Episode 12: Faith Based Charities

Dr. Mohamed Ashmawey worked in program management and leadership in the private sector for 20 years, with organizations such as General Motors and the National Bank of Egypt. Later he joined the nonprofit sector and was first appointed CEO of Islamic Relief USA, where he was credited with transforming the corporate culture of the NGO. He went on to become the CEO of Islamic Relief Worldwide, where he continued to lead quality improvements and organizational transformation. Since 2019, he has been serving as the CEO of Human Appeal, a British faith based humanitarian and development charity. He joins us from Manchester, UK.

He speaks to us about:

• differences between the corporate sector and the charity sector

• challenges to implementing organizational changes

• the advantages and disadvantages of being a faith based charity

• rejecting arrogance and working with humility

• the ongoing investigation of the Charity Commission into Human Appeal

• implementing accountability processes and practicing transparency

• the importance of investing in innovative research

• activity based approach vs. impact based approach

• redefining success

• the difference between leadership and management - and much more!

Transcript

Intro: The most important asset of any charity in the world, any NGO, is the trust of the people. Because why would anybody give us their hard earned money if they do not trust us? There are so many other charities that are competing for their donation. So I believe this is what happened in Human Appeal -they let the governance procedures become unfit for purpose. Now what I want is to build the best infrastructure in the world, that can be a role model for every charity in the world - faith based or not.

Safa: Welcome back to the Rethinking Development Podcast. My name is Safa and I'm your host. Thank you for joining me as we speak with and learn from practitioners of all career stages and organizational affiliations around the world. In our conversations, we aim to rethink ethical behavior and best practices through the lived experiences and personal reflections of different practitioners. Today, our guest is Dr. Mohamed Ashmawey. Dr. Ashmawey initially worked in program management and leadership in the private sector for 20 years, with organizations such as General Motors and the National Bank of Egypt to name a few. Later on, he joined the nonprofit sector and was first appointed Chief Executive Officer of Islamic Relief USA, where he was credited with transforming the corporate culture of the NGO. Afterwards, he went on to become the CEO of Islamic Relief Worldwide, where he continued to lead quality improvements and organizational transformation. Since 2019, he has been serving as the CEO of Human Appeal, a British faith based humanitarian and development charity working in 17 countries globally. Dr. Ashmawey, thank you so much for joining me today.

Mohamed: Thank you Safa, so nice to be with you here.

Safa: Thank you so much, we really appreciated it. To begin the conversation, could you share a bit with us about your your background or your upbringing and what you were first interested in pursuing when it came to your career, in the earlier stage?

Mohamed : Well, I'm originally Egyptian, but I lived most of my life in the United States. My wife and I were married in 1982, we came to the United States to pursue a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland. And so we lived there for like, five, six years. And then I joined General Motors and we moved to Michigan and we lived there 18 years - very long career with them. During that time, while I'm working there, I was volunteering in the charitable sector, nonprofit sector - at the same time studying leadership in General Motors, General Motors always like to promote from within. So when someone suggested that I come aboard a charity as full time, I jumped at the opportunity. And this is how my career in the charitable world started. I've learned a lot of lessons over the time, but I really believe that the charitable world needs more attention from all of us.

Safa: So you mentioned your transition to the nonprofit charitable sector. In your your first roles - for example, working with Islamic Relief USA, what were some of the observations you had or the issues you saw that you thought really need to maybe change or be improved? Whether that's in terms of organizational management, or policies or work culture? What did you notice is maybe some of the big differences between your previous experience in the corporate sector and what you were noticing and observing in the charitable sector in this organization?

Mohamed: Well, in general, I noticed that most of the charities of the world - Muslim and non Muslim - have started with volunteers, with good hearted people who wanted to help their fellow human beings and who have seen miseries around the world and thought that we should do something about it. So this started by informing those around them, you know, and collecting some funds and going and helping these people - sometimes literally carrying the money with them. We're talking 20, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, when most of these charities started. They never thought about infrastructure, they never thought about like a communication department, for example, because they were trying to save as much money as possible to do the right things - to take it to those who are really in need. Forgetting, for example, that as they grow, they may outgrow the processes that they've been using. They are now dealing with millions of dollars, money in and money out, there should be checks and balances, you know, people will be asking questions. They're not necessarily hiring angels all the time - so there should be some kind of audits, you know, compliance, policies, procedures and so on and so forth. So this is where I believe people from the private sector should try to help those charities, with all the knowledge that they've had. This is one part of it. The second part is specifically for the Muslim faith, there is a misunderstanding of a saying of our Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him, which says that the best among you is the person who would give to the poor with his or her right hand in secrecy, without bragging about it -to the point that even his or her left hand would not even know about - that kind of confidentiality, because you're really doing it to please the Lord and not to brag about it. Unfortunately, so many charities in the sector understood that wrongly, they did not tell the world what they have done with their monies to the donors. And this is very wrong, this may apply to an individual, it should not apply to a charity. So one of the first shocks that I had Safa, when I joined Islamic Relief USA, and I'd been donating to them and volunteering with them, and dah, dah, dah - I'd never knew all the great work that they had been doing before. And I was shocked - I said, guys, you're committing a crime against your own organization by not telling us, by not telling the world the good work that you're doing.

Safa: So when it comes to these type of observations, and the changes that you thought were necessary to make - it often takes time to really implement these new policies, build the infrastructure. What were some of the challenges you faced or what was it like to really share these thoughts and ask your colleagues to take action and create a whole new approach to to the work?

Mohamed: Yeah, the main challenge was usually from within - resistance for change. We've been doing it this way for so many years, and we've been successful, and we've been growing. So why are you here trying to make us change this? Why are you trying to ask us to spend time now documenting processes? We'd rather use the time to help the poor. Why do we need to develop all these policies and procedures? Why do we need to add another department called the audit department or the compliance department? Why waste any money hiring these people? You know, it takes some time to convince your colleagues about the benefit of all these professional changes that I wanted to make in some organizations that I worked in. Besides, of course, the fact that some, like for example the Board of Trustees, they're expecting things to happen much faster than reality. As you mentioned, these things take time - you sow the seeds, and it takes some time to change the culture. The most difficult thing in the world is to change the culture of people, people who are used to doing things a certain way. Now you want them to do it in a different way, and you want them to be convinced when they're doing that. So it takes some time to see results and difference. But when I joined, as an ex General Motors, successful manager, and you know, organization manager in the largest company on Earth at that time, GM - they were expecting things to happen overnight. Things just don't happen that way. When you're dealing with human beings, it's not like you can push a button and things happen. You have to convince people, you have to work with them day in and day out, you have to be patient, and you have to gain or earn their trust and respect. So when you ask them to do something out of the ordinary from their point of view, then they will listen and they will try it.

Safa: Absolutely. So speaking of trust, you know, in the whole nonprofit ecosystem, there are different actors. There are, of course, faith based organizations. There are other types of NGOs, governments, private sector - all different type of actors. But when it comes specifically to being a faith based organization or working with a faith based organization, what would you say are some of the maybe challenges but also advantages that faith based organizations have, especially when it comes to building trust, not only within the organization, but with the communities you're trying to serve, you're trying to work with?

Mohamed: Well, let's start with the advantages because they're easier and shorter a little bit (laughs). The disadvantages are so many. As far as the advantages are concerned, people in the poorer countries, they have way more trust in charitable organizations, especially faith based organizations than they have for example for corporations and even governments. So we have easier access to the hearts of the people that we're trying to serve, to the different villages, remote villages around countries where we are trying to serve. Just because people believe that faith - all faiths in the world are calling people to be better, to do good. So they, they start by trusting you - unless, of course, you prove to them that you're not trustworthy. So this eases things a little bit, especially for an organization like Human Appeal, where I'm honored to be working right now. We're working in some of the most difficult parts of the worlds and going there while there are wars - we are talking Yemen, we're talking Syria, Somalia, you know, hostile places in the world, you definitely need to have a minimum amount of trust between you and the beneficiaries. And those who you are going to serve over there, to be able to do your job. As far as this advantage is concerned, well, especially, unfortunately, for the Muslim faith based organizations, the fact that you wake up every day and and everybody assumes that that there is something wrong with your organization, just because of the image that is unfortunately propagated around the world - and I always said that, even in the United Nations, I stood up one day in New York, and I said, guys, it seems like my first job every day in the morning as a CEO of a large Muslim charity is to tell the world I'm still not a terrorist, yet. One more day, where I am only a charitable humanitarian actor - it seems like this is the image, unfortunately, that I have to fight against every single day. Sometimes it is very difficult to do the job, you want to help save lives - literally save lives in the most difficult parts of the world, and you transfer money to your field office, and the money is rejected, returned back by the banks or the middle banks, and the always quote, you know, compliance and we cannot share any more than that. The challenges are so many Safa. I do remember one day I went to a major, major bank to the vice president in London, I'm not gonna share the name here, and I said, Sir, why is my money taking more than a month to reach my own field office? Do you do that with other organizations like Oxfam, for example? He said, of course, not Mohamed. And I said, why? He said, because you're Islamic. It's as simple as that. At least he was honest. I mean, I love the man for being so honest and open. He said, we have to check a hundred times before we send your monies. Otherwise, we may, you know, get penalties from different countries around the world, and so on. So the challenges are so many unfortunately.

Safa: Mm hmm. Yes, absolutely, very difficult. Speaking of money, and fundraising and raising money - of course, in the fundraising process, there's sometimes also a politics to it. And in different ways, there are sometimes criticisms about where money comes from, where it's used, how it's used, the whole process - could you speak to us a bit about your own thoughts on the whole process of fundraising and the different ethical issues that are involved in it?

Mohamed: Well, Human Appeal, just like every other charity in the world is politically neutral. But we appreciate that the context that the situations or interventions are born out of are not - where we see an opportunity to help people who are in need, then as long as we don't compromise our own humanitarian values, we will work with whoever it takes in order to reach them. I'm honored to be working in Human Appeal, which is an organization that has chosen to always work in some of the most difficult parts of the world. And the nature of the work means that a breach of ethics in our sector, the NGO sector, versus the corporate world, represents a great failure - because people are just expecting way more from a humanitarian organization - they're expecting passion, and they're expecting you not to be working just nine to five, they're expecting you to be much more involved in the lives that you're trying to save. And I always say that to my colleagues, imagine that your own daughter, your own son is stuck somewhere in the middle of that war, what would you want the world to do to save them? So think about that, consider every child, consider every person who needs our help as either your own child or your own mother or your own father or your own relative and treat them as such. And if you think that way, every day, you know the expectations from the donors are also very, very high- expecting you to behave as such. And unfortunately, when they see that maybe a bad behavior happens from one individual in a small charity here or there, or even a big charity here or there - and we've seen so many of these scandals in the newspapers. Unfortunately, they generalize, they assume that all charities are the same. They're all doing the same thing. But we need to keep in mind that we're not hiring angels, we're hiring human beings. So there is a 50/ 50 chance that some of them may not be as good as they claim to be in their CVs or in their history. The good thing about the charity is, however, that you create the checks and balances to ensure that the monies do not go to the to the wrong hands, either to some of the individuals to benefit from it themselves, or to people who should not be getting this money's - like terrorists in some countries or whatever.

Safa: You know, speaking about fundraising processes, and also the need to address poverty, chronic poverty, the crisis of poverty - some people also criticize just the charity model, not just only speaking about faith based organizations, but just generally the charity model -for a variety of reasons, but one of them being that a charity model doesn't fundamentally address the more structural causes of poverty, short term fundraising or just giving money, it doesn't really take into account all the reasons historically, and also up to the current day that produce and maintain poverty in so many communities. Could you share your thoughts a bit about how you've seen the charity model work, what you think it can address or your own thoughts about maybe addressing more root causes, rather than just providing maybe short term or or band aid solutions to the crisis of poverty?

Mohamed: Yeah, this is a very good question, Safa. Thank you so much for asking that question. Because I agree. Unfortunately, I agree. I've seen so many charities that are very happy to go every single day and feed the same families again and again and again. And this is not right. According to, again, my faith, in the Quran, God says, we've dignified the children of Adam - meaning all of us and all the children of Adam, white, and black and yellow, and all colors, men and women, old and young - all of us are dignified by the Lord, the creator of this universe. How can a person be dignified if they spread their hand every day, to ask for food? It's completely degrading. So this is why, since I joined the charitable world, I've put dignity of human beings that we are serving in the middle of everything that we're doing. I don't want to go and serve the same family again and again and again. I want them to be self sustained, so they would not need me tomorrow. Because the world is full of poverty, I'm never gonna run out of areas where I can serve. And this is why I always told the trustees and my colleagues that I don't want to be judged according to the amount of money that I collect every year, or even the number of people that I serve every year - I'd rather be judged by the number of people that our organization was able to lift out of poverty forever. So they would never need us again. And I believe that this should be the model for all charitable organizations. Granted, part of our work is emergency response, right? So in the humanitarian part you just cannot think about the development of a society so they will never need you in the future. You have to do the necessary things to save lives in the short term today, but right after that, you have to think how can these people live a better life tomorrow, without need for our support? And the examples of so many. In Beirut, the latest blast nearly two months ago, our emergency response is still going on - but we are turning it now from initial emergency response into a proper phased plan for people's recovery. So they would not again need the help, the band aid solutions that you were talking about. When one of our fundraisers, my colleagues visited Pakistan, they visited one of the poorest regions of Pakistan, it's called Tharparka, and it's desert and there are villages there that you just cannot believe the poverty. Once they came back, we had major, major meetings where we've been thinking about how can we lift these people out of their situation forever? And we started developing one village after the other. We're not talking about giving people food baskets, we're talking about staying in a village for as long as it takes spending as much money as it needs. But when you leave, you know there is running water and clean and everybody has access to it, there is schools that are running and children are learning there, there are hospitals that are running and people are benefiting from them. The roads are paved, everybody has a beautiful, respectful house that would respect their culture, and the most important, everybody has a job. We train everybody, and we find solutions for their income generation. So they would not need again in the future. That's the beauty. This is what they call integrated sustainable development. We're implementing that day in and day out in Tharparkar .

Safa: Mm hmm. Speaking of integrated sustainable development approaches, often that also requires building partnerships, partnerships with governments, with other civil society actors. Could you share a bit about your own experiences with building partnerships, especially maybe in contexts where maybe the government is not democratic, or there are challenges, what have been your experiences with that aspect of the work?

Mohamed: Well, we have to work with governments around the world and global bodies in order to carry out our work. So you have to be very tactful, you have to be very respectful of the local situation. And when you work in charity, you learn a lot about the world and how it is functioning. And it's quite different from one country to the other, and sometimes from one region to the other, or one city to the other. And if you do not go with complete respect for the culture of the area that you're going to be working in, and those who are in power in that part of the world - without jeopardizing any of the United Nations standards, then you're just not going to be welcomed, you're not going to be able to do your job, especially when you're trying to do something a little bit more sensitive. Like for example, gender based violence, stuff like that, you have to respect the culture of the people, and how you can slowly change the minds of the people there - respecting the current situation is very important for us to succeed. For example, a relationship with academia, the private sector, would be extremely beneficial. I remember a story about a project that we were doing - this is before the time of Human Appeal - in Mali, for example, and we were drilling a well in the middle of the desert. And you know, in certain parts of Mali, there are nomadic people who live a completely different life than what we live in the West, they keep going around, looking for water and graze for their animals, and so on, all year long. And they've done that for thousands of years, thousands of years. And very successfully, they know exactly the seasons, the rain seasons and so on. And they know exactly when the rain is going to come and where and they arrange for it, and so on. But when we went there drilling a well for them, there was this very, very old man just crouching on the ground, just watching and smiling for like two weeks. And then at the end, when the well was completed, he stood up and he hugged each person in the team and he thanked all of them. And then with the translator, he said, you know what, thank you very much for this beautiful well, I never imagined in this part of the world, that we would see a well - but nobody is going to be using it. And they looked at each other. And they said why? And he said, because we don't live in one place for long. We're leaving next week for another year, we're not going to come back to this area. So respect the local experience, do understand that they know better what they need, ask them what they need, you know, do your needs assessment, not according to the way you live in the West, rather, according to the way that they are used to live and how unfortunately, climate change that we were the cause of, has caused them now to not be able to predict their seasons, for example. So we caused the problem yet we still go with arrogance, trying to solve the problem saying " I know the solution for your problem, I am going to tell you how I can solve your problem."

Safa: And sometimes even if organizations or individuals ground their work in that perspective, despite that, at a organizational level, sometimes that's not really implemented sincerely, or maybe in the communications that's not the type of message thats sent. Do you find that that type of arrogance, as you said, or that type of thinking that oh, we know best, it's something that you see again, and again - not maybe only in the organizations you've been with, but just generally in the sector?

Mohamed: Generally, yes, unfortunately. And you can tell - in the year 2000 as you know Safa, the United Nations met and they said that we've been going up and down the moon, we've been so advanced technologically, yet there is still poverty on Earth, shame on us as human beings, let's eradicate poverty, eradicate hunger, eradicate this, and that. And they created what they call the MDGs, Millennium Development Goals. There were like eight goals, whereby in 15 years time, the world is going to be a much nicer, much better world with no poverty, no hunger, no child without education until at least elementary school or primary school, no women will lose her life having a child, and so on, so many beautiful, beautiful goals. And yet, unfortunately, again, with the mentality that they did not involve the local communities, they did not even involve charities, humanitarian actors during that time. And by the year, 2013 , 12 years in the 15 year plan, they noticed that they did not succeed well enough. So they started meeting again, at that time, I was the CEO of Islamic Relief Worldwide. And it's the largest Muslim nonprofit organization, so I was attending so many meetings, and I mentioned that I said, Guys, maybe, maybe we as the world, as humanity did not succeed, because number one, we did not involve local communities who we are going to serve, by the way. And number two, we did not involve the charities that are dearest and closest to their hearts - let us work together, let us forget about thinking that we know it all, we know exactly what is needed. Frankly, we don't. We have to learn from them. They've lived their lives much better without us. The changes that happened in the world, the major, major gaps that happen now between poor and rich, and the climate change and things like that has made their lives more difficult. So let us respect them, let us learn from them. Let us try to work together with them in harmony, try to resolve their issues. So it would be better. And now United Nations has the Sustainable Development Goals - the new 15 years, from 2015 to 2030, hopefully, if we learned our lesson, we will do a better job these 15 years rather than the first 15.

Safa: Mm hmm. Speaking of those, those meetings that you are a part of, and just generally the power of some donor governments to kind of set the global development agenda or really influence where and how money spent in some ways. And just thinking about the history of colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, and how that continues to play out in many different contexts. What have been your observations, your thoughts with the way that that history - and also the way it continues to play out - really shapes and impacts the sector and the way that organizations work? That context, that political, economic, social context influences the different activities that are undertaken.

Mohamed: Well let us not put our head in the sand here. This is reality. And this is why if you recall, in the very beginning of our conversation, today, we talked about beneficiaries trusting charities more than governments or corporations, sometimes even international organizations. And that is because people did not forget the times when they were occupied in the past. And granted, you know, things change and new generations come and hopefully, all of us are much, much better human beings. We're all learning, we're all rejecting the past that we've had. But some people still remember, some people are still influenced by that. So when you go there with respect, with no arrogance, and with a partnership spirit, like let's work together to make your life better, not like you know, I don't know whether you've seen the movie Matilda - her father is always saying, Hey, listen, I'm big, you're small, I'm rich, you're poor, I'm strong, you're weak, and there's nothing you can do about that. That's not the attitude. When you're going to serve people, do understand that they matter. It's not just your own ego or your own self satisfaction that you've helped somebody today. How did you help them? Did you really make a difference in their lives or not? Do you understand the way they're looking at you? And did you respect that? And did you try to change that view of you a Western organization for example. By the way, there are positives. I've seen so much effort put in trying to integrate the west with the east, the north with the south, trying to integrate thousand organizations, even some major major charities around the world have moved their headquarters from Europe to Africa in a major statement - and I really respect that very much - trying to see guys, if we're serving these people over there, what are we doing in Europe? Let us move our headquarters, and several actually, more than one have done that. So I believe that it is about time for us all as one big family, brothers and sisters in humanity, to respect each other, regardless of our ethnic background or color of our skin, or education. Because frankly, none of us chose the family that we were born in. Nobody, nobody in the middle of a camp in Africa, a refugee camp has chosen to be born to a family who lives there, versus the child who was born in Geneva - none of them chose where to be born. And don't give me "it's so easy to just get outside this poverty" - no, it's a vicious circle, it's so difficult. If you find yourself born in poverty, and lack of health systems and lack of education. You know that there are camps in Kenya that are more than 50 years old now. Meaning two generations have been born and lived all their lives in this camp, eating the same food every day, never seen the world outside, never been in a car, never been on a plane, never been in a university. These people are our brothers and sisters in humanity, and God is going to ask us about them one day.

Safa: Earlier, you mentioned that you don't measure your organizational success by the amount of money you raise, or the number of people that you support, your definition of successes is different. And you've also previously mentioned in other interviews that you kind of make a distinction between an activity based approach and impact based approach. Could you speak to those two approaches a bit and how you define success in this sector, in this work for yourself?

Mohamed: Yeah, I've seen this when I first joined the charitable world, people kept talking about the activities that they've done. You know, we distributed hundred food baskets today. And the next day, we distributed hygiene kits, and the next day we, you know, did this or that. And then I started asking well did this really make a difference in the lives of the people? Why don't we think about the impact? I know of a story. One of the trustees told me this story when I first joined Islamic Relief Worldwide - in Birmingham, UK, he had wanted to make sure that their work was really beneficial on the ground. So he went to Africa himself, voluntary, I mean, he paid for himself. And he went and visited some of the projects that were done on the ground. And he visited a place - it was literally brick and mortar in the middle of a desert. That was supposed to be a hospital. But there was nobody there. It was just walls, no beds, no medicine, no nurses, no doctors, nobody. It was a beautiful activity that we've done one day long, long ago, and photos were taken and a report was written and a video maybe produced. And we gave it to the donors and everybody was happy. But nobody benefited from that hospital since. And I'm afraid there are so many examples like that all around the world. If people are honest with themselves, and honest with us, they will tell us these kinds of stories. So since that day, I started asking my colleagues, what is going to be the impact of every project that we are doing? Again, Safa, granted, when we're doing an emergency response it's a bit different than that. But if it is not an emergency response, how long will this project survive? Is it going to be survivable? Is it going to be sustainable for the long run? How are you going to ensure that people are going to benefit from it in the long run? Is it only a matter of drilling a well for people to get some clean water for a year? And then it will be filled with sand and useless again, as long as you already got your photos and your your report? Or are you really making a difference that is survivable, that can can last after you die? And it's still there serving people? Is that the case or not? So we started changing the way that we're doing our projects, the way you look at every project, how you design it, and how you ensure sustainability. And I'm glad to say that the United Nations have also recognized that and cared about it the point that the new goals, as I mentioned, 2015 to 2030 are called SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals. We want sustainable development. And this is what again, we're trying to do in areas like for Tharparkar, on the mountains, in Kashmir, in Pakistan. We found the one trainer in this entire area, who knows how to train farmers on honeybee, honey production. This person taught the farmers the skills to keep their own bee farms, and the business skills needed to sell successfully at market. And now there are hundreds of farmers in the mountains of Kashmir who are producing beautiful, beautiful honey. Unfortunately, it's all sold in Pakistan, because people love it so much, we don't even have enough to bring to the United Kingdom, for example, where I live here, but this is the kind of sustainable livelihood, that can be passed on to other communities. And, you know, through generations. These farmers now have their own business. And they're happy with it. And they're not going to need this again. That's the impact that I'm looking for.

Safa: Yes, absolutely. Speaking about having their own business - and earlier, you spoke about creating job opportunities, and just in your own experience working in the private sector, you know, sometimes people speak about oh, there are a lot of things we can learn from the private sector, implement in the nonprofit sector. But of course, each sector has its own ethical issues and its own problems. But when you think about the type of profit incentives, or just the whole growth mindset of constantly growing that is dominant in the corporate sector, what do you think are the ways in which the corporate sector has things to learn from the nonprofit sector or the ways that generally both have to change in a way because, as you mentioned, climate change, a lot of the climate change challenges that we experience are driven by factories, by industrialization. So there are a lot of different ethical issues involved. But when you think about the economic system in a lot of countries, or the global economic system, what are your thoughts about maybe the ways that that also needs to be addressed, improved, structurally changed?

Mohamed: Yeah, I believe both sectors can learn from each other a lot. I always say that I run my charity like I would run a business, the only difference is that we don't make profit, all the profits go to the beneficiaries. I always like to reward my people, when they go above and beyond. And when they fall short, I will hold them accountable, but teach them and give them the opportunity to improve, I'm very patient with my colleagues. As I mentioned, I want all staff to see every child we help as their own, I believe that investing time and money instead bring rewards for them and for our beneficiaries. On the other hand, when we're looking at the for profit world, I would like it to be a little bit more compassionate about what they're doing. It should not be only the quarterly results, and the dividends to the shareholders, that are the only measures of success, what have you done to make the world better around you should be also very important. Sometimes cooperation between both sectors and the governments as well. Like, for example, in California, where my family lives, the government is insisting now that all cars should have no pollution by 2035. This besides automotive industry, besides maybe a charitable representative or representation, we would work together hand in hand to develop things. Academia in this area as well. I have not seen this unfortunately - I see all the universities around the world are developing so many new ideas and solutions to make the world better for the rich. Or at least for the comfortable people. I haven't seen so many universities developing, for example, a lighter tent for the nomadic people. A tent that is warmer in the winter and, and cooler the summer. I haven't seen so many universities investing money to do research to find a solution for the toilets in the middle of a war. When people have literally lost their houses, sleeping in the streets, under trees and need to go to the bathroom - how are they going to do that? How are they going to get clean water? Nobody thinks about these things because they're the poor people. They don't matter anymore, unfortunately. But what matters is, you know, the rich guys that we have to think about how to make the toilet less noisy for them. So we do research and we spent a lot of money to create a less noisy toilet or less water usage, and so on and so forth - I'm talking about every single part of our lives, we have to think, as a big family, and respect those who cannot help themselves. It was not their choice, but they are still our brothers and sisters in humanity. If every individual in the world thinks this way, eventually they will find a way of helping, not just by, again, donating but coming up with research, with solutions, true solutions that can make a difference in the world. Imagine that a tsunami happened. And there is this small village that is now running away from the floods, and they're going up a mountain, and one of these people has diabetes, they could not take their insulin with them, because they were all running for the lives, how are we going to deliver insulin to them? Maybe using drones? think outside the box, maybe using satellites. You know, we want to think as a family, if my own child is up there on this mountain and needs support, then I would love to see the major corporations thinking - because they have the capability. Charitable organizations just cannot do that, we are so much entrusted with donor money, we have to spend it where the donor requested, we just cannot do this search, for example. Universities can, major corporations can, they can come up with solutions for these kinds of problems.

Safa: Yes, absolutely. Very important point. You know, earlier, you mentioned the the importance of having an auditor or financial transparency. And now to kind of shift a bit to how in 2019, you joined Human Appeal. And at that time, or even a bit earlier, the organization had been under investigation by the Charity Commission in the UK for some serious failures to account for funds or adhere to policies and procedures. And you came in you know, after this. Could you speak to us a bit about why you decided to come in at such a sensitive time and what that investigation process has been like for your organization, or maybe what you've learned from that process?

Mohamed: Yes, thank you. I believe Human Appeal was the victim of its own success. They've grown too big too quickly. And this happens with every organization or even company in the world - Toyota went through the same and their CEO admitted to the world that their policies and their culture was not growing as fast as their success. Same happened with Human Appeal - the processes of the past, the processes that any charity needs, when they're making 1 -2 or 5 million, is quite different than when you start hitting 30 and 40 million pounds or dollars - you need to change your procedures, policies, processes, audit department, you're going to need an audit department, you're gonna need a compliance department. And you need to train your leaders to be able to work at this level. And you understand also that the eyes are watching everything you're doing. You're not a small baby anymore, you're not a small charity anymore. You are in the middle of a huge world that is watching every penny in and every penny out for every charity. The most important assets of any charity in the world, any NGO is the trust of the people. Because why would anybody give us their hard earned money if they don't trust us? There are so many other charities that are competing for their donation. So I believe this is what happened in Human Appeal. They had let their governance procedures become unfit for purpose. And this is something that I'm working on day in and day out since I joined. And this is what has caused some whistle blowing from some employees. The trustees took it very, very seriously immediately. They hired an external auditor. And by the way, they're like the most difficult auditor in the country here. They're very thorough, very professional, to do a full forensic audit. And then they referred themselves to the Charity Commission. They did that voluntarily. I love that. And this is why when I heard about all these stories and the challenges that organization went through and we at that time, we lost the CEO and two directors within weeks, and I was working with another charity as a senior management consultant. I believed that I can make a difference here so I chose to leave my job and to come to Human Appeal myself, because I wanted to take this challenge. It needed a lot of changes in their infrastructure. And as I mentioned before, I don't care about the amount of money that I collect now. What I want is to build the best infrastructure in the world that would be a role model for every charity in the world - faith based or not, it does not matter, Muslim or not, it does not matter. But it's the best infrastructure whereby you can build the highest, most beautiful tower after that. Without that infrastructure, a little bit of wind would destroy your tower, no matter how high it is, if you don't have the correct infrastructure, deep enough into the ground of your organization, into the hearts of everybody, into the culture of everybody. So I had a task of changing the culture of the entire organization of my respective colleagues, and a test of developing this infrastructure in cooperation with the trustees and all the respected brothers and sisters in this organization. We brought new trustees with experience in relevant fields, we reviewed our HR induction processes, we hired the Global Security Manager, hiring global roles, for example, now we have certain positions that we never had before. We have, for example, an International Finance Coordinator, who travels around the world all year long. Every month, he visits a different field office, and he has the authorities of the CEO, to open every book, every computer, check all the bank accounts, review all the income, money in and money out, all the expenses, and report back to the headquarters on a weekly basis, what his findings are, and report on the income of every field office and the expenses of every field office as well. We have these kinds of new roles in the organization, so many of them now have been developed in the headquarters as well as in the field offices, and as part of the change of the culture, I have been meeting with my respected colleagues several times discussing transparency, accountability, I told them that transparency is our middle name. This is how we are going to be running this organization, no matter how bad a behavior was report it for God's sake. The Charity Commission understands that we are not hiring angels, we are hiring human beings. Hence, they may make mistakes, just don't hide the mistake. What really bothers the Charity Commission, and I agree with them is that if somebody makes a mistake, they try to hide it. I don't hide anything. I even sarcastically went to the field offices, and I said, if somebody coughs or sneezes in your field office, for God's sake report it to me, we're gonna report as many incidents as possible to the Charity Commission, let them choose whether they want to discuss it or not, whether they want to consider it and investigate it, but don't make the decision on their behalf. The important thing for the Charity Commission is not that you would not make mistakes, they know that we're all human beings, human beings, by definition, they make mistakes, we're not angels. But the important thing is, number one, don't hide it, be transparent about it. Number two, accountability -whoever made a mistake should be accountable for it. And number three, change your processes in such a way that the same mistake would not happen again. Once you have all these things aligned, things are going to be different. Now after I joined by like a few months, the Charity Commission came and visited us in the office - there were supposed to be four people coming from the Charity Commission and spending three full days in our headquarters. It was really very tense. As you can imagine, stressful for us to prepare for this meeting, when the Charity Commission comes with four leaders from the Charity Commission to spend three full days in your offices, this is really serious, you know. So we did prepare ourselves very well. And once they came, and they started spending some time asking questions, opening different files, checking reports, and so on and so forth, I am glad to report that after a day and a half, they called me in the room and we gave them the board room to work from, and they were calling different employees all the time. But they called me and they said, Mohamed, you've done a good job here. We're happy with what we saw. We don't we believe that we need to complete the three days anymore. So after one and a half days, they chose to leave. Now granted, we've not see their final report yet. But it was a good indication that they did not find anything major that would warn them or worry them during their visit in our headquarters. So we are moving in the right direction. We are changing the culture in the organization. We're changing the leadership in the organization. We are implementing all the processes and the policies and the procedures and the best practices from around In the world, and we are a much, much better organization now.

Safa: One part of this process, I guess, is winning their trust or you know, seeing what they have to say about the situation. But the other side is also the relationship that you have with donors, with the community and rebuilding that trust. And you, of course, spoke about the real commitment to this type of structural overhaul, to really change the work culture - could you share a bit about what it's been like to also address or try to rebuild the relationship that the organization has with the community, with the sector?

Mohamed: Yeah, I personally went and visited so many of the leaders of the communities in London and in other cities, and I explained to them, what I'm trying to do and what the trustees requested from me. And they were all very elated, very happy, because they all trusted and love Human Appeal and they did not like the fact that, you know, we went through this thank god short turmoil. And I explained to them exactly my expectations, and they've been watching. very closely, very thoroughly what we are doing. I'm glad to report that this has shown in our results, in the income, which again, means trust in my book, income means trust, again, a donor would not give us their hard earned money unless they trust that we're going to number one, be very honest about the way we deal with that money. And number two, that it will go much further than any other charity to benefit people. So we are working on that. Besides, as I mentioned, transparency, transparency, transparency, being the middle name of our organization. We have, for example, developed and published a trust report, we had a trust campaign whereby we showed our donors exactly how we deal with every penny that we receive, and how much is our admin cost and for what reasons and how did their money benefit the organization to develop its infrastructure, but also benefited every beneficiary in the field. So being transparent, even with the donors and telling them the entire story, not hiding anything, and showing them the steps that you're taking to ensure that whatever happened before, would never happen again in Human Appeal - whether I'm here or not, does not matter. The organization is what matters. This is exactly what I'm trying to do here, to ensure that every individual, every leader that we hire, have the same kind of values and mentality to ensure harmony among the the entire organization.

Safa: You also mentioned that you're still waiting on the I guess, final report from the Charity Commission, could you speak a bit about maybe what the steps are or maybe what the potential consequences are of such a process, of this investigation process?

Mohamed: I remember when I was with Islamic Relief, before the time I spent here with Human Appeal - I spent four years there as the CEO, global CEO of the entire family. And again, I made the same kind of infrastructure changes, maybe not as hard as in Human Appeal, but still. And I'm very proud that one month after my contract ended and I returned back to the United States, the Charity Commission decided to do a forensic investigation of Islamic Relief. And they spent like three or four months there, my contract ended maybe February 2016, so they started in April 2016, for like three or four months. They brought a whole team to work there. And they studied everything in this organization. And I'm very proud to say that at the end of their investigation, they came back and said, Islamic Relief, we want you to change nothing. We're very happy with everything we saw. That's exactly what I'm hoping we can do here - granted, their investigation here in Human Appeal happened before my time - I came right after the investigation was completed. And unfortunately, the report has not been published yet. We are very hopeful that it would come out as soon as possible. But there's not much that I can do about the past. What I can do is to ensure that the future is going to be much brighter, much better, than what the past was. And it will continue to be like that. And every day it will be a continuous improvement attitude where we are always better than the day before. In one aspect or the other. You know in our admin costs, in our reach, in our access, in our help to those who cannot help themselves, and so on and so forth - what happens has happened, we have no choice, but to accept it. But again, I try to prove to the Charity Commission when they honored us with a visit to our headquarters, that this organization is quite different than the one you've investigated just few months ago. And I believe that this is what they went home with, I hope that this is what they think. Because a few weeks later, they've lifted the the mandate that they had about us not doing international projects, for example, new projects. This says something, this says that they've seen something that made them happy. So we're very hopeful. But we understand that with COVID-19 people were furloughed, maybe we don't know, people are overwhelmed with the number of charities that they're investigating. And they just don't have enough time to completely come up with our report. But we're very hopeful.

Safa: One other thing I'd also like to touch on is that in many of these roles, or in all of these roles, you've really been in a position of leadership, as a CEO, as a leader - could you speak to us a bit about what it's like to be in that position, or what you think the key characteristics are of excelling in that position? Oftentimes, there is kind of a lack of great leadership, there's so many leaders who in different ways don't live up to their promises - or just thinking about the role of a leader, being a leader in difficult times, in very challenging times, what have been your experiences? Or maybe what are some of the key elements that really guide your work?

Mohamed: Yeah, leadership is a bit different than management, Safa. A leader, by definition, is the person who is in the very front of the road and everyone is following her or him. A leader is the person who does not wait. I will say this to my colleagues, does not wait until a problem happens, and then starts to think how can we solve it? A very good manager would solve it fast. But a leader predicts that it may happen. Sees, has a vision of seeing problems before they happen, and try to prepare their organization accordingly. To be prepared for risks that may come and and how can we be much more fast in responding before the fact. Let me give you an example. COVID-19, we had seen it happening in China, it was creeping outside China towards some parts of the world. We did not wait until it hit the United Kingdom. What we did is, for example, we started doing drills in our headquarters. What happens if one of us becomes infected? What is going to happen? We're all gonna be running towards our homes and working from home. Well, do we have a fast WiFi in every house? Do we have laptops in every house, where everybody would be able to do that? So we started to do drills. And I would send an email to all the employees saying someone has just got COVID, please act. And that's it. And we used the stopwatch to check how fast would people be able to move back safely to their homes and login to the system and continue to work? Because there are lives that are waiting for us to save every day - we just cannot afford to lock down everything in the office. How can we do that? So we've prepared ourselves much earlier - this is leadership. You don't wait something the government comes and says starting tomorrow, which is happening every now and then now, the rules are changing very fast. Everybody's learning, you know, it's a new thing for all of us, governments and individuals. So you don't wait until this happens. And then you find yourself scrambling, how are you gonna send people home? Do these people have laptops? Do they have, you know, internet access at home and what kind of security system we're going to be doing? That's not leadership, you have to be very well prepared, and we were and thank God, our organization has not suffered one moment, not one day, one moment of paralyzed actions because we were very well prepared, the entire leadership team of the organization, we prepared ourselves very well. A leader also has to have passion. You have to have respect - people respect their leader and trust their leader. If they don't trust the leader and respect the leader, they're never going to follow her or him- if a leader does not have passion about the cause - to create the right balance when they're hiring people between talent and passion. That's how leaders succeed. A leader has to be accountable and hold their people accountable as well. So when I'm choosing the leadership of the organization, I have to be very careful about who has the skills to be a leader. Again, regardless of their gender, regardless of their ethnic background, and age, I don't care if they show leadership skills, I will give them an opportunity and chance to grow. So leadership is a completely different story. I believe there are two kinds of leaders, there are the leaders who would inherit an organization or a company, and they would run it very efficiently the way it has been running for years. And they would keep it safe for so many years to come. But not necessarily to grow it as much, or to make major changes in the organization or the company. And there are those that will do all this, but also have the vision and the passion to grow, to grow on every aspect - to grow in the infrastructure, which is not necessarily money, but we're talking about processes, about policies, about procedures that are followed day in and day out, but also to grow the size of your organization. And with the correct infrastructure that can carry it - so you would not outgrow your systems. And I would like to think that this is the better kind of leader.

Safa: Yes, absolutely. Many important points. Thank you so much. Dr. Ashmawey, it's been great to hear from you listen to you learn from all your experiences and insights. I really appreciate it.

Mohamed: Thank you so so much. It's a great honor to speak with you, Safa. Thank you for inviting me today. Maybe the last point I would like to share with your respective audience is that Human Appeal is a great organization that has served mankind for more than 30 years. We serve 3 million people every year. We consider them as our brothers and sisters. So we serve them with humility. And we're very proud to be their brothers and sisters. I'm very, very proud to be a member of this organization, and a colleague of all these great men and women working in humanity. Thank you very, very much.

Safa: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It's really been great to hear from you. And thank you for your time. I also want to thank our listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in.

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