On June 13, 2011, NCEF held elections for its new board and for the presidency. Steven Lustig was voted as the president to replace out-going president Om Prakash Gnawali. Steven has been a member of NCEF for six years. Currently he is working as a Manufacturing Manager at Coca Cola in Atlanta, Georgia. Steven went to MIT for his undergraduate degree and completed his MSME (Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering) from Georgia Tech.

NCEF editor-in-chief Aayush Sakya had a chance to meet up with Steven who was visiting his friends in northern California.

How did your engagement with NCEF begin?

I was reading the MIT alumni magazine and there was a story about NCEF because most of the founders were MIT students or recent alumni at the time. There was contact information in the magazine and I sent an email. Actually, I had to send a couple of emails until I was finally able to get in touch with someone.

Why did you choose to volunteer for NCEF out of all the other non-profits?

I joined NCEF for a couple of reasons. Primarily it is because it focuses on education. I have travelled to a lot of developing countries, although not Nepal, and seen the difference between having an education versus not having one. I think education is a great way to help a person.

NCEF also appealed to me because it had no paid staff. In a lot of the organization one has to wonder where the money goes. I was happy to see that a very high percentage of the money NCEF collects goes directly into providing scholarship to the children.

Transparency within NCEF was also very appealing. Their financial records were published on the internet and their application guidelines were clear. Finally, I felt that knowing that a $100 donation could put a child in school for a year was satisfying. Quite often, people donate large sums of money with little return to society. At NCEF a small amount of money was being used to do something quite substantial. I felt that this was very rewarding.

What are the different roles that you have had in the organization?

As my first role five or six years ago, I started helping out with reporting. We have volunteers in Nepal visiting the students and seeing how they are doing - are their grades good? Are they studying? Are they having the time to do homework? I started processing these reports. It was a data entry type of role, but it morphed into a secretary position. I have been secretary-clerk for the organization for a number of years now. I have also been serving as a board member for a couple of years and just this month I was elected as the president of NCEF.

What were some of your biggest challenge working for NCEF?

I think one of the main challenges is that we are an all-volunteer organization. Everybody is busy with work or school. There was a time when I was at work and in school while volunteering for NCEF. I can certainly sympathize with people who are making time for the organization. So I would say that getting people's time is a concern.

Cultural difference between a corporation and an all-volunteer non-profit is a challenge too. At work, one gets paid and has to meet deadlines. At a non-profit you are volunteering your time when you have it. So the concept of timeliness is very different.

What are some of the projects that you enjoyed most when working for NCEF?

I have liked some of the aspects of reporting - reading the reports and hearing what our students are doing. One of the questions on the reports is what is the student's happiest moment in the last month. Someone may have won a quiz contest, someone may have enjoyed a dance competition, or someone may have come second in his or her class. Knowing that their accomplishments are possible because of our efforts is very rewarding.

Recently we had a video come out from one of our new areas. They were showing our new students meeting their teachers, getting their books, and going to the tailor's shop to get measured for their school uniforms. This is a very inspirational video that the area coordinator put together on his own initiative.

What would you say are the biggest challenge in building a community in moving this organization forward?

I would say the biggest issue we have both in Nepal and here is getting consistent contribution from a set of volunteers. We need a core set of volunteers for an extended period of time who have knowledge and interest. So getting people in Nepal to say fill out the reports accurately, make all the visits they are supposed to be making, fill out all the applications every year, provide financial reports on a regular basis, and do to so without expecting any salary is challenging.

One of our issues is that we have a lot of people sign up to volunteer and we never hear from them. Part of that is how we bring them on and how we guide them. We have Jasmin Shrestha who will be in charge of onboarding new volunteers and I am looking forward to having her help out on this.

Now that you are the President, what are top three things you want to prioritize?

One of the priorities is new volunteers. We need people for the longer term contributing to the organization. Tangentially, I would like to see how we can improve relationship between members in our organization. It is tough to do this because we talk by phone and communicate mostly through emails. Because we are a virtual organization we don't have the same personal relationship as members of other organizations. Even the volunteers in one city get together very rarely. I want to enhance relationships within the organization.

Structuring the organization is another priority. We need more definition in terms of roles and positions. We have a lot of confusion now as to what the board does versus what the executive committee does. What are the roles for all the different positions? How do we get our board more involved? We have eight or nine board members. That is a lot of manpower. If we can get them engaged in leading some of the projects that would be very helpful.

I want to scale this organization up. It may not happen within a year or two. The key to doing so is having the structure, having the roles defined, and having the processes so everyone knows what they need to be doing. We can go from 70 students we are supporting now to 150 to 200 within a couple of years. There is no reason we cannot do that. The only barrier is finding sufficient number of dedicated volunteers.

I really would like to help more students get their education. Having a good structure within the organization and dedicated volunteers should allow us to achieve our shared goal.

Ghyasang is from Dolakha. His parents are farmers and rely on their minimal income to take care of a family of eight. Ghyasang is a very hard working student. He walks an hour everyday to get to school. Ghyasang said he was happy to achieve first position in his class this month.

NCEF members and well-wishers from left to right: Anish, Steven Lustig, Anil Pachai, Aayush Sakya, OmPrakash Gnawali, Jasmin Shrestha, and Swadesh Bhattarai.

We would love to receive more pictures, especially from our volunteers from Nepal. Please send them to [email protected]