I mean, of course they must believe in the mission. But do they feel guilty? Do they feel like, you know, is it? Is it a way to sort of be good in a bite sized way? Like, what are some observations you have from that?

Sasha Chanoff: 34:42

Well, people support us in different ways. I think some people just like, make a lot of money. They're busy making money doing the work that they're doing, and they want to do something with that. So this like a knee jerk response if I'm going to give some money, or they don't like, put a ton of thought into it, but that's from coming from a very good place. Then I think there are other. People who are career philanthropists, who think really deeply about their philanthropy. And I think those people often want to think about not just helping one person, which is really compelling, but how are you changing or transforming a system that doesn't work really well? Like I mentioned, the refugee resettlement system was really broken. 10s of 1000s of slots were going unused every year, and we had a vision for how to fix that and change that, working with the UN refugee agency and others to do that. And so some people, that resonates with them too. But actually, your question about what motivates people makes me think of a thing that a friend of mine, Noubar Afeyan, who's a Boston guy, he founded flagship pioneering and also founded, co founded the Aurora prize for awakening humanity, which is a million dollar prize rooted in the experience of Armenian genocide survivors over 100 years ago now, and recognizing that people during that time risked their lives to protect Armenians who Were at threat of extinction, and those people who risked their lives, is the reason that the co founders of this prize are alive today, because they're descendants of Armenian genocide survivors. Noubar Afeyan is one of them, and he talks about this concept gratitude in action, he says, and this really resonated with me. He said, Yeah, pity is something that can motivate people. You see a starving child on a screen and you say, I want to help, right? But that's not something that's going to go too deep with you, like you're going to maybe have this gut reaction that I want to help, right? And and compassion is also something that's going to motivate you, like you feel compassion for people, but when there's so much overwhelming need, you can get numb to that, and like compassion can dry up. It's not always going to be there. He said, what doesn't dry up is the idea of gratitude, and the idea that if you have actually been helped yourself, at some point you're going to feel gratitude about that, yeah, I love that. And then when you help somebody else, you feel psyched and grateful and good that you can do that, and then that person actually feels a sense of gratitude. And if like, you help them buy a house at a time that was so critical in their lives or helped their business succeed, maybe they're going to want to do that for other people too.

Jay Tuli: 37:20

So Sasha, so what started your drive to help people, like, if you go back to the very beginning, well, what? What started that?

Sasha Chanoff: 37:27

Yeah, I think it was after I graduated from college. I actually didn't know what I wanted to do, and started volunteering for an agency here in Boston, the Jewish vocational services helping refugees find jobs here. And I remember some Bosnians and Somalis coming into my office, and I knew about what was happening in Bosnia at that time, people were being attacked and killed innocent civilians, and I knew about what was happening in Somalia, but actually coming face to face with people who had fled those conflicts and survived and hearing their stories and the brutality of what they went through, and seeing their drive to rebuild their lives and then being able to play a small role in that struck me very deeply and viscerally as what I was supposed to do with my life. It was a little bit of a like lightning strike moment that I feel so intensely grateful for because it's like, This is it? This is what I'm doing. And it wasn't a question, what should I do? What this is the thing that I need to do? And so where did that come from? It maybe came from the fact that my great grandparents were refugees themselves, and I grew up with stories of my great grandmother, who had four kids and had to raise them on her own and didn't speak or read or write English and and scrubbed floors and did everything she could to give her children a better chance. So maybe it was the connection to refugee experience myself that made that moment when I came face to face with refugees so meaningful for me.

Jay Tuli: 39:00

Having that like calling at an early age be so clear is such a gift. You know?

Sasha Chanoff: 39:07

Yeah, you know, that's the thing. I know that everybody has a different kind of calling in them based on who they are and your values and your upbringing and your education and your learning and your experiences, and it's just a matter of finding that. And I think the way people can find that is to make sure you keep your eyes open for those kind of moral dilemmas that confront you. Because if you can keep your eyes open and see that, oh, there's somebody who needs help, or Oh, the climate is going to hell, and I can do something about it, or whatever it is that motivates you, if you can recognize that there's a decision point or a choice or a way that you can move your life in a direction that resonates with your value. And your unique upbringing, then you're getting closer, I think, to finding that kind of sense of purpose and calling given

Jay Tuli: 40:07

global events, both in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe. What's your take? I mean, it feels like there's going to be a record amount of new refugees from these types of places. Do you think the world is prepared for it? Or how do you view your organization's mission and purpose in light of

Sasha Chanoff: 40:28

Yeah, yeah. Jay, so there's bad trends right now that? in the world, there's about 120 million people who've been forced from their homes, and about a third of those people have fled across a border and are refugees, and about two thirds are still inside their country, but they're still outside of their homes and need support, and climate change is only going to exacerbate this so in the future, people...

Jay Tuli: 40:54

Sorry. Why is that?

Sasha Chanoff: 40:55

Well, climate change is first a trigger for conflict. So if you look at Syria or Rwanda or Sudan or other conflicts, climate change is often one of the reasons that that conflict started. So climate change is a trigger for conflict, but at the same time, climate change is going to uproot a lot of people in itself.

Jay Tuli: 41:13

Do you mean specifically, like areas being flooded and then people are being displaced to trying to get more specific

Sasha Chanoff: 41:19

Famine floods got it sounds apocalyptic when I say those things, but so the point is that there are going to be more people forcibly displaced. We're at a high water mark in history, and it's not going to go down from here. It's only going to go up. So then what refuge point does is, I think, very distinct in the world, we are focused on lasting solutions for refugees. What that means is helping people get to a place or into a situation where they can support themselves and essentially lead a normal life, contribute to their communities, see their kids in school, have a safe roof over their heads, food on the table, and have some normalcy. And we have found that one of the ways to do that is to help identify people for legal resettlement programs, because the US is a leader, but there are about 30 countries in the world that have similar programs. What we've also found is that there are other legal migration pathways for refugees that refuge point has been helping to build, like we're building family reunion efforts for people, because a lot of people who have gotten to a country like the US or Germany or Canada or other places have a legal right to send for their children, and so we've built this whole family reunion effort to help reunite unaccompanied children with their parents and reunite other separated family members and loved ones. Another thing that we're doing is with the Canadian government, we have this labor mobility pilot project to connect refugees who are in Kenya, that is people who fed from like Somalia, Congo, Sudan, to companies in Canada that have open jobs and can't find Canadians to fill them. So we're doing this first in the healthcare field, because there are many refugees who have healthcare backgrounds. So we have this whole effort with the Canadian government, where a lot of refugees arrive in Canada to take health care jobs, and Canada is psyched about them, and now the US and the UK and Australia and other countries are imitating that program. So one of the solutions is more legal pathways for people to get to one from one place to another. But another key solution when people are forced to flee their homes is that they might not have access to that legal pathway, so they have to figure out how to become self reliant in the countries to which they fled. And that's the other thing that I haven't talked about much here, but that refuge point does is we have this flagship program in Nairobi to help refugees who are in really vulnerable circumstances, build better lives there, so they have access to income, so that they can get their kids in school, so they have access to health care, and can essentially lead a life that is somewhat normal. And we've seen a lot of success in that program, and we built a whole global initiative around that to train and teach and support other organizations to do that as well, and it's called the Refugee Self Reliance Initiative, which we co created with another organization called the Women's Refugee Commission. But now we have partners like the State Department and a bunch of big foundations and other governments and UN agencies and refugee leaders all coming together around this vision to help refugees stuck where they are become self reliant.

Jay Tuli: 44:22

All right. So we have this segment Sasha of the podcast, where I ask you a bunch of like, rapid fire questions, this or that, and just kind of respond, you know, as without thinking too much. So first one is independence or collaboration?

Sasha Chanoff: 44:43

Collaboration is a key to the future, but you got to do it carefully, yeah?

Jay Tuli: 44:47

Writing or speaking?

Sasha Chanoff: 44:50

Oh, that's a tough one, but I love speaking. I think it's so important to get in front of people, but you got to convey your ideas through writing too.

Jay Tuli: 44:57

Yeah, and you're a great speaker. Or so that definitely plays your strengths leading or executing?

Sasha Chanoff: 45:06

I mean, I've always just thought about the importance of executing what you do. We never thought about it in terms of leadership, but we got to get things done.

Jay Tuli: 45:14

Inspiring others or being inspired?

Sasha Chanoff: 45:18

Such a tough one, because you have to start with inspiring others. But the fact is that when people ask me, like, you've done this for a long time, how do you find inspiration? It's always about the people that I meet who build new lives from the most wrecked and rough circumstances in the world.

Jay Tuli: 45:36

Yeah, I always feel like in order to inspire others, you first have to be inspired to some extent, right? Yes, inspired yourself, and then you can inspire others, okay? And last, passion or purpose?

Sasha Chanoff: 45:50

These are such hard questions. I mean, I think you you the your passion is rooted in your purpose, and so it's like you find your purpose and your calling and your meaning in your life, and then you find that, and you infuse your life with that purpose which leads to passion, which then can help inspire others.

Jay Tuli: 46:13

Another piece of this segment we have for this season, Sasha, is to describe something that inspires you. So we'd love to hear whether it's a story or an event in your life that inspires you.

Sasha Chanoff: 46:30

That's very easy, because I am inspired by so many people that I meet and know. But I'll tell you one brief story, and it's about infant on the forest floor during the Rwandan genocide, and a woman runs along and sees this infant, picks her up and flees with her, and raises her and names her Edith. And we meet Edith and the person she called her grandmother when they're living in the streets in Nairobi. And Edith is 16, and her grandmother dies from cancer, and she's alone, and we come into her life to help her, and we get her to the US through the US government's resettlement program, which has an unaccompanied minors component, where minors can come here to the US and be put in a family. Edith goes into a family that loves her, a mom and a dad. She wrote to us the day she arrived and said, Now I have a mother and a father and five sisters, but I'll never forget refuge point my first family. And she gets her high school degree, her college degree, her nursing degree on a beach near her home, her boyfriend kneels down on his knee and asks her to marry him, and they get married, and she has a baby, a second child, and becomes a nurse and is now on refuge points board and has written an amazing op ed about her life, and gives us inspiration and meaning every single day.

Jay Tuli: 47:55

That's incredible. That's hard to not be inspired by

Greg Farber: 48:01

All opinions expressed by Sasha chanoff Are his own and not the opinions of Leader Bank. N.A. leaderbank is not affiliated with Refuge Point. Don't forget to subscribe and rate our show. The building interest. Podcast is live on all podcast platforms, YouTube and Tiktok. We want to hear what you think of each episode and encourage you to submit any questions that you want us to cover. So please find us on our YouTube or Tiktok channels and comment your thoughts for more information on today's subject. Visit leaderbank.com in addition to past episodes, you can also find our corresponding blog entries for more insights. This podcast is a production of leaderbank, an equal housing lender member, FDIC NMLS, number, 449250