Matthew Johns said:

One thing I don't really understand about the reading is what Ashoka does.

Hi Matthew and the rest of the class. I am an Ashoka East Africa Fellow so perhaps I can give you a more personal perspective than what you already know about what Ashoka does. When I was named a fellow in 2001 I honestly had no idea. Now years down the line there are ways that Ashoka has undeniably been an important influence on my life's work.

I very often explain Ashoka laughingly as an organization that actually pays mad-scientist types like me to conduct all kinds of experiments on humanity. We are indeed an odd breed. First and foremost, Ashoka has worked for the past 26 years to legitimize the existence of people like me, whose lives are consumed with catalyzing micro and/or macro-level change.

The Ashoka selection process was a major turning point in my life. My family and others close to me thought I was absolutely nuts, and yet here was a global professional network saying you are one of us and we want to support you. But that wasn't until after a grueling process of around 10 hours all together of panel and one on one interviews, where I was asked to extrapolate my vision 20 years into the future. They pushed me - and every other Fellow I've talked to - to an emotional breaking point in the process. They tested my sincerity, commitment and motivations. They needed to see that I believed I could actually make the change I was seeing in my mind happen - crazy as it all seemed at the time!

Making it through that process means that my work now falls under the Ashoka brand. Because the selection process is so rigorous, people who know about it have a lot of faith in the brand. I can't tell you how many people have written to me saying they'd been watching my work online but just noticed I was an Ashoka Fellow - it makes an impression. Practically speaking, there are opportunities for Ashoka Fellows that the label provides access to - even though Life in Africa is not a 501c3 organization, for example, we can list projects for funding at globalgiving.org because of the Ashoka label. People at very high professional levels who know what Ashoka is take me seriously (when actually I think of myself most of the time as just a work at home mom!)

But all of that is the concrete part that is easy to understand.

Ashoka is also a network of some of the most amazing people I've ever had the privilege to spend time with. Here in Uganda I've collaborated with many and getting together to support each other in times of failure and success is really valuable. We are all hectic and ever-evolving and imperfect and relentlessly passionate. There are few who understand us, but we understand each other, and sometimes that helps us to understand - and legitimize - ourselves and our crazy ideas. That, to me, has been the more important benefit of what Ashoka does.

Editing to add that yes, there is also a stipend from Ashoka... they encourage Fellows to use it to live on so we don't have to work at another job while we develop self-sustaining projects that can afford to pay us.