In this episode, Rob Harter speaks with Scott Key, the founder of Every Shelter, a nonprofit focused on providing innovative shelter solutions for refugees. Scott shares insights into the global refugee crisis, emphasizing the staggering statistic that refugees remain displaced for an average of 20 years. He explains how Every Shelter addresses this challenge by focusing on localization, empowering refugees, and fostering economic opportunities through innovative shelter products and services.
Scott delves into the importance of innovation in the nonprofit sector, how his organization leverages hyperlocal solutions to meet refugee needs, and the value of risk-taking for meaningful social change. He also discusses his vision for Every Shelter as a research and development hub for scalable, impactful solutions in the humanitarian sector.
Mentioned:
Every Shelter – A nonprofit providing shelter solutions for refugeesThis Episode is Sponsored By:
DonorBox – Helping nonprofits maximize their impact with user-friendly donation forms and secure fundraising solutions.Links to Resources:
Interested in Leadership and Life Coaching? Visit Rob’s website: RobHarter.com
Find us on YouTube: Nonprofit Leadership Podcast YouTube Channel
Suggestions for the show? Email us at [email protected]
Request a sample coaching session: Email Rob at [email protected]
Subscribe and Share
Listen and subscribe to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or Amazon. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share with other nonprofit leaders!
Dr Rob Harter (00:01.133)
Well, welcome to the nonprofit leadership podcast, Scott. Thanks so much for taking time to be on the show today.
Scott Key (00:05.974)
Yeah, really thankful to be here,
Dr Rob Harter (00:08.483)
Absolutely. Well, I have found it’s always helpful for my listeners to get a real quick overview as to what you do and what every shelter is all about. So maybe just start with that. Let’s give a quick summary of your mission and your organization.
Scott Key (00:21.858)
Yeah. So, I always start with one statistic and it’s, and it’s actually what got me into this work in the first place, but, refugees on average will stay this place for about 20 years. and if I had your listeners close their eyes and just imagine what a refugee shelter looks like, it probably doesn’t jive with 20 years. And so, that was really what drew me in when I got started with this. every shelter is all about helping refugees create home for themselves.
you know, and we’re a little bit ambiguous on purpose with that because 20 years you are creating home, you know, referring to them as shelters is not maybe fully descriptive of what, you know, kind of the charges.
Dr Rob Harter (01:04.405)
Yeah, well with the work you’re doing, there are many aspects I understand to it. What would you say are the top one or two things that you’re really trying to solve? Because you’re working with refugees, that’s a huge, there’s so many different layers to that. But yeah, what are you really trying to hone in on?
Scott Key (01:19.222)
Yeah. So really specifically, we work in refugee camp settings, refugee settlements. So when I talk to an American audience, when I say refugee, often what people are thinking of is resettlement. Refugees who have the opportunity to come live in the US or Western Europe. And that is not what we’re talking about. What we’re talking about specifically is refugees who have crossed the border and are living most often in a camp or a settlement.
A lot of our work focuses around kind of the local ecosystem around refugees shelter. So we ultimately want refugees to have safe, stable housing. The way that we do that is by investing in product development, local supply chains, and then refugee led markets in those camps. And so we have a few products that are kind of our origin. We have a flooring system. We have a roofing tarp.
And in both cases, the goal is for those to be made locally so that the local economy can benefit from the production of those things. You know, in addition to that, we have our hardware stores, we have sheltered depots, we run hardware stores and refugee camps so that refugees have more agency over what it is they are needing for their homes. So if you juxtapose that to the way that aid often works in our context, in-kind aid distribution.
It’s very need and preference blind. It relies 100 % on philanthropy to underwrite it. And our stores are an ability for refugees to be able to actually choose the things that they need and not need tell them what they need. And so the stores ultimately need to reflect back the needs of the community well. And those stores become really a platform for us to develop increasingly precise solutions for those communities. So the stores ultimately become a place for us to serve that community.
and there are very, very specific needs.
Dr Rob Harter (03:13.429)
Well, and yeah, it is such a big issue. I’m glad you narrowed that a little bit down. And one of the things you talk about when I looked into your website and some of the work that you’re doing, you talk a lot about localization in the context of what every shelter does within the humanitarian system. Maybe you could talk a little bit more about that because I think that’s unique and I want to make sure my listeners understand what you mean by localization.
Scott Key (03:34.808)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I’ll start with the kind of like the counterbalance of that, which is the way that we’ve globally, attempted to serve refugees is really through a kind of a global mindset. You know, the UN High Commissioner for refugees has a catalog of products that are relevant globally, or at least in theory, those are made in a factory somewhere and then brought in when a need is there. That may be an appropriate solution during what’s called the emergency response phase of a refugee crisis.
But when you consider that 20 year statistic, it just really doesn’t work longterm. so, but when we say localization, we mean that very literally. want, well, let me say it like this. The communities that surround refugees have the resources and the solutions to the needs that refugees have. And so sometimes we feel like our job is often, you know, connecting dots that are just desperate to connect. Our stores are really.
Our stores are a really great example of that. We’re making a platform or an access point to a local Uganda business to the refugees needs. And so we really want to see, yeah, that economic benefit live close by. I’ll give one specific example. In our store in the northern part of Uganda and the BDBD refugee settlement, the second largest refugee settlement in the world, we
Our customers there have a hard time acquiring certain products, grass, poles, there’s been really rapid deforestation. so at that store, we have invested in a model home, which looks exactly like the homes that they build for themselves in South Sudan, but it’s substituting in products that refugee led organizations or Ugandan run businesses actually produce. So treated bamboo.
you know, a palm leaf product, et cetera. And so when we say local, oftentimes we do mean hyper local. We mean these are South Sudanese refugees, which has different preferences than maybe a refugee from the Congo. And we want to make sure that those solutions are relevant to them. But even in the context of that camp, which we talk about, you know, subject like scale, there’s 270,000 South Sudanese refugees living in this camp. So if you solve that problem in a local context,
Scott Key (05:57.848)
you’re ultimately able to serve quite a lot of people. so, yeah.
Dr Rob Harter (06:04.567)
Wow, that’s 270,000 and just in that one camp. Talk to me about how you sort through just the immensity of it and feeling overwhelmed by all the needs of just that one example of one group. And I know you serve more than that, but talk about how do you sort that through as a leader?
Scott Key (06:21.74)
Yeah, it’s a pretty relevant question right now. mean, there’s so many things that we could tackle, you know, it’s, and we, and we’ve got a relatively small team. so, you know, filtering and deciding what to pursue is ultimately, you know, question that we always have to answer. so internally we talk about, you know, the three Rs, you know,
Is there a ripple effect with this product? Is there something about this pursuit that can kind of have an outsized, like leveraged impact? Is there a revenue opportunity? And by that, we don’t mean to us, but is there, does this pursuit have the ability to potentially self sustain itself financially if we pursue it? And then the other one is reputation. If we’re successful in this, you know, pursuit, you know, does that somehow build the credibility of the project and the team? And so we try to use that as a filter.
our team and the work that we do, it looks a lot like a studio in the sense that we’re taking in the needs of the community. We’re turning them into pilots. If those pilots are successful, they’re ultimately, they find their kind of final form in the form of the store. And so, yeah, we are constantly confronted with, you know, what do we take on? And, you know, we try to use those filters and then we literally have a position in each refugee settlement.
that their job is effectively to be listeners. They’re refugees themselves, and so they ultimately provide a huge voice into, what truly are the needs of this community and how can we respond?
Dr Rob Harter (07:59.971)
Well, I appreciate you answering that. know mission drift is such a challenge for every nonprofit. And I’m guessing the bigger the needs and like what you’re doing, it can be such a temptation to sort through what is really our mission and how much can we do sustainably with the staff you have and the resources you have. Now, one of the things I really was impressed with when I looked into what you do is innovation. You’re a big believer in innovation for positive social change. I think it’s a great focus. In fact, I have heard others in the nonprofit sector
gently criticize the nonprofit sector as a whole that we’re not as innovative as we could be. And I think there’s some probably some fair argumentation to that and we can get better at innovation. So talk about that. Why are you so motivated by innovation for positive change? And give us an example of how you demonstrate how you’re going about putting that into practice.
Scott Key (08:50.11)
I think it starts with understanding the space that you’re working in quite well. So, you know, referenced the 20 year statistic for a long time. You know, there’s an emergency response phase to a refugee’s journey. There’s a resettlement, a pathway to citizenship somewhere else down the line. We really exist in a space where we refer to it as the gap. And so it’s a space that doesn’t have many solutions, given kind of the political context in the hosting countries.
a lot of existing development and age strategies just really aren’t relevant. And so all that to say, we’re in a space that doesn’t have a lot of answers. And, you know, if we’re going to solve these problems, we have to try new things, you know, and so that’s probably the impetus of the motivation for us. And I’ll just kind of speak again, kind of to the contrary, traditional philanthropy doesn’t reward risk-taking. And we definitely confront that.
Dr Rob Harter (09:45.965)
Right. True.
Scott Key (09:48.392)
on an annual basis, you find a lot of what I call vending machine philanthropy, where it’s like, put a dollar in, I want a bag of chips to fall out. You know, hey, what are my guaranteed outcomes out of this activity? And I want to fund that. And to be sure we have those as an organization, but we’re often trying to attract funders who, you know, want to take risks and understand that risk taking is necessary to solve the problems in our space.
Dr Rob Harter (10:13.991)
Vending machine philanthropy. I love that phrase. I think there’s a lot of truth to that. I think it’s something that people do deal with and struggle with. What have you found to be successful in, you know, without just saying it outright, but to work around donors that maybe do have that mindset when they come to support your organization? How do you work around that and not also make people feel bad about, you know, they’re trying to do something, but you’re trying to move them away from that into a
Scott Key (10:18.614)
Yeah.
Dr Rob Harter (10:42.357)
a bigger idea of what philanthropy really is, what’s been working for you when it comes to development.
Scott Key (10:47.864)
You know, I think if you thought about our typical donor profile, oftentimes they’re business people. They’re people who have probably taken big risks. And so you can speak that language to them. It’s like, you know, when you started or built your business, obviously there’s kind of inherent risk taking in that because you’re seeing an opportunity that you want to deserve. so that tends to be a good donor profile for us. But then two is we just have a track record of success.
that we can kind of lean on. And so even with people who may not be as accustomed to funding uncertain outcomes, our track record really speaks for itself in the sense that we really are kind of subject matter experts. We know our space really well. And we’ve got a body of work behind us that kind of points to maybe smart risk taking versus moonshots that aren’t worth taking.
Dr Rob Harter (11:46.339)
Well, and that’s good to hear how you’ve been navigating through that. You know, as you think about your nonprofit, you know, I have a lot of people on the show that lead just local or community based or US based nonprofit organizations. You’ve obviously have this big international output of what you’re doing and your scope is larger than maybe your typical nonprofit. What led you to make that decision and what have been some of the challenges to make sure that you were able to manage that? Obviously you’re, you’re based out of Houston, Texas.
as you mentioned, but yet you are impacting the world. How do you manage that well on a leadership side and a management side?
Scott Key (12:23.988)
leading, leading two offices and international office, mean? Yeah. It’s a challenge. you know, we, you know, one, we have incredible staff and we try our best to take care of them. you know, we, we, we desire continuity and, and, you know, we want to make sure that our leadership over, in our other offices is just well taken care of. that’s part of it, but, you know, we make it a point to be together every 60 days, somehow.
Dr Rob Harter (12:26.829)
Right?
Dr Rob Harter (12:53.251)
Nice.
Scott Key (12:53.56)
That’s a big part of it. It does. And in my, I’m very transparent with my team. It sometimes feels like building two organizations at the same time. And so, you know, trying to create a culture that’s shared between the two offices, as far as an organization goes, that’s part of the strategy is just trying to spend a lot of time together, you know, as an organization and just naturally leading an office in East Africa.
leading one in the States, there’s definitely some distinctions there. But, you know, making sure that we spend a lot of time as a leadership team being on the same page and leading with transparency and honesty and vulnerability. mean, I, prior to this never led, I’ve never had this many, many people on staff and never led an organization like this. And so we do have a culture, at least among the leadership team of, of grace and we’re figuring this out together and we’re all working really hard.
And hopefully the mistakes aren’t too big when we do make them, but inevitably there will be some.
Dr Rob Harter (13:58.527)
Well, I’ve read that you are guided by the idea that true fulfillment lies in giving back to society. I really like that phrase and that sentiment even more. Tell us more about why this is so important to you and why is it true in your mind.
Scott Key (14:12.568)
Yeah, so I’m a Christian. It’s part of why I got into this in the first place. mean, my worldview from that faith perspective is very much that we should be about fixing things that are broken in the world. And specifically with the skills and education and the resources that we have doing that. I I had early on in my adulthood, people that kind of pointed to a path.
that used my construction management background, my architecture background as a way of right and wrongs that existed in the world. so, I was just really infatuated with the idea of leading a life that built solutions for things that needed mending. yeah, so it’s a huge source of motivation for me in an ongoing basis. And I’ve found also for my team as well is that it’s just, it’s a blessing to be able to participate in this work.
Dr Rob Harter (15:12.639)
Excellent. Okay, so as you look at the next couple of years, maybe even three to five years, where would you like to be? Where would you like the organization to be? What kind of impact do you want to have?
Scott Key (15:22.232)
Yeah, so we work under the UN umbrella, so UN High Commissioner for Refugees. so I follow me down this rabbit hole. In under that umbrella, the next strata down are what are called implementing partners. There’s 3048 organizations registered with UNHCR to provide direct services refugees. 3048, we don’t want to be 3049. You know, we want to be, you know, kind of the yeast and the bread, you know,
Dr Rob Harter (15:26.082)
Okay.
Scott Key (15:50.744)
seen really as the R &D for our sector. A lot of the partners that we work with in these settings, they have a presence in maybe 20 different countries, 24, 30. They already have kind of the infrastructure laid. We want to build the products and solutions that they scale across their platforms. And so we don’t want to be a giant charity, but a lot of our work right now, in addition to the literal work that we do, is really trying to build that trust and credibility within our sector as, I hate the word thought leader. Sorry if anybody is offended by that, but as good do leaders as one of my board members says, we wanna be seen as a group that can be a resource, a trusted partner to build solutions that may be a bit out of the box. lot of the organizations in our space, going back to an earlier point in the conversation.
Scott Key (16:46.136)
They’re not really built for innovation and not built for risk taking. And we really want to be seen as an organization that can partner with those large organizations, develop solutions that really work, that then have the potential of scaling across their platforms. So, you know, building that credibility, you know, we, we, we publish a lot of currently self published books, but, a lot of our work is really trying to disseminate our thinking and the activities that we do with the hopes that
that it builds credibility and then also maybe finds new partnerships, but then we want to be transparent and open source about the work that we do so that others can approach the work in a similar way.
Dr Rob Harter (17:25.891)
That’s I love that approach of trying to be more the R &D as you said to multiple organizations that then can turn around and scale that I think it’s a cool vision that I don’t hear often Most people want to grow their own nonprofit and continue to scale it. Okay, so as listeners are hearing this and maybe they’re interested in finding out a little bit more about it What is the what do you need most right now in terms of your organization? What kind of support do you need? What would be most helpful?
Scott Key (17:51.032)
Yeah, I mean, so we have a program called the Haven, which is our monthly donor community. You know, some, people give as little as $10 a month, $30 a month. We have people who give thousands a month. But like, I know a lot of your non, your listeners and nonprofits, but yeah, I mean, I’m preaching to the choir that level of kind of reliability and funding is, you know, it’s huge for us. And so, I’m supporting the work in that way.
I hope that as your listeners come away from this, have maybe reformed the way that they understand the refugee context. You know, what is a refugee? What is the more typical context? so think spreading awareness, there’s 117 million people displaced in the world every year. That number goes up by a lot. You know, we need good solutions. And so even just participating in some of that. Now, sharing, what does it mean to actually be displaced? What does it mean to be a refugee? You know, kind of, hopefully at the end of this conversation, they’ve at least reformed their own thinking a bit on that front.
Dr Rob Harter (18:56.609)
Development obviously is the lifeblood in many ways for many nonprofit organizations. If you don’t have the money to fund your mission, you can’t really stay in existence. When you look about the time you’ve had with every shelter, what would you say, has the landscape changed when it comes to development and fundraising? Particularly, you’ve got this international application of your mission. How has perhaps, if at all, development changed for you and the way you approach donors?
Scott Key (19:26.2)
We’re five years old. So to say that it’s changed for us, it would be, it may be more accurate to say, you know, we’re still learning the most effective strategies as it relates to funding our work. We’ve always had a really strong connection to individuals. you know, major gifts, annual giving, that really forms kind of the bedrock of a lot of the work that we do. You know, in our world, in that sector, primarily the funding comes from institutional donors like the US government, UNHCR, you, you know, but you’re really not eligible for that funding until you’ve kind of baked the program into a level of sophistication and scale. And so that’s really the pursuit our stores are starting to be eligible for that type of funding, which is great. But for us, it’s telling the story well of the work that we do, trying to bring people into, like going all the nonprofits, trying to bring them into that story. there’s a lot of things to care about in the world. And we hope, always to find new people who might form a new passion like we have about refugees and helping support them for the long haul.
Dr Rob Harter (20:34.317)
We have for my listeners, always like to ask this of my guests, how can people find out more about you and more about your organization? Like where would you send them?
Scott Key (20:41.496)
Yeah, I mean, if you’re Houston based, we have kind of a series of events. We’re starting to do more and more lectures with Rice University’s Baker Institute, for example. You know, so if you’re local to Houston, which I’m sure most of your listeners may not be, you know, that’s a great resource. So that’s newsletter list. We try to not make that a spammy thing. You know, it’s so there’s always interesting things that we include in the newsletter that might be.
you know, interesting for you. yeah, signing up for the newsletter, participating in our events, kind of maybe the standard course for a lot of nonprofits. But yeah.
Dr Rob Harter (21:20.067)
Okay, that sounds good. Well, thanks for what you’re doing. I think you’ve got a really big task in front of you, boy, trying to serve refugees that have been completely displaced, their world is upside down in many ways. Thank you. Thanks for what you’re doing. That’s a really noble task and best of luck with all you’re doing.
Scott Key (21:37.656)
Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on again.
Dr Rob Harter (21:39.491)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for being on the show.
© 2024 Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. All rights reserved.
