"I had my ladder on the wrong wall. I was putting all my energy into getting people to want McDonald's instead of Burger King. Who cares, really?" In this episode of Wickedly Smart Women, host Anjel B. Hartwell welcomes Kate Grant, CEO Emeritus of the Fistula Foundation and author of No Woman Left Behind. Kate explains what obstetric fistula is and how a relatively low-cost surgery can restore a woman's health. She shares the practical steps she took to move from advertising into nonprofit leadership and why investing in your own retooling can be the most powerful career move.

If you're thinking about leaving corporate for mission-driven work, this episode is full of tactical and emotional wisdom.

What You Will Learn:

How working in advertising at big agencies means using dark arts of consumer research to create psychological needs for products.

The decision process of choosing to go back to graduate school and completely retool rather than making a lateral move into nonprofit communications.

The reality that career change doesn't happen on the plane ride home from your transformative trip, it happens gradually like a pair of shoes that doesn't fit anymore, and it takes time to empower that voice that says you're done with this chapter.

What an obstetric fistula actually is.

How women with fistula are often stigmatized and how they're frequently blamed for an injury that's caused by a lack of medical access.

Why Fistula Foundation went from being one of several support organizations for a single hospital in Ethiopia to becoming the global leader doing more surgeries than the UN or US government.

The strategic decision not to take government money.

Why 90% of the fistula surgeries are successful and truly give women their lives back.

The permanent pay cut that comes with leaving the private sector for nonprofit work.

How ruthlessly thrifty operations with 19 consecutive years of four star Charity Navigator ratings prove worthiness of donor support by getting as much money as possible into the hands of doctors and hospitals in far-flung corners that do the real work.

Connect with Kate Grant

Fistula Foundation

Book: No Woman Left Behind

Connect with Anjel B. Hartwell

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Wickedly Smart Women: Trusting Intuition, Taking Action, Transforming Worlds by Anjel B. Hartwell

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