Podcast appearances and mentions of jacob lief

DON’T GET DISTRACTED BY SHINY THINGS. It can be exciting to receive connections to the rich and powerful. Fancy dinners, galas, and White House dinners can be tempting. But if these things are keeping you from accomplishing what you set out to do, you’re better off without them. Money comes with strings. If the people pulling those strings don’t align with your message, that money has too great a cost. For this Five Minute Friday, I revisited a conversation I had with Jacob Lief where he shared what has made his non-profit Ubuntu so successful. Jacob Lief is the Founder and CEO of Ubuntu Education Fund, a non-profit organization that takes vulnerable children living in the townships of Port Elizabeth, South Africa from cradle to career. Ubuntu's programs form an integrated system of medical, health, educational and social services, ensuring that a child who is either orphaned or vulnerable can, after several years, succeed. Jacob has been able to stay focused on one area and one community of people by being consistent about what Ubuntu says yes to. It’s not the most glamorous route, but it’s the most impactful. Learn how to stay disciplined and focused on your goal in Episode 849. In This Episode You Will Learn: The thing that has worked the best for Ubuntu (2:00) Why you sometimes have to say “no” to things (2:30) About the struggle to keep people interested in your cause (3:00) If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes, and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/849 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes

In this episode, we are lucky and thankful to have with us, Jacob Lief. Jacob or Jake, as he is known is the Founder and CEO of Ubuntu Pathways. Jacob brings over two decades of experience to conversations on philanthropy and social entrepreneurship and has actively called for redefining impact, sustainability, & the theory of ‘going-to-scale’ in the nonprofit sector. After visiting South Africa to observe the country’s historic elections, Jake returned to the Eastern Cape to co-found Ubuntu in 1999. He has since developed the organization from its humble beginnings in a broom closet to a world-class institution that supports 2,000 children on individualized pathways out of poverty. Currently, Ubuntu’s 70 employees work across three continents,. Ubuntu has grown into an internationally-recognized model for community development. In 2016, Jacob appeared in Fortune Magazine’s ‘40 Under 40’, a list of the most influential young people in business. He has served as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative Advisory Committee. He has also been named one of the world’s 101 Most Innovative Visionaries at the Decide Now Act Summit and recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. Jake is an Aspen Institute Global Fellow. Jake is a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and is a visiting fellow at the University’s new global policy research center, Perry World House. His book, I Am Because You Are, chronicles his journey in South Africa and sets forth a new & bold vision for breaking the cycle of poverty.

One of this year’s Lipman Family Prize honorees—Jacob Lief, the Co-Founder and CEO of Ubuntu Pathways, joins host Anne Greenhalgh to discuss his a non-profit organization that takes orphaned and vulnerable children in Port Elizabeth, South Africa from cradle to career, on Leadership in Action. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jacob Lief was only 21-years-old when he first visited the townships of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. It was 1998 and the country was transitioning out of apartheid. With a college degree in his back pocket, Jacob cultivated a team of other inspired individuals and together they founded Ubuntu Education Fund with the hope of giving Port Elizabeth's youth a more promising future. Jacob's founding story is one of grit, perseverance, and personal development. His journey of growing Ubuntu into a world-renowned leader in education is marked with many monumental challenges and milestones—including a pivot that completely changed the organization's funding model, seven years into its operations. Today, Jacob is a celebrated thought leader with a contagious vision for a better philanthropic sector—one that allows nonprofits to dream big and execute beyond the traditional walls of restricted funding and antiquated benchmarks of success. In this episode, Jacob shares: What it was like to turn down seven-figure funding from USAID Key facets of the Ubuntu internal culture and how that culture has kept his core executive team together for 13 years His personal growth as a CEO Why he thinks culture is the most dangerous word in English dictionary The mentor who pushed him to take care of himself first

October 22, 2015 - Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/1OSKsb9. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher. The townships in South Africa are some of the largest slums in the world. “The odds are stacked against children growing up in Port Elizabeth’s townships. Abject poverty, particularly amongst the country’s black population, is pervasive,” explains Jacob Lief, Co-founder and CEO of Ubuntu Education Fund, which works to solve problems associated with poverty in Port Elizabeth’s townships. [Jump to page 2 to watch the live interview with Lief.] Lief sees the extreme gap between rich and poor in South Africa as a root of the problem, noting that South Africa is the 2nd most unequal country in the world–without noting which country is worse. “This widening gap between the haves and the have-nots permeates society. While the elite receive quality private healthcare, South Africa’s poor are forced to rely on public clinics. Plagued by shortfalls of doctors, service interruptions, and infrastructure backlogs, these facilities cannot fully address the country’s HIV/AIDS and TB crises,” Lief says. Education isn’t a panacea, he says. “Facing these economic and medical barriers, many South Africans believe that education has the potential to act as a great equalizer. Yet the education system is equally fraught with challenges. Children growing up in Port Elizabeth’s townships lack access to quality healthcare and education, and face unstable homes everyday.” So Ubuntu has developed a unique cradle to career program to support 2,000 children in the townships that Lief calls the Ubuntu Model, “a strategy that has received international acclaim from Bill Clinton to the World Economic Forum.” Please consider whether a friend or colleague might benefit from this piece and, if so, share it.

"We are defined, as people, by the way we treat each other." - Jacob Lief If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/199.

By a simple twist of fate, Jacob Leif found himself in post-apartheid South Africa, staring at a big paradoxical break in philanthropy - success was measured in numbers instead of long-term impact. While working at a local school, he found time, money, and aid were plentiful, along with supplies of books, computers, and daily lunches for the school children. However, once the nonprofit organization supporting the school left after the funding cycle finished, the school returned right back to where it started. Lief decided to found Ubuntu Education Fund, an organization that supports children in Port Elizabeth, South Africa through an integrated system of medical, health, educational and social services. In this episode of The Social Disruptors, Ned Breslin and Jacob Lief discuss the struggles of funding for long-term sustainable impact within the current philanthropic system of 12-month grant cycles and the power of saying “no” when funding requirements do not meet the outcomes. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/the_paradoxical_break_in_philanthropy

Jacob Lief is the co-founder and president of Ubuntu Education Fund. Jacob and I discussed everything from the inception of Ubuntu to the programs they offer to the future of this great non profit organization. Ubuntu’s model is: We are a community institution, and we support the most vulnerable children along the pathway out of […]