Sanjay Patel ’99
chairman and co-founder, Epic Change
Inspired by his trip to Africa, Sanjay Patel ’99 is using art to pioneer Epic Change for Tanzania, one postcard at a time.
1. What is Epic Change?
Epic Change is social entrepreneurship experiment that I’ve undertaken in response to my 2007 trip to Africa. We’re trying to prove that small commitments can make a huge difference.
We make loans to help fund global community improvement efforts and then partner with loan recipients to pay back the loans by helping them tell their stories in innovative, creative and profitable ways. Repaid funds will then be “paid forward” to make another loan, thus creating a perpetual gift from one community in need to another across the globe. We plan to creatively tell the epic true stories of the people we serve in order to raise funds to create positive change in their communities.
2. What inspired you to create Epic Change?
A volunteer-tourism trip I took to Arusha, Tanzania, in January 2007 with Stacey Monk, a dear friend who has been a colleague of mine for years and is now the co-founder and CEO of Epic Change.
While we were there, Stacey was a volunteer at Shepherds Junior Academy, a primary school with which Epic Change is now partnered. She introduced me to Mama Lucy Kamptoni, the school’s headmistress and founder. In 2003, Mama Lucy used the income from her poultry business as the school’s start-up capital. Once I returned home, I learned that the land she rented had been sold to a hotel developer who gave her until February 2008 to vacate. Mama Lucy’s grassroots efforts have built this incredible institution from six students in 2003 to 170 currently. I decided I couldn’t allow it to be closed and started Epic Change to support community improvement programs, with our first project being Shepherds.
 3. How did you first finance the loans for Epic Change? Where did your initial support come from?
I started Epic Change with $1,000 from my savings. Loan money comes directly from donations made to our organization. From our 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, we collected $40,000 in contributions within six months from around 400 donors.
We started with friends and family, and they passed on the word. We explained our idea and they were completely supportive. Even Stacey’s 9-year-old niece, Zoe Monk, ran a lemonade stand for a week and raised more than $200 for us!
Once we’ve collected enough money to complete our first project, an estimated $250,000, we hope that the combination of recycling the repaid loan amounts and sales of different storytelling products will be enough to fund all future projects and get Epic Change out of the traditional fundraising business.
4. You also own your own business, Funken Consulting. Tell us how your skills carryover to your work with Epic Change.
All of my project management and consulting skills have been extremely helpful in creating everything from our strategic and business plans to the design of the Epic Change Website and creation of detailed project plans. Having started my own for-profit business has proven quite useful in terms of starting a nonprofit. I think what makes a social entrepreneur effective is the ability to successfully leverage business experience and passion for a particular cause to develop sustainable and creative ways to change the world.
5. How do you balance your work on Epic Change with your involvement in Funken Consulting?
I’ve been on hiatus since last September so that I can work on Epic Change full time. To get Epic Change successfully launched, I’ve really had to put all of my heart and energy into it. I’m living off of the little bit of savings I have. I pull as many all-nighters now as I did at UCLA. Fortunately, I’m able to make the decision to put other consulting projects on hold, a luxury I likely wouldn’t have if I worked for another company.
6. What makes Epic Change different from other programs that assist underserved populations?
The Epic Change model is unique because we provide interest-free loans to partners, rather than charitable gifts. The father of one of the children at the school once told me, “If you tell a man he is weak, he will be weak; if you tell a man he is poor, he will be poor,” illustrating perfectly the reasoning behind the Epic Change model. We treat our partners not as recipients of charity but rather as leaders who possess the strength and resources (i.e. their stories) to improve their own communities - and even other communities in need elsewhere on the globe.
7. How do you decide which causes qualify for your organization’s support?
We look for causes that have a compelling story to be told and are driven by effective, local leaders who are passionate about improving their communities.
8. How do the communities or projects get the money to repay the loan?
We work directly with our partners to establish income-generating projects around their particular stories. With our first project, for example, there is a huge tourism market in Tanzania, especially in Arusha, as many visitors stop there before heading off on safari. We’ve initiated a line of postcards featuring the students’ stories that we look forward to selling at major tourist hotels and gift shops in the area.
A photo of a baobab tree taken by 9-year-old Glory Abraham will appear on one of those postcards. Glory is an orphan who’s been raised by her sister, aunt and grandmother, switching houses intermittently when the situation becomes too crowded. She currently lives with her sisters in a house made of mud and sticks that has a patch of banana trees in front, where both their parents are buried. During our last visit, Glory, who is consistently ranked near the top of her class and aspires to be a teacher, mysteriously missed three days of school. We later learned it was because she’d lost the sole on one of her shoes, the only pair she had to walk the mile-long distance to school. Her teachers went door-to-door to find a pair for her to borrow until they bought some new ones for her the next day.
This is the same little girl who wrote in a thank you card that simply said, "I am so lucky." Although that’s not a word I’d use to describe her situation, it’s a true statement. Out of a million children in similar circumstances in her country, she’s fortunate to attend this remarkable school where her teachers, despite their own lack of resources, care for her as if she were their own. I hope that those fortunate enough to send and receive the postcards on which Glory’s baobab photo appears will connect with her compelling story.
9. What’s the hardest part of your job?
I’d say the hardest part is fundraising. It’s a challenge to find ways to interest and engage people in a cause with which they have little direct experience. That’s part of the reason storytelling is such a critical component of our model. I believe that if people hear the compelling story of a single kid like Glory, they will understand the situation far better than if they’d been told the statistics about a population of 1.1 million orphans in Tanzania.
10. Give us an update on the progress of Shepherds Junior Academy.
Earlier this month, the school’s landowner sold the property to the hotel developer. With the school’s eviction, we were worried that the students would have no school to attend. On a new piece of land purchased with the funds raised, we were able to build four new classrooms. Fortunately, the classrooms were completed in time for the students’ move.
Over time, we will work with Shepherds to generate income using their own stories in order to pay their loan back. Once the loan repaid in approximately three to five years, they will continue to use their income streams to support themselves. Epic Change’s goal is to then use the money Shepherds returned to be paid forward to another community improvement project.
11. What were the biggest fears you’ve encountered through the journey of creating Epic Change?
I had all these stereotypes about what to expect on my trip to Africa. I heard all these daunting statistics, and when I actually got there, I realized it’s a beautiful place. Going there was an eye-opening experience. When I started volunteering at Shepherds, I got so connected to the people that I wanted to help out however I could.
I had never worked at a nonprofit, let alone start my own. I’m dealing with people half a world away. For instance, making a land purchase was a scary thought and Arusha does not even have a real estate office. I’m so used to understanding how real estate works in the U.S., and we encountered an entirely new way of doing things. We’re learning a lot of lessons through this project. It was a leap of faith for Stacey and me. We had to think big and start small in order to make a difference. We partnered with the school instead of telling Mama Lucy what to do, and trusted her to make the right decisions. If we didn’t have Lucy, a local leader we could trust, this project would be impossible.
 12. How do you spread awareness about Epic Change?
Our main marketing resources are technology and simple word-of-mouth. We rely heavily on social networking sites like Network for Good, Facebook and Myspace. We also have a blog and frequently publish photos on the progress of our projects. You can also help us spread the word by getting on our e-mail distribution list.
— Catherine Luu ’05
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