The butterfly effect

‘Sometimes a small event can change the course of our lives’ Jean-Jacques Cousteau

My INSPIRE campaign is growing and I am happy to see so many inspirational people have responded to my appeal and are giving me amazing stories to share with you! My guest today is Alina, my friend from university, who recently left her job in marketing in favour of making a difference in the community.

I’ve known Alina since my first day at Uni. We both got admitted to the newly formed section of ‘Communication Sciences’, part of the Journalism School of the University of Bucharest, and thought that a career in PR or advertising was promising enough glamour not to question whether it was the right choice or not (at least I didn't!). A few years and even a common employer later (Alina and I both worked for the same company at some point in different locations), we both seem to be looking for something else.

Alina is now part of a community foundation which she had a vision of whilst on holiday and whose projects are aimed at restoring the community spirit in Bucharest and helping to implement projects benefitting the local communities. Alina’s inspirational story gave me the goose bumps and I am going to say that although it is relevant in so many ways (which I am not going to list or will spoil you the pleasure of reading her interview), I would like to highlight one in particular:  it's awakened in me the longing for the community spirit, something anyone who’s chosen to live in a big city has silently agreed to give up on… But Alina is the living proof this is something we can all change…

Interview with Alina Kasprovschi

Founder of Bucharest Community Foundation

We all grow up thinking we'll become famous or amazing people. When you were a little girl, what was your dream? 'When I was soul-searching for my future profession, a couple of years ago, I kept on going back to my childhood. There must be some truth to my childhood dreams, I was thinking. If I look deep down enough, I will find my true meaning, it must me something from when I was a little girl… Either there was nothing in there, or I didn’t search deep down enough: the truth is I cannot remember “wanting to become something when I grow up”. I think I was just there, having fun, organising block parties, negotiating our way with the neighbours… I was too immersed into the present to be really looking forward for the future. There is one thing I remember and that lasted – my mercifulness. I used to love animals, and I still do – I used to rescue a lot of them, and I still am. Other than that – blank. '

What is your dream today? 'Now, my dream “when I grow up” is to be able to blend doing good* with having fun, both at a large scale. I have accomplished the former part, with me opening a community foundation. I am still struggling for the latter…'

Tell us your story. How did you decide to turn your career around, when did it happen? 
'I was reading this book, the memoirs of Jean-Jacques Cousteau. And there is one paragraph at the beginning of the book, just when he does his first sea dive and meets what will later become his mission in life – the discovery and protection of the oceans. As he puts it: “sometimes, a small event can change the course of our lives, if we are lucky enough to notice it and brave enough to give up our previous preoccupations and run into something new. It is exactly what happened to me that summer day, at Mourillon, when I started to see into the sea”. And as I was reading it, I realised I was running into something new of the same sort, as well.Good ideas come when you are vacationing, you know. You leave the mind wander a bit, off the to-do and projects list, and the mind does the rest of the work. It was the summer of 2008, I was lying on a beach in Costa Rica and I had this vision of what I wanted to do with my life. What attracted me was to build a hub where I could put into contact people that want to do good in the community and projects that need their help. This would satisfy two of my great needs – to do good and to work intensively with people. It was a very fragile idea and I didn’t know how to further develop it. What made things more complicated – I was badly indebted with some consumer credits and I was successfully working for a multinational. Not easy to leave a safe life to go into the unknown of community development.
So then I decided that this is a project I should run in my free time, as a hobby, and I should be “mature” enough to keep my corporate job. My job at the time offered me quite some satisfaction – civilised environment, nice people, lots of money, lots of travels, diverse projects… But from one point onwards, questions kept on coming to me: what is the purpose of my work, who does this serve, what will I leave behind if I die tomorrow? So I kept this dream alive – of creating a community hub.
Two years later, time came for me to have a baby. Just as I was in my first day of pre-maternity leave, a couple of weeks before I gave birth, I noticed an online announcement. An Association was looking for groups of people interested in developing community foundations in their cities. The Association would provide consultancy and a start-up grant for chosen groups. So I applied, because suddenly I saw how my idea could be turned into reality. They accepted the application and, just as I was in the maternity, with my son two days old, I started working for the development of the Bucharest Community Foundation. It would take me another one year and a half to legally launch it – but that was the starting point.
I call them twins – my son, Toma, and the Foundation.'

Alina's 'other baby'

You are also a 'full time' mother and wife. Are you a better mother and a wife because of it, because you are doing something you love and strongly believe in? 'Any mother has multi-tasking in her “job description”. This is something I learnt the hard way, by working part time from home until very recently. It required me waking up really early in the morning to work and practically focusing all my attention only on motherhood and the foundation for a long period of time. I believe it is well worth it. First, for myself, because I am doing what I want and get pleasure out of it. Secondly, by working for the foundation, I am passing on values to my son, such as learning to be part of a community, in a respectful and active manner. I am sure that, even if the money is by far not so good as in the corporate world, these values are a better heritage to pass on.'

As it is the case with many start-ups, the financial aspect is always the most difficult to deal with. Do you feel you needed and benefitted from the support of your family to plunge into your project full speed? 'Fortunately, the Romanian law allows the mother to have a two-year maternity leave, paid with a percentage of the previous year’s salary. This allowed me to have a certain financial stability and also got me slowly accustomed to having less money than in the past. Of course, the support (including financial) of my family was very helpful. Gone are the days when I lived off my way-above-average salary, with all the accompanying advantages. But I learnt to live with less material satisfactions… '

Tell us how working in the charity sector makes you feel? 'A community foundation is not exactly a charity. We are a hub, a consultant, between people or organizations who want to get involved into the community and projects that need them. What a community foundation does is raise resources from the community and finance projects that the community determines are relevant. We do not do our own projects, just the frameworks for involvement and monitoring – but we do support others to have their projects grown and finalized.
First of all, working for a foundation requires entrepreneurial skills, which have been dormant in my corporate life. So it took a lot of struggle (and it still does) to come to understand how it works. From things as mundane as building your own PowerPoint template – when I had worked with pre-determined templates all my life – to things as complicated as working with the Board of Directors or managing the cash flow. It is a difficult feeling – not being always skilled enough or experienced enough, and having to learn at a fast pace.
But secondly, I have this extraordinary feeling. When we manage to finalize a project or convince someone to donate for a cause – that indeed my dream I had on the Playa Conchal in Costa Rica is coming true. And this is an amazing feeling!'

Do you consider yourself happy? What are the key things in your life which make you happy? 'I am a strong believer in the idea of community. During the past two years, I started growing this holistic approach, that we cannot thrive as individuals if the community around us is not working. And I was lucky enough to meet and help at the development of two great communities, which reinforced my ideas. Therefore, I am happy as long as I am part of a community that shares my values, interests and lifestyle. Fortunately, with my maternity and change of career, this is now entirely possible. So, yes, I am happy.
This happens, however, when I remind myself to stop and look for a while – because in the rest of the time I am busy busy busy! (note to self – if all else fail, remember to add in the to-do list: stop and appreciate your life as it is :)'

Do you think that our happiness can be influenced in any way by external factors or is it all 'an inside job'? Can we blame the world for our failures? 'I believe that happiness is mostly in inside job. Maybe except for some really dramatic circumstances that we cannot control – a war, an accident – it is entirely our job to become and stay happy.
My journey in searching my meaning and future profession started a little earlier that mentioned above. It was in 2007 and I was running in a state of major unhappiness and frustration in my life. Nothing seemed to work and it looked to me like things could only get worse. And I was lucky enough to go to this personal development workshop that opened my eyes on my life. I discovered there how much WE are responsible for our lives, not some outside entity. And to what extent we can change the state of being at all times, with some proper training.
At the course, we had this extraordinary teacher – he is called Johnny Tenn and is a British coach. Once, as we were in the middle of serious breakthroughs and very excited, he told us, “Extraordinary accomplishment! Now you need to do one more little thing: work on this every day of your life. Train this like a muscle. The day you stop training is the day you go back to your old ways.”
So now I have increasingly learnt how to observe and change my state of wellbeing. I have made huge progress – from not being aware at all to being aware some 5% of my time (not much, but I have a long life ahead to learn!)'

What advice would you give people who are thinking about getting into the charity sector? 'In order to be successful, charity people should be a blend of big souls and fine entrepreneurs. It definitely cannot work without having a huge heart. But you would go bankrupt so fast, it will make your head spin, if you do not manage it on business principles.

And there is this advice I would give to anybody who cares about my two cents: work on yourself. Do whatever kind of soul-searching, personal development activity that suits you. Try more to find those who suit you. There is so much inside us that we don’t know about, that affects the way we live! And if we don’t know about it, then we cannot change it, and end up wrongly blaming the government, our parents, spouses or the global warming for our failures.'

Who/what inspired you?  'They say that when you are inspired by somebody, there are some of his qualities that you carry inside, as well. Of course, in order not to flatter ourselves unnecessarily, I should all – to a smaller extent. So here are the list of people who inspire me today. I can only hope I have at least 10% of their qualities…

Bono – for his unique blend of being an artist, a humanitarian and an entrepreneur. Steve Jobs, for his focus and perfectionism. Richard Branson, for his adventure-seeking. And one of our Board members, Stanislav Georgiev, who is a bank CFO, a marathon runner, a great family man and a strong supporter of the community. '

What is your next ‘dream’?
'I dream about building the foundation so that it brings a big impact on the inhabitants of Bucharest – they become naturally involved in their community. I dream about being a good foundation leader and mother in the same time. I dream about increasing my time management skills so well, that it allows me to get involved in everything that interests me. And yes, I must admit – I dream about my next vacation, due in June! '

All I can add is: Stay inspired!

*In Romanian, to be ‘selfless’,  ‘to help others’ is translated by ‘to do good’, which doesn’t mean ‘to thrive’, to be ‘good at something’ as it may be interpreted, but it has a more overarching sense of spreading ‘goodness’ by helping others. I thought it was appropriate to keep it as is: ’ to do good’