BIO: Dr. Chris Stout is a licensed clinical psychologist and international humanitarian with a diverse background in various domains. He is the Founding Director of the top-ranked nonprofit Center for Global Initiatives.
STORY: Two years after Chris started the Center for Global Initiatives, he met a couple who had a project for developmentally different children in orphanages in Ukraine. They wanted to collaborate with the center, and he said yes because the project looked good. Unfortunately, he realized that he couldn’t manage to take a week off every year to go to Ukraine. Chris had to back out of this project, which left him very emotional for not being able to help.
LEARNING: Plan for the end so that you know what happens when things don’t go well.
“Planning for the end will help you decide what happens when things don’t go well, and you need to make a pivot.”
Dr. Chris Stout
Guest profile
Dr. Chris Stout is a licensed clinical psychologist and international humanitarian with a diverse background in various domains. He is the Founding Director of the top-ranked nonprofit Center for Global Initiatives. He works as the Executive Producer and Host of the popular “Living a Life in Full” podcast, a top 5% show with an audience reach of 3 million+.
He was a Fellow in the School of Public Health and a Full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry in the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Before that, he held an academic appointment at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
Worst investment ever
Chris set out to summit all the Seven Summits, starting with Kilimanjaro. While at it, he met a seminarian, and they hit it off quickly. The two stayed in touch for years. At some point, the seminarian became the chaplain at two hospitals in Tanzania. Chris decided to help him and shipped several materials over for the kids for Christmas. The process cost him a fortune, and some materials got lost along the way.
Chris talked to his mentor about his desire to keep helping the children in Tanzania and the hurdles he faced. The mentor advised him to start a nonprofit organization and have people donate to support his cause. Chris got in touch with the mentor’s wife, a lawyer dealing with nonprofits. She made the IRS application and other applications and got the approval. Chris constituted a board and went out to do great charity projects worldwide.
In 2009, two years after he started the nonprofit, a couple from Ukraine came to him and told him they had a project they thought would be a good collaboration for his nonprofit. The project was to support developmentally different children in orphanages in Ukraine. The couple was applying for a grant from USAID, and one of the three-year grant requirements was a quarterly visit to Ukraine to assess the project. Chris was the one to be in charge of the projects. Unfortunately, he couldn’t take four weeks every year to attend to matters in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the nonprofit had to back out of this project which left Chris very emotional for not being able to help.
Lessons learned
- Plan for the end. Think about how what you’re getting into will end. Planning for the future will help you decide what happens when things don’t go well, and you need to make a pivot.
Chris’s recommended resources
- Center for Global Initiatives website has a tools and resources page for this interested in the nonprofit area. You’ll find tips, lectures, webinars, free downloadable books and articles, scientific articles, and more.
- The Living a Life in Full podcast for broader aspects such as startups, finance, travel, motorcycle art, and more.
No.1 goal for the next 12 months
Chris’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to have a better mindset of how to do what he feels he still needs to do with the remaining time.
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