 |
| Dena Jones Trujillo |
GlobalGiving has now facilitated support for more than 24,000 community-based projects in 170 countries, with total funding surpassing $400 million and on its way to $1 billion. The team at GlobalGiving has gotten much of the credit, and deservedly so. But there are a couple of people who have played key roles in the background, and Dena Jones Trujillo, our first program officer at the Omidyar Network, is one of them.
GlobalGiving got some of its most important initial encouragement and funding from Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, even before he set up the full Omidyar Network. Like many startups, GlobalGiving struggled in the early days. It was hard to find good tech people in Washington DC, and in any case the technology at that time was primitive and slow. User interface, product management, and marketing skills were also hard to find. Online financial systems were still in their infancy.
As a result, our ambition to serve everyone - not just in the US but in the entire world - seemed ridiculous to many people. To be honest, we ourselves wondered at times if we had bitten off more than we could chew. Some of our enthusiastic early supporters went quiet or abandoned us. Others were quick to say "I told you so." At times it was very discouraging; the uphill battles were more than daunting, and it was hard to blame people for losing confidence, or even engaging in a little bit of schadenfreude.
Yet we endured because of the vision: Why SHOULDN'T there be a place where everyone in the world could go to have their voices and ideas heard? We endured because there were a few people who never lost faith in both the vision and our ability to achieve it, despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
Dena Jones Trujillo was one of these people. Dena advocated for us in our darkest hours. She bucked us up when we were down. She was a steady and persistent advocate among our most important backers. She foresaw what GlobalGiving could become - something many couldn't imagine - and she has never wavered.
Over many grueling years of hard work and dedication, the GlobalGiving team gradually created a world-leading technical and operational platform that has enabled nearly a million individual donors and 300 leading companies and foundations to support community leaders almost anywhere. These leaders now have access to training and knowledge resources that used to be available only to organizations in rich countries. Those leaders can now talk with their peers across borders about what works best. And, along the way, GlobalGiving has crafted a sustainable business model that allows it to cover the costs of its own operations.
How was this possible? There are many answers. But one of the most important is Dena Jones Trujillo, who has just announced she is stepping down after 18 years at Omidyar to rest and consider her next adventures in life and work. While we stay tuned to see what she does next, let us all pause to reflect on the fact that she played a substantial role in dramatically expanding the ability of people around the world to have their ideas heard and possibly supported. Dena: You have put a made dent in the universe - and the universe owes you a huge debt of gratitude.
