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In this wide-ranging and utterly fascinating episode, host Augustine sits down with Vandana — doctor, public health expert, MBA, entrepreneur, beekeeper, candle maker, and one of the most multi-dimensional humans to ever grace this podcast. Born and raised in Bangalore, India, now based on Long Island, New York, Vandana has spent over two decades working across 13 countries in disaster zones, war zones, and underserved communities — always following the woman, always asking: what does she actually need to thrive?
This conversation moves from the villages of rural India to the boardrooms of global philanthropy, from beehives in Brooklyn to the operating table, and from the burnout of nonprofit founderitis to the liberating power of learning to ask. There is so much in this episode for midwives, birth workers, nonprofit founders, and anyone who has ever built something from scratch and wondered why it won't grow.
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Creators and Guests
What is Midwifery Wisdom Podcast ?
Welcome to the Midwifery Wisdom Podcast
This podcast is your go-to resource for practical education, thoughtful insights, and relevant conversations tailored to modern midwives.
Each week, we bring fresh content and engaging guest speakers to explore key themes in midwifery, including:
Advocacy, business, and clinical skills
Self-care and professional growth
Current issues shaping midwifery today
Listen to meaningful stories and essential advice from leading midwives working to elevate care for families across the globe. Gain clarity, encouragement, and actionable guidance to support your business, practice, and personal life.
Wherever you are in your journey, the Midwifery Wisdom Podcast is here to empower you. Together, we strive to make midwifery the gold standard of care worldwide.
Dr Vandana Arcott - Podcast
===
[00:00:00] People don't
donate to a cause.
That's the number one thing. People donate to feel good
about themselves. They donate
I love this. You're just so hard-hitting.
You've got it. Yes, that's exactly it,
and it's sad but
so true, but also
wonderful because then
you can just tap into that. Yeah. I would
flip the table
on the nonprofit and ask,
"Why are you not asking
more people to do social good?"
Because you are giving
them the way to do it.
You are saying you're taking away
the hard work of doing it.
You're saying you're
gonna benefit from the social position
and the social visibility of
being in this space
and donating towards X, Y, and Z cause,
in this case, the midwifery cause.
You are saying it has an
ROI that is already proven, so why?
What is stopping
you from donating?
Hi, Augustine. How are you? Hi, Vandana. Welcome. How are you? I'm doing well. I heard you're in India. Yeah, I live in, in [00:01:00] Bangalore.
You do? I'm from Bangalore. Amazing. It's such a small world, eh?
It is a very small world. I am so happy
that you are doing this from India
because I cannot tell you
how much this work is needed.
India was my starting point, and I believe
your wisdom or the collective wisdom of midwives
are completely useful given the current context.
Definitely ... thank you for doing what you do. India ...
thank you. India is desperate for it,
but, so is the US. I think this is a global issue.
In fact, the WHO has said that the world needs a
million more midwives-
Yes ... to meet demand.
So- Yes. ... yes. Yeah. We're in the right spot.
Before we introduce you,
let's find out where you are in the world right now.
Where do you live? So I am originally from India,
but I live in the United States. I live on Long Island in New York.
And I worked in about 13 different countries
across the world, and in most of the disaster
and war zones amongst the most vulnerable
[00:02:00] populations across the world. That's what I did for 13 years. And then I took a step back because
I had my kids, and, I didn't travel as much.
But I right now I'm sitting on the other
side of the spectrum. So I have a doctor's degree, but I also have a
public health and an MBA, which puts me
in a very unique position of understanding
what goes on in the field, but also translating
that to board members and saying why this
is not gonna work and why these numbers may be a deficit given the
current scenario even though it it accounts for 90% of their budget.
So it, it's valuable work, and I found that sitting
on the other side of the table a lot of people
who come to boards and to philanthropists
and to funders or to donors do not understand
the language in which to ask. Basically the ask is jumbled up
in social impact- Whereas it's so much more [00:03:00] easier
to fund SKUs, to fund hard-lined program
issues that would lead to- That's such a smart distinction.
Yeah, I can see. I can't wait to get into this.
Actually- ... there's so much to talk about. Yes ... I love what you're doing. Thank you. You have so many things layered in here. I was like, and that." What? Wait. Beekeeping? What? What? Yes. I was like,
oh, my God, this is my kind of person. I cannot wait to talk to you.
But let's break it apart because we have our audience
that listens is mostly providers. There are some mamas and
parents that follow us a lot of birth workers doulas,
lactation consultants, what have you, nurses.
And so our audience is primarily providers,
especially working in the community-based
space- not necessarily in hospitals,
although certainly familiar- Yeah ... with hospitals. And so I just wanted to give you that context, and now
I would love for you to give our [00:04:00] listeners context.
I am just blown away by you. Women's health provider,
like you said you are a doctor, you have an MBA,
you are an entrepreneur, you're a beekeeper,
you work in women's health.
I'm just like wait, sustainable agriculture?
What is happening? Who is this person?
The- So why don't you take it from the top
and tell us who you are, where you are- I
would be- ... what you're all about.
All right. Yeah. Yeah ... I am a doctor by profession.
I did my medical training in India grew up
in India to an OBGYN and she is one of the
strongest women whom I know.
Like my mom, I seriously admire her so much.
She was, She has given me a sense of
ethical responsibility that I don't think I would
have learned from anyone else,
and I'm very grateful for that. But more than that, I think when I did
become a doctor in the traditional sense,
I s- kept seeing the same kind of patient
come back again and again.
So in 2000, in early 2000s, I [00:05:00] was working in HIV AIDS,
and HIV AIDS in the Indian context,
it's not the disease itself, it's the stigma around the disease
for probably someone who did not encounter
the disease by herself, right? So there was social isolation,
there was emotional isolation, there was financial isolation,
and care was completely dependent
on her socioeconomic status and her setting.
And when I saw that happen,
I decided to follow w- that woman- in its literal sense
and see where we could create change,
and that was my leeway into public health.
Basically, you follow the woman, you follow the
common denominator, and you find out if
I'm gonna create a change in her life, then where else can I support her,
and how else can we support her,
make that a sustainable option?
So- Wow ... when I went into public health
it was very easy. I [00:06:00] started working with the UN almost
immediately with the WHO and with UNICEF.
And one of the common things that came to mind,
the WHO statistics, right? You, it, communities that are benefited
when a woman entrepreneur is with it
versus communities that are benefited with a male entrepreneur in it.
About 90 cents go back for every dollar,
or 90 cent go back to the communities for every dollar. 50 cents go back to the community with male community- ... led platforms.
And I was in the epicenter of it all. So I'm seeing women
with reproductive health issues who
are not able to advocate for themselves
because they are not financially sustainable.
I am seeing women lose out on the power
to vote within their communities not just in India,
but even in Southeast Asia, in Africa, in different settings
across the world, South America included. Developed communities
women who are strong with education, with basic levels of intuition
[00:07:00] and entrepreneurship that are leading well-led
programs but are unable to contribute to the vote
making process or advocate for themselves
and their communities because
they're not financially sustainable.
So I started looking into what would make
them financially sustainable. And given my background,
it was a pretty easy fix. We very soon
realized that women go back to their surroundings
for the easiest way to be financially sustain-
which meant a lot of cottage industries,
a lot of sustainable agriculture, beekeeping, all the things
that were considered hobbies suddenly became- And crafts.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, knitting ... currently become
mainstream- Yeah ... devices of change. Yeah ... that- It's pretty extraordinary. Yeah.
Have you seen a woman who- Women are so amazing.
Oh my God. Yeah. Have you seen a woman who
becomes financially sustainable for the first time?
It's so [00:08:00] interesting. It's not what the finances
do to them, it's what it means to them.
I had one person she was 82 years old,
and she became financially sustainable for
the first time, and the first thing
that she did was not,
it wasn't anything drastic. She didn't go buy something.
No. She just wore a blouse with her sari,
because in her culture it was not acceptable
for a woman to wear a blouse.
And it was, she, it was not an urban,
it was a very rural setting. It was she was
doing sustainable
agriculture in a tea estate, and the first thing
that she did was wear
a blouse, and it shocked her community.
And I still remember that. This was probably
11 or 12 years ago, but I still remember that, because when she
came and she said to me, "This is what it means.
I'm getting back my dignity and my purpose to myself."
And can make sovereign choices. Yeah.
Even about what
you wear is- Yeah ... taken [00:09:00] from
you when you don't
have the sustainability, absolutely. So amazing. It's like dignity.
Then it, yeah, so when you start looking into
sustainability in itself,
you can't just look at one aspect of it.
You start looking at agriculture. You start looking at what leads
to agricultural changes, climate control,
what leads to climate policies. Why are they made the way
they are made? Et cetera, et cetera. And that led me down beekeeping
Wait. They have, there's so many leaps there. Wait. Get them back up.
So wait. You had this awakening in public health,
realizing that health is so much more
than the person's body. It's their environment that they swim in. It's their community. It's patriarchy. It's sustainability,
all these things, right? So then you started
working with WHO, UN- UNICEF
UNICEF. And doing projects in the community,
in the rural communities. Yes. So then- It was a lot of impact,
social impact led sustainable development. And then did [00:10:00] you
become interested in agriculture in India,
where I am, or in the US, where you are? In everything,
to be honest. I'll tell you how that
came about, and I always tell this to most
of my women founders.
It's never a straight line a woman's career,
never a straight line. So when I was working in the UN,
I had a boss who was Norwegian. She thankfully understood
what it meant to go through a pregnancy loss,
and when I was going through a loss of pregnancy,
she allowed me to take time off.
Me being me, I decided to go to a French farm
where they kept bees, and the bees healed me. ...
so when I did have my kids and
I came back to the US I took
a sabbatical, and I said, "Pause," because
I wanted to focus on parenthood. And I started looking into
beekeeping over here and seeing
what beekeepers did, and 79% of bee farmers
in America are women who do it as a hobby
because for a farm to be [00:11:00] recognized as a farm,
they need to be making more than 50,000 US dollars,
which no beekeeper is doing because
they are selling candles and
bee balms in farmer's markets.
So it's considered a hobby business,
and it's not federally subsidized, unfortunately.
One of the few developed countries
in the world that do not federally subsidize bees.
And coming from Europe, where
beekeeping was- Like a thing, like it
had research- Normal, yes ... so much of, money poured into it.
To this setting where, which was also a
developed country, and seeing how
bee farmers used to keep bees, I was like, so I in
my network of thing I introduced a few of my chefs or
organic farmers to beekeepers. And I said, "Would you be
interested in borrowing their hives from April through
September, just so that they can make money
and see how that translates?"
And it worked out very well. [00:12:00] We ended up
establishing one of... During COVID,
we ended up establishing a beekeeping
library that brought down the financial
barrier for a lot of people to get into
beekeeping, because that's the financial barrier. We started working
with five of the largest conservancies in America, and trying
to see how we could educate the next level of beekeepers.
And during COVID, we had this unique
opportunity where high school kids suddenly
wanted to do grocery shopping. And I was like,
"If I pay you to work in open air with
no one around you, forget six feet no one is gonna be
around you for 20 feet but you are in
open air, and you don't have to do anything
except look after flowers, would you be interested?"
And I had probably about 60 kids who
were hands-on. They came onto Brooklyn farms,
they came onto Long Island farms,
and they learned how to keep bees.
[00:13:00] We ended the program, I think, last year. But we had about 120 students graduating, with our oldest graduate
was about 70 years old. So that was my thing
on beekeeping.
But what I've realized
is that financial sustainability
doesn't have to look a certain
way for it to be dignified. It can look a number of different ways
if it can get a person to look even
at a vocational training a little bit differently,
and see how that can- Amazing ... the broader frame of mind.
It's so amazing. So I wanna take our listeners
into yet another foray, foray of your brilliance.
So you're also an entrepreneur. Yes. And you have developed
a framework around closing the gap between intention
and impact- Yes ... within the nonprofit world.
So- What is this? Tell me more. We established Comcel at
the beginning of COVID when I realized a lot [00:14:00] of fundraisers
or rather large impact individuals wanted
to donate to people across the globe.
COVID took down the barriers for financial entry
into nonprofits across the world. It changed the way
CSR worked. It changed the way philanthropy worked.
And from there, we realized that one of
the things that donors did not have
was verified impact. We would see these reactionary
stories that would come up, which were filled with horror
stories or poverty porn, and it would identify a certain class
which did not have the authority to authorize
their story to be told or to be told
with a certain amount of dignity.
They were just images of a child sitting
in settings that were not theirs to--
theirs in the making. But the organizations were
raising a lot of money, and the money that was
raised was not socially verifiable. They were not impact verifiable,
and we did not [00:15:00] know whether the money
was actually going towards the impact
that was being created or not.
So there were all these barriers
that we had to work around, and one of the
things that came up to the forefront was
donors wanted to give. It was just that they
didn't have the mechanism to give, and they
were looking for the wrong things because
remember, half of them are
coming from a financial background.
They're coming from a VC setting where
they're used to seeing things in a different
framework and you're going
towards social good,
where the framework is a little different.
Here they're looking at the
output of profit, and the output of profit in
social good is either impact
or communities changing, and there was
no way to create this in a measurable,
verifiable way for translating it to
both sides of the spectrum.
Got it. So what does this organization do?
So we work with philanthropists to
identify organizations across the world
that are [00:16:00] verifiable, social impact creatable.
We manage their fundraising portfolios
but off late this year, in the last eight month--
in the first eight months
of our, organization, we raised about
$72 million going towards women's education,
going towards reproductive health and
sexual reproductive rights going towards
climate change, going towards
women's entrepreneurship across the world.
And one of the things that keep,
kept coming up was that nonprofits
did not know how to approach philanthropists.
They did not know the l- language. We were portraying the profit
as something that was
very close to the founder's story.
That is not what people wanna hear. If the founder comes out
of the nonprofit, then what happens?
The entire system cannot collapse,
which means the money cannot be
sitting in a deficit fund. And we- Yeah ... take out all of those questions
and those scenarios. We we work with nonprofits
as well, and we allow them
in three different ways.
One [00:17:00] is social comms. We let them tell a,
the story in a dignified way.
Oh. Why did the founder start the work that
they were doing? No one wakes up one day
and says, "This is the way I'm gonna
solve this problem. Let me m- make my life
100 times difficult by not making-" Yeah ... "money
and asking and-" Yeah ... "begging for money everywhere
around the world." There has to be a story, right?
Yeah. So- Yeah there's a core motivation for sure.
But it doesn't just apply to the founder itself.
It applies even to the people
who work with them. It applies- Definitely ...
to the volunteers who come there. It applies
to the- Definitely ... people in the communities
that they work with.
No one just does it. Just as much motivation
as the founder has towards the organization
that they're creating, the donor has even
more incentive to hear that story and identify
themselves within that story and see- Yeah ...
how they can create that impact because
that's where the magic happens.
If it's- Absolutely ... a pivot story for the
[00:18:00] donor or why, the why behind why a
donor donates is critical, and I think
most nonprofits miss that. So we coach
nonprofits in social storytelling. We coach them in donor psychology.
We coach them in CRMs,
which is basically customer management,
but in this case it's donor portfolio management.
How do you turn reactionary donors into
giving more over time over multi year causes
or multi-year programs? Because no program lasting
or being donated towards for six months is gonna g- give you the same
social impact as something that's being
donated towards for five years consistently.
The impact spectrum is different So different
and- This is so fascinating Yeah because there's so
This is such intersectionality. There's so-
Yeah ... many levels. I have worked
in nonprofit, I've founded nonprofits
and it's always such a fascinating environment.
There are- ... there are a number of birth work
[00:19:00] folks who are also involved in nonprofits, either as volunteers, as board members, or even as executive directors
of birth centers or federally qualified
health centers or community centers or
other ways in which nonprofits- work in birth work.
And it's always so fascinating because you end up having
these two very distinct, different customers,
if you will, right? Yes. So you have the people that
you actually render services to,
and then you have the people that
you receive donations from- ... and you have
to cultivate and serve those
two audiences, which it's double work.
And so it makes a lot of sense that,
especially if you come from the business world,
that you don't exactly know how to-
go between these two or even integrate
them, which is- Yeah ... optimal. Yeah. So tell me more about this-
Tell me more ... especially as it relates to our audience
who may be running birth businesses as nonprofits.
So the fascinating [00:20:00] thing about
midwives is that we sit in a spectrum
which is completely needed.
Everyone knows it's needed. The ROI is already there. We don't have to
prove a single thing. It is 13 times more.
It brings in, the death rates are
comparatively- Reduced ... when- Yes ... when you compare across
Southeast Asia-
Higher breastfeeding rates, higher satisfaction rates,
lower interventions, lower C-sections. The list just goes on and on. We- When you, when you- We can sing the song, yes.
When you compare across Southeast Asia, it's almost as if the countries
that invest in an integrated midwife model or a
CNM model or increase universal access
almost immediately decrease their MMR rates.
But India is a different spectrum. India has
different states, and each state has their own ANM, CNM levels. Kerala is somewhere in the
developed spectrum where, you have eight to
16 per thousand births, [00:21:00] whereas Assam,
on the other hand, is 167, which is
equivalent to Thailand, which is on the
other opposite end of the spectrum.
So how do we get everything?
How do we average it out? How do we find the mean point,
and how do we go about bringing
these levels to an average
which seems a little bit more plausible?
The only answer to that is ... There are three answers to that. Number one is the
midwife training which means the number
of midwives that are available for each birth.
In Kerala, obviously the number is higher
because they are state-run. They are f- state-funded, And they are very well organized. In Karnataka or down south, they
are still organized but they're not as much
as funded as the ones in the north.
But in Assam, they are- But there's just so few
very, very- like one of the major problems-
Yeah ... that that Karnataka just conquered maybe
a week a year ago probably- It's very new ... is they removed the [00:22:00] barrier to entry for nursing. It used to be you had to be
30 years old or younger, and so they were
eliminating all these mid-career professional changes.
So yeah, there's just so many
barriers to entry, and then when and
if you do graduate with one of the
state level designations of midwifery,
you can't really practice autonomously. You can't practice
without physician oversights, and the physicians in India
are so terrified of competition that there
are no real midwives doing deliveries
unless it's 3:00 in the morning and
the doctor's sleeping.
So they take advantage of it, but they don't
actually implement it. So yeah, it's really frustrating here. Let's move to the US and talk about how again,
same problem exists. There is this w- wealth of knowledge.
There's this evidentiary clarity that midwives
save lives and improve outcomes
and improve satisfaction and reduce
future childbearing da.
And yet it's not being utilized nearly as ... what is it, 9%, 11% of births? It's yeah, it's between 9 and [00:23:00] 11%. So I think the common
denominator to both the aspects that you're talking about,
Christine, is what you need is
trained personnel able to identify
crisis situations early enough to cr-
call in professional help when midwifery itself is not enough.
That is the common denominator. Yeah that's a that's a step that's- But that is already an established- ... that's the scale
of midwifery ... platform. Yeah. But one of the things that contributes
to lower midwife thing is health insurance.
They still see it- The doulas are not a part of every carrier.
They just don't give them access to every
health insurance carrier yeah doulas
don't really bill in health insurance,
so that's not w- really... doulas I think
sometimes can get health insurance,
but midwives can. Midwives can get all health insurance- Midwives can
and Medicaid and all that. Yeah. I guess what I'm trying
to push you on is- Yes ... I think one of the solutions
to the loss or the lack of midwifery in
many [00:24:00] countries but especially the US, is exactly this,
which is learning how to properly run nonprofits,
learning how to leverage the people
that want to give to serve the people
that can't actually- Can't give
afford healthcare in the US. Yes. Because healthcare in the
US is not really affordable, and so this nonprofit healthcare
situation is what solves a lot of these issues,
but it's so daunting to start or run a nonprofit. So what would you advise
our listenership to listen to? So there are three there are
three pathways that they can take.
Number one is midwives should not,
especially in a developed country, midwives should not
be looking for funding in the first place. That's the first- ... policy gap. We need to look into why midwives or any nonprofit
that allows midwives to be a part of
caregiving system is being asked
to look for their own funds, and that's a policy gap.
Number [00:25:00] two, identify the implementation gap.
Where are the midwives located? What is the doctor to
patient ratio in these places? What is the midwife to
patient ratio in these places? And who are the
people who are catering to these these antenatal,
postnatal populations in these places? People who are most vested in
Them are gonna be the most likeliest to be benefiting
from a midwife being present at birth, and they are the most
likely donors to the nonprofit.
And number three is, and this is universal,
but then for midwives it's so much
more critical, you have the ROI.
You can show the benefit. The case for support
should come with outcomes and not actions.
It is not Okay, wait. This one I wanna
go deeper with. Yes. Okay. Say it again, 'cause this is a
very important point.
The case for support, your one-page case
for support that you give to a donor should
not be actions. It should focus on
the outcomes. It should focus on [00:26:00] not
this many kits were given,
or this many visits were done. No. I want outcomes.
The MMR reduced by this number of percentage.
The C-sections reduced
by this number of percent. The number of twin births that they
were able to handle between this year and this
year have increased because we have
been investing in training. This is what a midwife
can expect going into this setting. This is what we need,
the number of kits to, this is what
we need to do a safe delivery. This is what the transport that
we need to do a safe delivery. This is the, I don't know,
weather restrictions or climate restrictions
or whatever restrictions
that the midwife has to
deliver proper antenatal
care should be recorded in
that case of support,
and say, "X, Y, and Z are
the technical instruments
that we need to properly coordinate a delivery.
If you can identify where your [00:27:00] donor pool
can help us bridge this gap between implementation
and support, we would be very grateful."
Oh, that's such good leverage. It just, it changes
the story- Yeah ... so much. It changes it
from begging to just "Why aren't you showing up?"
Thank you. It's so easy and obvious.
Yeah. You would be stupid to
say no, 'cause here it is, right? Yeah. It changes the story
so completely. It makes me think of that
that fabulous book by Amanda Palmer, The Art of Asking.
Have you read that one? Yes. So fabulous. She just- It is ...
changes it for us. As a street performer, she learned psychology and
how people respond so clearly.
It's amazing. I think donor psychology relates
to that in a certain way, but I also find that
nonprofit founders have this ability
to go into a shell when it comes to asking. They freeze almost-
Yeah ... because they equate asking to begging, and they are-
Yeah ... hoping at some point [00:28:00] that donors see their point.
That's not the way to go about it. Nonprofits are doing
a very big... They're filling the gap between a philanthropic initiative
and a policy, and that is a critical piece. Okay, wait. Wait.
This is an important point, too. Yes. Unpack this one for me again.
The founder is filling the gap between?
Between a policy and a philanthropic gap. If it was a policy- Give me an example. Unpack this ... if it was a policy already
that was being implemented by the
government in power, there would be no need for this nonprofit to be in existence. Got it. And if there was a
philanthropy that was already investing
in this cause, there would be no reason
for that nonprofit to be in existence.
So I don't see why that should not be,
like, one of the aces up a founder's sleeve. Okay, so say it again,
and then give an example
because I think this is powerful.
So a nonprofit, a founder story with a nonprofit
especially one that creates very high social impact,
like a [00:29:00] midwifery, sits between a
philanthropic gap and a policy gap.
If the policy was right, there would be no reason
for the nonprofit to be in existence. And if there were already
philanthropic individuals dedicated to the cause, managing
the cause in a different way, there would be
no reason for that nonprofit to exist. Got it.
So what does- that's it. That's that is anchor why.
Yeah. That is so brilliant. You just nailed,
defined the why. Yes. You, everyone can do this.
If you're a midwife, what's the policy gap, and what's the f- the f- the philanthropic- Implementation gap and-
Implementation or philanthropic gap.
And then define it, and then just put it in front of the right people.
Yes? Yes. Okay. So let's go into this,
the art of asking,
because the psychology of
asking for money, I think many founders
start nonprofits instead of businesses
because they have a money wound. Yes.
They're already afraid- I do find that ... of receiving money,
and then they get into the nonprofit, and they ha- still have
[00:30:00] that money wound and have the hardest time asking.
The, that is so true. So let's unpack this a little bit,
especially for our founders
in the audience, all of our nonprofit baddies
out there doing the work. How do you approach asking
for donations in such a way that takes
the begging component
Out of it? ... out? Yeah. So people don't
donate to a cause.
That's the number one thing. People donate to feel good
about themselves. They donate I'm sorry, I just,
I love this. You're just so hard-hitting.
You've got it. Yes, that's exactly it,
and it's sad but
so true, but also
wonderful because then
you can just tap into that. Yeah. I would
flip the table
on the nonprofit and ask,
"Why are you not asking
more people to do social good?"
Because you are giving
them the way to do it.
You are saying you're taking away
the hard work of doing it.
You're saying you're
gonna [00:31:00] benefit from the social position
and the social visibility of
being in this space
and donating towards X, Y, and Z cause,
in this case, the midwifery cause.
You are saying it has an
ROI that is already proven, so why?
What is stopping
you from donating?
And- ... in my perspective,
I think every person
who wants to donate
donates for a different reason, and to go
into that donor psychology is
very important in establishing
how long a person is gonna donate.
Having the capacity to donate is one thing.
Being in the season to donate is another.
Yeah. When someone,
and I'll differentiate it for you.
When we, say it's midwifery, right?
And someone has been
someone is doing a reactive giving,
which means they have been
in a position which has seen a
midwife being of use, and they
are donating towards the cause
because they think this would create
a ripple effect within the [00:32:00] community.
That is a reactionary giving. If someone
donates for one year every single month
with a recurrent donation and then sees
the impact and comes back the next year
to donate, that's a recurring donation. That person is gonna give more and
be better invested than the
person who's a reactive giver.
Number three, the person who gives
across five years for the same
program and brings in at least,
or covers at least 2%
of the overheads
along with their giving
is someone who is your partner.
They are not a giver, they are not
a donor anymore. They are your partner
in this profit, in this nonprofit. And I think partners
and stakeholders should be treated
with a little bit of difference
compared to donors
and reactive givers.
And that is- Again, because we're rewarding
what is causing- Yeah ... they feel special. Yeah. They do it for
themselves really, ultimately. Yeah. That's right. So [00:33:00] you just recognize
that and get more of the same. Yeah. You recognize that. You recognize that. But then there's a different level of givers,
and these are the legacy donors, right?
Legacy donors are not
the people who give reactively. They are the people who will
observe you from a distance. They will see what the cause
that your nonprofit has taken. They will see your nonprofit scale.
They will see you through
pitfalls and don- blind donations
and see you through seasons of giving
and seasons of scarcity, et cetera.
They will see you through
political ramifications,
and see how the nonprofit is affected by it,
and whether the founder
or the nonprofit board changes their
perspective on how work should be done. Right?
And then they will give. But the reason
why they give is not to sustain the nonprofit.
Legacy donors write you into the
will not for your nonprofit.
They know that their [00:34:00] legacy, that their name,
that their, what they stand for
with their life, or whatever
they have built in their lifetime, is going to continue through
your work in the nonprofit. Yeah.
And those donors are a level apart. They cannot be pooled with
your same reactive donors.
They cannot be pooled with their stakeholders.
They cannot be pooled with your partners.
They need to be recognized, and they need
to be given their due respect. And I think nonprofits
miss out on the
last three completely. We- certainly in birth work, I agree with you 100%. Yeah. Yeah. But think about it. You, think about it.
There are so many OBGYNs, legacy creator
OBGYNs in India, right?
In America, we have so many midwives
who have come and gone,
and none of the midwives
have the same amount of
leverage as the OBGYNs, even though
they work closer to the community,
even though they are- And sometimes harder . [00:35:00] Yeah.
They work harder. Exactly. And they know
people more. They know people. But they don't have the same impact.
Yes. Yes. So why? And answering that question
why, it's gonna be very uncomfortable. But the answer lies there.
I think it has to have a level of honesty
within the profession itself, but also as a professional
who is in the caregiving space
and in the healthcare space, I think a lot of the
burden of proving the why
falls on the healthcare worker,
and I don't think that's fair.
Yeah. I agree. But when, again,
there's so many policy gaps- ... and the dominant
system refuses to acknowledge-
Acknowledge ... and they're
marginalizing the profession,
then no one else is gonna
define it except for the provider. Yes.
And I think that's unfair, but- It is ... it has to be done.
It has to be done
it has to be done, and I believe that nonprofits
in the space who are coming in to help the midwives, to help caregiving
in restricted [00:36:00] settings or i- in integrative
health places I think they have a partial
responsibility to fill that gap in the
philanthropic initiative that they run.
... I think that is imperative. There has to be a certain amount
of respect that goes into it and that is a non-negotiable.
The dignity comes on both sides of the spectrum. It's not just the nonprofit,
but also the person doing the work,
and the person- ... on the other side of the work,
on the receiving end- of the work. And that, that dignity is not- ... an SKU
that is easily put on a ask. And it's- ... definitely not
something that can be verbalized
very easily on a philanthropic donor
impact portfolio, but it is important that it is written
into the story somewhere in a f- in a visible
way so that it gives dignity
to not just the people who are doing the work,
but also to the people who are receiving the work.
I love that. That's so beautiful. One of the biggest [00:37:00] problems that
I see in the nonprofit world, in birth work specifically,
is what I would call founderitis. What is founderitis? It's like where ...
it's like the inflammation around
the founder in the organization
grows to the point that it's stuck.
They've created- ... a ceiling which can
only happen with them, and I think midwives
do this sometimes even outside
of nonprofit world. They center themselves so much
that the work can't continue.
They can't go on vacation.
Nobody can really- nothing can happen
because they are the center. And when a midwife who is a
provider working
full time oftentimes has a family,
and that is a full time,
and then they go and start a nonprofit and
work ungodly hours for very little pay
to try to create this thing, there's no...
th- they don't have a way out. No, they don't. Because they've
centered themselves so completely. So I try to unpack this,
but will you take a turn and, like- Yes. Yes ... how do they get out of this? Gladly. Gladly. Okay, great. So I fortunately for [00:38:00] me I understand
what you're saying really well,
and I have had experience with it, not just in
midwifery, but also people in different
areas working on different health schemes.
The thing with this is the problem is you,
to put it very politely. The problem is you. And if you are building a nonprofit,
you should not be the center of it. You may be the founder of it.
You are not the protagonist of it. You may be the pr- service provider,
then you are not the founder. If you are the founder, you lead
with your vision and you delegate the rest.
And while delegating the rest, you, you will find pitfalls.
You will find people who are non-reliable.
You will find people that cannot
be trusted. But on the other hand,
you may also find a core team
that you build with trust, with credibility, with the same amount
of social grace that you can
provide your or- organization with.
The problem that I find with most founders
in nonprofits in this [00:39:00] space, especially in the space of health,
is that they're all bootstrapped, and they
believe that they are the single most
prevalent or the single most important
person there because they are the
provider of the care. When you start a nonprofit, it is important that you
desensitize yourself That might be the right word.
I agree so much. No, I say this all the time. I'm like, "You have to actually care less." Yeah. You have to care less,
because you care so much right now that it
has activated all
of your professionalism. Yes. And professionalism
belongs nowhere in this place. It cannot, it, that's not its place. You have to care less.
Yeah. You have to go home, you have
to turn off your brain, you have to not think
about it for hours or days at a time. You have to care less. I love that you're saying this.
Because as a founder, you're thinking about
so many levels of care. You're not just thinking about the
provider itself. You're looking at the in-
the supply chain.
You're looking at where does the next b-
donor thing come from. You're looking at donor
and stakeholder relationships.
You're not looking to be [00:40:00] birthing someone
at 2:00 AM. That is not your job anymore. If you have started the
nonprofit and you're still doing it, I would advise you to give
it away to someone
who really cares.
Get out as soon as possible. Get out as soon as-
Because you are standing in the same,
you're standing in your way of development. You are standing in a
hiring process that might bring in someone
who is a little bit more compassionate
or passionate or has the same ... at the end of the day,
you have to ask yourself, are you really
doing justice to your work?
And are you doing justice
to the nonprofit that you have founded?
And are you doing justice
to yourself and your
family that below, has no other replacement
for you at this point, right? And, Yes. Yes ... ask yourself where your
priorities lie. I'm cheering. Wow, Vandana,
I love this so much,
and you are so right, and I love finding
someone who, can bang on this drum
with me because it is so important.
No I'm brutal about it. S. Yeah. With some
founders, I'm extremely brutal
about it, because you're
[00:41:00] standing in the way of creating
your own dream team. That is what is happening.
It is not- nothing else, and you are of, not allowing
yourself to scale. You're not allowing yourself
to grow because you think
you're the single most
Important
person in the world, and that is not true.
Not true at all. And in fact, like you said,
you're standing in your own way. You're preventing progress-
Yeah ... because
of your need to center yourself,
and I understand why. From a really innocent
place I don't think
our midwife founders are out there being like,
"Yeah, Rahoo me. I'm at the center," and I don't think- No, they're not
that's what's happening. I think they have
confused the need with their capacity, and they
have smurged them together, and it, a- and
I think when you discover that there's a need, the sickness, the disorder,
is thinking, "I must fill that need." And instead thinking how can
the organization fill the need so [00:42:00] that
you spread it out and stop carrying it all.
And this is true not just nonprofits. If you're running a birth center, if you're running a practice, if you have anything
other than a solo midwifery practice,
you should keep thinking, how can the team
carry this weight? Oh, yes. It is never all me, and if I make it all me,
not only do I overburden myself,
but I actually handicap the
development of the rest of my team- Absolutely
because I am taking work from them. Yes?
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm gonna add
another layer to that, Please ...
and say that a little bit of it comes from the
fact that most mid- midwiferies are women led
and women founded. Yes. Yeah. And I think women in
general carry this thing of capacity of- Yes.
We learned it honestly, right? It- Yes ... yes, it's a common denominator. Yes ... and I'm going to n- name it out in public and say
that is not helping anyone. Please refrain
from doing that for your own good [00:43:00] and for the
good of your own nonprofit. I love it. Ah, Vandana,
seriously, I'm like cl- I'm, like, clapping.
I love it. No, it's so true. It's so true, and
these are hard lessons. You prefaced
when we started it might be really
uncomfortable to get honest about this,
and there's so much intersectionality. There's professionalism, there's patriarchy, there's capitalism. There's the family
need to survive.
There's, professional responsibilities. There's self-worth. There's money wounds. We can go on and on, right? There's so much- Oh, my gosh ... intersectionality here. If you're a founder in any way, shape, or form, or an entrepreneur in any way, shape, or form, nonprofit, yes, but any way, shape, or form, I think it brings out your deepest insecurities and maximizes it to the point of handicap, and I think there is no other way for you to go through it but through it.
Yeah ... so please work on it, and stop- Yeah ... getting in your
own way and ask for help. Ask for help. Yeah ... call the ph-
pick up the phone. Yeah, pick up the phone. Call [00:44:00] people. That's what we
do at Midwifery Wisdom Collective.
We love to create
courses and content. Our school program, my coaching programs
it's all designed to help people g- get that help
because it's so lonely.
There, it is such a marginalized profession.
There's, it's really hard to find a way through,
and the only model that we have inherited
from our preceptor midwives,
our mentor midwives, is really this
one of martyrdom. If I don't die
at the stake, if I don't burn to death
doing this work- then I'm not doing it right.
You are 100% right. You're 100% right. But I will leave your midwifery
colleagues with
one essential piece of wisdom,
and I find this makes a huge difference.
When we do the ask, or rather
in my language,
when we do the tell to donors on why
we donate, on why they
have to donate, right?
You meet with them face-to-face. You ask for a [00:45:00] 20-minute conversation. You don't ask for a meeting. You ask for a 20-minute conversation.
The conversation should not be about the ask.
The conversation is about yourself. It's about your story.
It's about your why. It's about your purpose. It's almost like a VC pitch.
The ask comes at the end,
after everything has been done, because I find that
most nonprofits run behind money,
and they will take money from any donor. But I think in this
current scenario and in this
current setting
where we have seen
the political ramifications, we have seen how
CSR has changed, we have seen how the
philanthropic landscape has changed,
we have seen un- you know, unknown philanthropists
come to the mar- come to town and
save relationships and save policies
from collapsing and saving basic communities.
The ask is really the point of ask is really
dependent on the nonprofit founder,
and I [00:46:00] think they have to be careful to see
that it aligns with the donor whom
they're meeting with. See what their donation
history looks like. See where their money
is coming from. That is so important because
half the time, the, especially
with CSR relationships, if you are running an
industry or a business that is degenerating
the climate and you are investing
in antenatal care for the
same population, then it's not an
aligned conversation.
So see where your money is coming from
because you are more than likely to get
cut off if political ramifications change
or if social changes happen. If there is,
if the community that you're building is
not sustainable or is not aligned with your
mission and your vision that you
wanna grow into, then ask yourself how
you can align yourself better to it.
If you have a midwifery board that is doing
nada [00:47:00] to get you, be visible within your
community, then you need to be asking
more of your board. You need to be tapping...
remember that nonprofits are
not just asking for donations. You're asking for time,
you're asking for- Yeah ... human resources,
you're asking for networks.
Yeah. And networks are
the longest running most
financially beneficial
term sheet for a nonprofit,
and that should be
your number one. If there was a nonprofit
founder in front of me, I would put them
right in front of the ask of net- networks,
because that is
where they need to be. They need
to be leading with
their vision within
those network streams.
Oh, really. 100%. This is what I say to folks
that I'm consulting with. I'm like, "So when you're
choosing your board-" Yes ... "one of the questions
is how big is your network?
How easily can you
introduce me to them?" Yes. And if they don't
have an answer for that, they're really not
a good board member. No.
No, they're not. Yeah. A board member should... N- It's not just
the finances that you bring in, it [00:48:00] has to be
everything. You have to be
invested- ... in, in the nonprofit- Yeah ... that you're
working in, Yeah ... to be part of the board. And if you're not,
then you're probably not the right person.
Yeah, we call them
working boards. You have to put in at least
eight hours a month if you're
gonna be on a board. Yeah, minimum. Yeah. Not including meetings.
You... 'Cause sometimes, they try to make
up all their time with "Let's have another meeting."
It's like, "No, go do something."
My gosh, I have one more thing
to talk about. Yes. What is
Vund? Tell me, what is Vund? Vund is my
candle company that
came out of the bee farming- Love this
and sustainable initiative. Love this. You run a candle
company. I just love... Okay, so- Vund is- How did this happen?
How do you do it? How do people get access-
Obviously we- ... to non-toxic chemi- candles?
Tell me more about this.
The story behind Vund is
actually it's not
mine to s- it's not mine to share,
but, and I do
have permission from my son.
My son, when he was born, was allergic
to artificial fragrances from candles,
detergents, et cetera, et cetera. And [00:49:00] as a doctor,
you start looking into
why there
are artificial fragrance. He would just sneeze.
It wouldn't be, like,
an allergy, but then he
would sneeze. And I reached out to
some of the companies, and I asked
them what- Went into fragrances.
And some of the lists that came back
were toxic so I just stopped using them. But more than that,
it made me go back to... And at that time I was in
beekeeping, remember? So I had a ton of resource
into fresh beeswax,
and I started pouring beeswax candles
just for my home and, people in my network.
My work also took me to Grasse, France. And one of the field trips
that I had me go into a fragrance lab
and say, "I wanna make a fragrance,
but it should not have this, and this." They literally laughed
in my face. And they said, "That is almost impossible."
And I said, "Why is it impossible?"
And they said, "This makes the
fragrance last longer.
This stabilizes the fragrance. This lasts," et cetera.
Everything had an answer to it. There was nothing
that I could do about it. They said, [00:50:00] "The only caveat is that
you have to make
it small in number, easily usable,
and have low MOQs."
And I said, "Fine, let me try it."
So I took it back. I brought
it back to the States,
and I started making
these candles
at home in my kitchen. And they turned
out beautifully.
And then we moved- So lovely ...
from beeswax to vegan wax.
And it became a thing. It two consecutive
years I gave it as Christmas, gifts.
And it became a thing
within my social circle,
and they were like, "You need to start it." So when we
started the company,
I was I wasn't skeptical, but then I, it was new territory. I'm a doctor
pouring candle. What am I even doing? But I love this.
You are what I call
a multi-passionista. I feel the same way.
There's 12 things I'm doing at
all times. I love this. So when we
went into markets like
farmer's markets I actually
priced the candles as
pay what you want. You just have to listen
to my story. And you can pay what you
want for the candle itself. That's not [00:51:00] the issue. The issue is, does my
story make any sense to you?
And that's what- I love this ... is the thing from.
So we did it in I think
we had about 117 or 120, I forget number of pop-ups
different places in the United States. And we realized that some sell,
some don't sell. The version of the candle that sells
in different areas is different. The bigger the house,
the more candles they needed.
Actually, no. The bigger the house, they needed
sprays and wax melts because those were
the higher generating SKUs in those places. And Vunt comes
from my name, Vandana. When I used to work
in the garden
with my grandmother, my- We used to have flowers,
and my grandmother used to call me Bhund,
which means bee.
So that obviously translated as the name. I had a
Norwegian
trademark lawyer, and he kept
pronouncing it as Wound, so
Wound it was. Amazing ... but that's the candle story. And we, yeah,
we do a lot of [00:52:00] candles. They're all- Can people
order online? Yeah. We the last couple
of years, we slowed down
business to consumer only because
I was going through a health issue.
I had to have a mastectomy
at some point, and
I slowed that part down,
but it was hard to keep up.
But we do have
loyal cons- customers that
keep coming back,
and we have
business to business,
which keep, keeps us alive, but this year
we'll go back to consumers,
so that's a good thing.
I love it. It, it- and we'll
share some show notes. And it must have been
fascinating to go through the
health scare and from
the patient's side- Yeah ...
knowing so well the other side. Yeah. Yeah. What did you
learn from that? Patience.
A lot of patience and grace. I think it really taught me...
I thought me stopping work with
the UN after I had kids was, like, a stop, but it was
nowhere close to the stop that
I needed because I kept working.
And I think when when the [00:53:00] health issue
happened, it was mid-COVID, my kids were
very young. My husband could
not accompany me to most
of my meetings and sessions.
It was a scary place, and I realized that
it was just me, right? And when the burden
falls just on
you you have to take
it slow and pause. Really pause. A lot of a lot of... I find this
quite common
not
just with women, but with most
pivot stories. When we discuss
pivot stories or when we
discuss pivots in our life there are
some points where you have
to pause, and there's nothing
that you can learn from it.
Or you can learn things from it,
but then they are not gonna
be of any use until you really give
yourself the time to learn from it.
And most of the women go
through something,
and then they come back and say, "Oh, it's my pivot story,"
in two weeks
or three weeks
from then, and they... That is not a pivot.
You're still going
through the journey. Let yourself go
through the journey. Let yourself
come out through
the other end.
The [00:54:00] new normal is nowhere
close to the
normal that you had before,
and I think-
We as humans, as women, as people
who are accessing social media and sending
our stories online and having the
algorithm decide if it's
viral enough or
heroic enough or, monetizable enough,
you're allowed to
just pause, and
there's a dignity in the story, and you're
allowed
to have that dignity without having
the exposure of it all.
I actually talk to people about the
disclosure versus the exposure. That's the aspect- ...
that we
need a word.
As e- as having
had my own major pause I totally
get it. Yeah. It's actually
very akin to labor in some ways. You don't ...
you ... i, one of my
favorite metaphors for labor,
and now for illness, is the labyrinth.
The unicursal path. There's no dead ends.
There's no there's no blind alleys. There's only one path.
But it's very circuitous.
And as soon [00:55:00] as you think
you're close to the center,
then you swoop back
out again. And so it's this
very in-and-out, wave-like
experience.
And in,
in labor, we oftentimes think, "
oh, I must be further along.
I must be almost there." And to most people's
sad discovery, you're just like, "No, not quite there yet." Not yet.
Yeah. And then you have to- You need to walk.
Do tell them to
walk it off Yeah, and then
you have to go through that long,
long unfollowing. And when I say birth,
I actually mean
all the phases of the year of
becoming a mother
because- I feel like ... I had this client once,
and
she was a nurse, a school nurse. And so she,
she
had a cesarean the first time
for a
a known breech baby, and then
she had a VBAC with me
with a vaginal wound,
a vaginal tear. And I was
sewing her up, and she
looks over the covers. She looks at me, she goes,
"There's just no free
lunch in childbirth, is there?"
And I was like, "Nope, there's no free [00:56:00] lunch."
And I reflected on that
very casual statement
over the years because it, some people
have challenge conceiving.
Some people have
challenges in their pregnancy,
torrential nausea. Some people have
very long labors.
Some people have
very unplanned births.
Some people then have
trouble breastfeeding,
and the list goes on and on.
Sure. There's going to be
some major rite of passage. There's going
to be
a major pause. There's going to
be a
reimagining of
what your life is after.
We call it the
unwished-for experience.
After you go through
the ordeal,
there is- a reckoning.
And that happens in
health scares and in life.
This is it. You're adulting
if you hit one of these,
and when you're in it, it's so hard
to imagine "No, I'm out of it." But- Yeah ... it takes
such
distance
to be able to look
back and be like, "Oh, I was so still in it."
I didn't know
what [00:57:00] was
hitting me, what I was
going through.
You're still in a shock of it. You're like,
you're the epicenter- Yeah ... of the tornado, and
you're sitting there
being like- Yeah ... "Oh, I'm okay.
I can, you know- Yeah ... probably be
comfortable
sitting in the epicenter,"
and then the tornado still
breaks apart things and goes- Yeah ...
through life and- Yeah ... you know
The eye of the storm
is a deceptive- Yeah
deceptive one because you
think you're through,
but you're only halfway, yeah. And then I
would say j- just getting out
the other side brings
such relief and gratitude
that sometimes you think, "Oh, I made it.
Everything's fine." But actually, there's all of this
readjusting in birth
and in postpartum,
and then in, in recovery of
any kind that it's- I think, I think-
reshapes you ... the birth journey itself
is it's almost like a literal or a
figurative meaning of
everything that we go in life.
Agreed. As in labor, as in life. As in life, as in labor.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a microcosm, right? Yeah. And it's what
I tell moms preparing
for birth, and now what
I tell people preparing
for illness, surgery or [00:58:00] death.
It's, it is... you still are you
going through
this rite of passage. Yes. So it doesn't it doesn't
help you or anyone to
try to do it differently
than how you do it. So if you're loud,
be loud,
and if you're quiet,
be quiet. And if you
need a lot of things,
need a lot of things. And if you don't
need much,
like- Just take
what you need
exa- just be you. Be you.
Take what speaks
the most ... and that's the
only way through. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
The only way
out is through, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, my God it's been
so nice meeting you
It's been so nice,
Vandana. I feel
come back to Bangalore.
We need you here. We need to talk.
Vandana, thank you so much. This has been a kick. I love it, and I can't wait to
connect again. Take care. Bye, Augustine. Thanks for having me.