Hal Donaldson, president and CEO of Convoy of Hope, talks about meeting Mother Teresa, living on the streets for research, receiving a perspective-changing health scare, the importance of life insurance to his employees, the simple value of just doing the next kind thing, and creating a different kind of bucket list, and why no one has a monopoly on compassion.

Welcome to Let's Talk Legacy. My name is Gary

Michels. And today we have an amazing guest Hal Donaldson, the

president and CEO of Convoy of Hope, a global nonprofit

organization that works with communities to address root

causes of poverty and hunger. And that always has been a

challenge that our world sees, according to Forbes Convoy of

Hope is among the 50 largest charities in the United States.

So I'm just excited to speak with Hal. And I know our

listeners are excited to hear from you today to welcome.

Thank you for having me, Gary, great to be

with you in the podcast.

Let's dig right in, I want to start by talking

about family, your family in the legacy of your family had a huge

impact on you, and the way that you are now helping shape the

legacies of so many others, the story of your grandfather, and

the impact of his actions on your family is a powerful one.

How did that family history influence your own beliefs about

success, failure, redemption, and other thoughts that come

across your mind?

Yeah, you know, really, we have to go back

before my grandfather and talk about what happened to me when I

was 12. And when I was 12, you know, my parents were hit by a

drunk driver, and my father was killed in slim, a mother was

seriously injured, she'd be in the hospital for quite some time

unable to work, our family didn't have insurance, Gary. And

so as a result, our family was forced to survive on welfare and

food stamps. So as a young boy, you know, I really experienced

the pain of poverty, and the pain of suffering and the shame

of all of it. And it was really the kindness of people who

really reached out to me, you know, they, they just wrap their

arms around me and put new shoes on my feet when they saw that I

have holes in my sneakers, brought groceries to our door.

So it was really the kindness of those people that I think really

affected me the most long term. My grandfather was extremely

successful in his line of work, but he had like a fool of

himself, and ended up losing his entire family along the way.

Certainly, for me, that was something along the way that I

did not want to replicate. I think the biggest impact on my

life was really just living in poverty, trying to escape

poverty. That really was the journey I was on as a teenager,

I wasn't going to live like this, like my parents had lived.

So you know, I think that really, that played a big part

in the formation of Convoy of Hope.

Your grandmother's advice seems to have been the

guiding light in your life, though, can you share how her

words influenced you?

Oh, she had observed my grandfather really

just getting full of himself and making some poor choices. And

her advice to me was, as you enter into the workforce, you

just need to work hard, be a good person, treat people with

integrity to the right thing. And everything is going to take

care of itself. You don't need to go and you know, become a

climber. And where you are harming people along your

journey. You just need to be a good person, and everything will

take care of itself. And you know, that advice really was

extremely instrumental. You know, my story, Gary is I became

a writer in my 20s. I have a journalism degree, I began

writing books in my 20s, one of those projects took me to

Kolkata, India, and where I interviewed Mother Teresa. So in

the course of interviewing Mother Teresa, that she just

stops me and she just said, Hey, young man, what are you doing to

help the poor in the suffering? And I figured it was probably

not a good idea to lie to Mother Teresa. So I told her the truth.

I said, Hey, I'm really not doing much of anything. And she

said, everyone can do something. Just do the next kind thing that

God puts in front of you. And those words were haunting, but

they dovetailed so well, with what my grandmother had said,

you know, just do the right thing. Just do the kind of thing

and everything is going to take care of itself. I came back

after meeting Mother Teresa. I did what I call reconnaissance.

I traveled to eight cities. I lived in the streets for three

days and three nights. went to Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, dc in

New York, major cities. And I just walked the streets with a

hidden tape recorder, interviewing drug addicts and

gang members, prostitutes, runaways and the homeless and

riding with the police on the midnight shift in each of those

cities. That's really what changed the course of my life. I

saw pain and suffering on a scale I'd never seen before and

came back and loaded up a pickup truck with $300 Really groceries

30 years ago now. And that was the beginning of convoy.

Wow. It's one thing to know about it. But

you're right. It's another thing to experience it.

Yes.

My father was a police officer and I said I want

to do the ride alongs because I want to see what you experience

okay with these people that human beings that at some point

were living normal lives and something affected them as very

good. You know, I had an opportunity Go to San Quentin

Prison. My father would take a group of his students for years,

he taught teachers how to work with delinquent youths, we would

got to go into San Quentin Prison. We went in there, and

they have a program that they work with students that maybe

are on borderline of getting into the streets and having

problems. And so you don't want to get there. And these

prisoners were like coaches, and they talked to us about how to

be and work with them. And it touched my heart because most of

them said that they come from poor families that come from

rich families. They come from all over the the universe here,

but most of them their their switch was when they were early

teenagers.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

How have you grown this thing so big? Because I can

tell just talking to you have the biggest heart, but not

everybody's like that. Not everybody's kind, how have you

been able to build this thing?

Yeah, you know, I people ask me that. They say,

what's the secret sauce? How is it gone from the back of a

pickup truck to being? I think we're actually number 35 on

Forbes list. You know, I can honestly tell you that. I

believe vision is incremental. You know, it's just doing the

right thing, doing the opportunistic thing,

opportunities, come your way doing it and doing it well. And

just building upon that, I don't know that 30 years ago, that we

had this massive strategic plan that it was going to be, you

know, something this large, it really was just responding to

needs, you know, I'm a person of faith. And so I believe that God

puts needs in front of you, and you, it gives you opportunities

to respond to those needs. And the same for your your

listeners, you know, as they go through their daily life when

they encounter someone who's hurting someone who's lonely,

it's as simple as that. And I really think that's been the

story of conduit of hope we've just responded to needs for 30

years and tried to do it in a way that helps people maintain

their dignity. You know, we feed nearly 600,000 children every

day, around the world, about 50,000 women and girls go

through our jobs training, our teaching every year, we have 25

30,000 farmers that go through training so that they can

increase their yields. It wasn't a big plan. It was just like,

hey, here's an opportunity. Let's step into it. Let's do the

best job, we can see where it takes us. And I know that's

probably not a good business model. But it's certainly how

we've, we've grown.

And you're doing something right now as president

and CEO of Convoy of Hope that's a big thing. Sometimes the

challenges that you faced aren't talked about, yeah, and

sacrifices you've personally put into this, talk to me a little

bit about some of the struggles you've had of getting this thing

up and running, not just for your company, okay for your

organization. But personally.

You know, well, as you know, Gary have a book

and it's entitled, what really matters, how to care for

yourself and serve a hurting world. And my hope is that

people will learn from my mistakes. Because in the early

days, I was so passionate about helping people escape poverty,

again, because of my upbringing. And when I saw poverty in the

lives of other people, I just, you know, I want to do

everything I can. And I found myself really traveling all over

the world all over the United States, spending 150 Nights 200

nights away from home, I had four small daughters. And so you

know, I think I was I had reckless ambition, much like my

grandfather, I was abusing my family, because I wasn't there.

And when I was there, sure. I mean, I took good care of them.

I told my kids bedtime stories, I tuck them in. I did everything

that a loving father should do. But there's something to be said

about time and a time away. You know, it hit me probably about

the age of 50. It really hit me that I had paid too great a

price. I was making sacrifices. I didn't need to make those

sacrifices were time they were finances. They were health. And

you tell yourself, you know what, I can sacrifice sleep, I

can sacrifice nutrition, I can sacrifice, et cetera, et cetera,

because I'm doing such a good work around the world. But what

I discovered is that when you take care of yourself, that's

not a selfish deed. That's actually a selfless thing.

Because it enables you to help more people and not to operate

from this constant deficit.

That's huge. What was it? Was there a health scare

was there...

Yeah, I was sitting at my desk and I had a

sharp pain in my back. And I thought, Okay, well, this feels

like it might be a kidney stone. And so I left work drove home,

it didn't get any better. I told my wife I said, Hey, I think you

need to take me to emergency they need to give me something

to pass the stone On. And here I am with a blood pressure cuff on

on my arm. And all of a sudden the nurse said, this isn't a

kidney stone, I think you, you're on the verge of a heart

attack. And I just couldn't believe it. Next thing I know

I'm being strapped to a gurney and rushed into surgery. And

they put two stents in my heart. That was a wake up call. I

literally came out of that surgery. And at the time, I was

writing books. I was traveling and speaking a lot. I was

working as the editor in chief of an international magazine, I

was trying to do it all. I was on like eight boards, board of

directors of different organizations around the

country, major organizations, I stepped off every one of them.

And I put two of my jobs. And I gave my life and my focus to

Conway hope that proved to be a very good decision.

Wow. So through your programs over the years,

convoy has distributed more than $2.5 billion worth of food and

supplies helped more than 250 million people and currently

feeds more than 570,000 children. And I wanted to make

sure I was correct on that. It's grown. What is the Conway

mission today? And is it changed at all over the years? Is it is

it more encompassing than just making sure they're fed?

Yes, especially I would say like in the US, like

we do these citywide festivals where we actually go in and

provide free medical and dental care, job fairs. We help people

prepare a resume, we provide them with groceries, we have

things for kids, we have new shoes and give them clothes and

the list goes on. It's a full menu of services. Here's what

we've discovered in the United States is that no one has a

monopoly on compassion, that if you come in and you're neutral,

you can bring you can bring churches, civic groups,

government and businesses altogether, to touch their city.

Often they're working apart. And we've found that it's amazing to

see them work together to make their communities a better place

to live. Internationally. One of the things we found we started

with a feeding program with children, but we found that the

mothers of these children would come to bring their kids and

they were just hanging around all day, while these kids were

in school. We feed the kids in school because that keeps them

in school, you don't feed them in school, parents have them out

on street corners, begging or scavenging our garbage heaps,

you know, convoy, typically what we'll do is provide one meal a

day, at school at lunch. And then for the weekends, they'll

take home rations for their family. But what we found was

the mothers were hanging around. And so we said, well, what if we

started a job training program, or the mothers so that we don't

have to feed their kids, they're feeding their own kids, and

every year 50,000 women go through the program.

That is awesome. Do you have a success story that

really touches your heart about a community. I'm sure there's

many, but is there a one at the top of your head that touches

your heart?

Yeah, I think, you know, our goal is not to go

to a community and stay. Our goal is to go to a community and

make sure that community is healthy, and then leave to go to

another community. And so one example would be in Nepal

following earthquake some years ago, convoy hook came in. And we

began working with the farmers to really expand their yield and

to show them what other crops they could be growing, that

would be financially lucrative for them. And over a course of a

couple of years, we were able to bring that community back to

health, we had a feeding program the kids, but they began feeding

themselves and began feeding their own kids. And so we moved

10 miles down the road to another village and to another

community. And then after that one became healthy, we went to

another community. And so I think that's one example, here

in the States. I think one of the things that we've done that,

and I say we I think collect, I say that collectively, I think

we've been able to activate churches, you know, churches

typically have a heart for what we're doing. The Bible commands

them to help the poor, but they don't necessarily have a track

to run on. And so one of the things I think we've been able

to do is not only introduce them to businesses, and civic groups

in their own community, but so that they can work together, but

also to activate them to show them what they can do. And I

believe that the church in America is almost like a

sleeping giant. I mean, there are millions of people who

attend churches of different faiths, who have a heart for

this, but they don't necessarily know what to do. And so across

America, I think we've been able to activate churches.

Yeah. Now, you mentioned at the beginning that

your parents didn't have life insurance didn't have insurance.

And this show is by no means even though we're a life

insurance car. But he is it really pushing life insurance?

I've seen being in the business now how having this protection

has helped so many families and not burden the kids and not

burden the spouse when something happens, but what's been your

experience with life insurance? And what you've seen over the

years, with your employees? And even the people that you serve?

Yeah, well, first of all the employees, we really

emphasize the importance of it, you know, we've lost some really

dear people, my lost during COVID, I lost six close friends

in a period of 14 months. And they were all healthy. You know.

And so it's very difficult to deal with that if you don't have

adequate life insurance. So I know you didn't ask for a plug.

But I am a strong believer. So I would say, internationally. And

even in the US, I have a deep concern that there are many

families that are our month to month, and they don't have

insurance of any kind. And it's as someone that had gone through

that in my teens, it's brutal. When you are not insured, it is

brutal. And so I couldn't say more that from a convoy

standpoint, our job is to keep people healthy. And once they

get healthy and get a job, then insurance certainly is an

important part of it. I'm a strong believer.

I get to see firsthand, being in the

business.

I'm a strong believer.

Yeah, so a lot of guests we've had on the program

come from families of backgrounds, of great legacy,

and great achievements, that find it sometimes challenging to

forge their own. What advice would you give to someone

struggling to identify kind of what their force is what their

dream is? I mean, what could you share that would give people

some optimism, of even if you're not there yet, of knowing what

you want to do in your life, what would you give people as

advice there?

Well, the first would be, don't be afraid to do

reconnaissance. You know, when I went to the eight cities, I

mean, that was recon, you can do reconnaissance in your

community, or other communities or someplace around the world,

you may go there and not know what you're going to see or what

you're gonna do. It may be right for you, it may not be right for

you. But all of us, all of us need to have something that goes

beyond our everyday work, we need something that we're also

investing in people were investing in. And a good way to

find that out is recon. The second thing is to create a

different kind of bucket list. My bucket list for years was I

want to go to Antarctica, I want to go to Wimbledon. I want to

walk the red carpet, you know those kinds of things. And but I

think in time, I began to realize that I needed a

different kind of bucket list. Those things were good, well and

good. And they're still on the bucket list. But then there's

another question is, what do I What kind of imprint do I want

to leave on the world? What good do I want to do for the world to

make it a better place? And to add that to your bucket list.

And I did that some years ago. And and that was in itself. The

whole exercise was really, I think instrumental and doing

what I'm doing now.

So what does the word legacy mean to you?

Again, I'm a person of faith. And so the

first word that comes to mind is obedience. And I believe God

puts ideas and opportunities in front of us. And so that would

be one. But secondly, is I want my children and grandchildren to

know that I was genuine, that I really did care about people.

And then I was the same person at home. As I was on stage. I

was the same person at home as I was in the refugee camps. I want

them to know that they didn't have three dads, they had one,

if I can leave with them that kind of imprint that he was

generous. He was kind, but he was always the same. And he

treated everybody the same way, then I've done something.

That's huge with your own family. What what type

of legacy would you like to leave with Conway of hope?

I've thought about that a lot. It certainly

in my age. I've thought about that a lot. And I want them to

know that, that we are stewards of this organization. We're not

owners, I believe that belongs to God. And there's things that

God wants to do for millions of people around the world. And so

we have a responsibility to operate at the highest level of

integrity to do what we say we're going to do. That's the

legacy. I want to leave with them.

So what's next?

Yeah, I think Conroy has some goals. And so

certainly want to see those achieved. We want to be feeding

a million children a day, and we want to be training 250,000

women and girls every year and 100,000 farmers. So those are

some goals that are out there. But in the United States, we

want to establish regional distribution centers. We have to

now but we want to become more regionalized because that will

allow us to help more people in those communities and help us

respond to disasters whenever there's a major disaster convoys

responding and so by having regional distribution centers

that were allow us to do more. And, and then on a personal

level, my first grandchild is being born. So having four

daughters, I guess we're grandchildren will come along.

And so I just want to spend more time with my kids and my

grandkids.

Awesome. So if someone wants to get involved,

or get a copy of your book or in some way just be attached to

what you're doing, how would they reach you?

Well the book is available. Amazon, Barnes and

Noble a lot of different ways. But convoy of oak.org they just

go to the website, they can get a hold of me or they can find

out volunteer opportunities or trips that we're taking around

the world. We encourage people to go to convoy of hope.org.

Awesome, you know, you touched my heart.

Thank you for having me. I really, really

appreciate it.