I’m running to become OP.

Here’s my story, my vision, and where we’re headed.

9 min readJun 10, 2020

Read:
1. My story.
2. My vision.
3. My 100-day plan.

I started as a child rights activist through UNICEF when I was 16-years-old at the 2009 G8 Summit, which led to the Copenhagen Climate Summit (COP15) and the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). Since then, I continued policy advocacy on Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Youth Empowerment at several dozen international forums, including NATO, UNEP, UNESCO, UNICEF, and World Bank. Notably, I served as the Organizing Partner and co-moderator of the Declaration Drafting Committee of the 1st and 2nd Youth CSW Forums. I was also a speaker at International Youth Day at the UN.

Profoundly impacted by youth and Indigenous activists, I founded the Foundation for Environmental Stewardship upon returning from Rio+20. It is a youth-led, youth-serving sustainable development nonprofit in Toronto, Canada. We educate, advocate, and implement sustainable development.

I grew the organization’s budget from a negative balance to over $500,000 annual revenue in two years. I successfully fundraised over $2,500,000 from philanthropists, foundations, and individuals in three years. As a result, I was awarded the Certified Fund Raising Executive professional accreditation. The organization was granted registered charity status and special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

In the last 3 years, I’ve listened to the voices of over 100,000 young Canadians in-person.
I’ve driven 160,000 km to over 500 schools in more than 400 towns. I’ve helped students undertake more than a hundred local projects.

I visited mostly rural and remote communities all across Canada from coast to coast to coast to weave the voices of youth from places most left behind. This was accomplished through Foundation for Environmental Stewardship’s two flagship projects: 3% Project and SDGs Youth Training Canada, climate and SDGs education and skills development initiatives.

UNMGCY made me. I am who I am because of it.

The grassroots youth activists I met at UNMGCY inspired me to do the same at home. I learned how to build and run an organization, raise money, work with children and youth, and have a policy background. I am now 27-years-old and have three years until I turn 30. It would be my honour and joy to build and resource UNMGCY to empower generations of young people as it has empowered me for the last 12 years.

So, what’s my vision?

My vision is to advance our mission with excellence.

Our mission is “to ensure our right to meaningful participation is realized by engaging communities of young people in the design, implementation, monitoring, follow-up, and review of sustainable development policies at all levels through policy advocacy, capacity building, youth action, and knowledge.”

The future of all humankind, flora, and fauna is at stake. This is not an easy task.
It requires only excellence from all of us.

But expecting perpetual, free labour to advance our mission signals to the world that young people — even those working on global coordination — are not worth compensating. It significantly devalues our mission and the young people who advance it. It perpetuates an inequitable share of opportunities to only those who can afford to go unpaid in the long term. It is also a poor organizational strategy. An organization that does not compensate its team cannot attract people of high calibre who can solely focus on advancing our mission and retain them for a meaningful period of time.

We have demonstrated remarkable performance as a volunteer-only organization without a budget, because of the incredible personal sacrifices made by the former and current OPs and many of us. However, this is as good as it’s going to get; the current zero budget, zero staff, volunteer-only organizational model has run its course. Without limited resources, there is no need for accountability because everything is free. It’s not just us; these types of organizations by design hit a ceiling.

We need a new approach to get to the next level.

I will build a hybrid team of paid staff and volunteers with a stipend and all expenses covered.

Serving a mandate must be a cost-neutral experience at a minimum. Other Major Groups function as hybrid teams of paid staff and volunteers.

Limited resource allocation requires good governance, transparency, and accountability. Donors, such as governments, foundations, UN agencies, and philanthropists, do not engage in a funding discussion without sound governance, transparency, and accountability mechanisms they can engage and trust. Donors deserve to know how their gifts have been stewarded effectively and efficiently for impact. When it fails to do so, donors deserve to engage in relevant mechanisms for improvement.

I will build sound governance, transparency, and accountability mechanisms.

This may sound like boring administrative tasks that don’t advance our mission. However, the health and performance of an organization depend precisely on the boring, behind-the-scenes responsibilities. When done well, frontline policy advocates and member organizations on the ground should not be burdened by the governance, transparency, and accountability mechanisms but rather supported by them.

There are 10 areas of administrative responsibilities that contribute to sound governance, transparency, and accountability mechanisms:

Strategy: Developing and fulfilling the vision, mission, organizational direction, and strategic plan.
Board Governance: Develop and support the Board and its committees, prepare organizational policies, and liaise with the Board and staff.
Fund Development: Prospecting, writing grants and proposals, developing fund development strategies, meeting with donors, stewarding donor relationships, developing reliable revenue streams, ensuring the organization’s financial sustainability, and ethical fundraising procedures are followed.
Financial Stewardship: Bookkeeping, accounting, financial planning, budgeting, reporting, taxes, currency exchanges, cashflow stability, banking, audit, payroll, invoicing and receipting.
Elections: Ensure fair and punctual elections and reporting.
Human Resources & Management: Be responsible for the cultivation, recruitment, hiring, orientation, retention, succession, and release of all personnel, both staff and volunteers; evaluation, coaching, reward, discipline, and professional development opportunities to improve performance.
Communications: Publicize the activities, results, and goals of the organization, accurately represent the views of the organization and its members to the public, create and maintain a strong brand, and facilitate internal communications for the team and our members.
Risk & Compliance: Identify and manage risks with adequate and appropriate liability insurance and coverage, establish and enforce misconduct policies and consequences, incorporate in necessary jurisdictions, file for 501(c)(3) equivalent status in necessary jurisdictions, follow all legal obligations in every jurisdiction especially in our finances, donations, employment, child protection, data privacy, and cybersecurity.
Partnerships: Manage partnership agreements to advance the mission, build and maintain trust and relationships with partner organizations, communicate opportunities with partners, and strategize together with partners to navigate sector-wide challenges.
Operations: Ensure that the day-to-day operation of the organization is effective and efficient.

I will work with each Working Group to raise money for their activities.

“The more you want to work, the more funding you will get” will be the general principle for fund allocation. If Working Group A plans and commits to conducting 10 programs, I will work with you to raise money for all of those 10 programs.

If I successfully raise money for 6 of the 10 programs, that is what the Working Group A will get. If executing 6 programs requires the GFP to work 40 hours a week, the GFP will be compensated full-time so that the GFP has no other competing priorities and can dedicate all of her/his time to ensuring that the 6 programs are executed with the highest excellence that young people of the world need and deserve. If executing 6 programs requires the GFP to work 6 hours a week, the GFP will be compensated with a stipend. If the Working Group has many responsibilities and gets the necessary funding, it is possible that staff could be dedicated to that Working Group.

I am committed to empowering your Working Group to fulfill your vision and plans. It will be up to each Working Group to decide, commit, and fulfill your own objectives and initiatives. I will work with you to raise money to develop and scale these activities, together.

How do we get there? Here’s my 100-day plan.

By the 100th day of starting my role as the OP, I will be ready to contact funders. This plan will be achieved in five ways:

Continue to fulfill existing commitments. I will learn from the current leadership and transition into my role as the OP. I will not stop or cancel existing programs or initiatives.
Build legal and financial infrastructures. Donors need governance, transparency, and accountability mechanisms they can engage and trust before beginning a funding conversation. I will build the infrastructures in 100 days to be ready to contact funders.
Develop fundraising plans for Working Group activities. I will work with each Working Group to draft funding proposals for their activities, each with goals, targets, measurements, timelines, and budget.
Prospect donors and draft proposals. I will use various donor databases to identify appropriate funders who would be a good fit for our activities and vice versa. I will then draft Letters of Intent, meeting requests, project proposal, or grant applications, ready to be sent out in 100 days.
Consultations. I will listen to every Working Group’s GFP and RFP, every RCC, and several active Member Organizations. I will host a series of internal consultations to learn and better understand your vision.

The work plan below shows the first 100-day plan week by week in the five areas mentioned above.

I will be working on average 85 hours a week: 13.5 hours per day from Monday to Saturday and 4 hours on Sunday. I used to work 100–110 hours regularly. 85 hours a week is fine. I do not expect other staff and volunteers to work 85 hours a week. I also hope to decrease my workload over time.

I have secured my own salary until the end of 2020, thanks to my organization and its donors. I will work with the existing admin team and hire co-op students who will get compensated financially or through academic credit. I have already secured the funding to hire four full-time admin staff until the end of 2020.

You can see my 85h/wk work schedule below:

25 out of 85 hours a week of my time will be reserved to communicate with Working Groups.
I will conduct a mandatory weekly and monthly calls with GFPs and Working Groups. I will also dedicate GFP, RFP, and member org meetings upon request to be available and accessible to the Coordination Team. Here is an example of how those calls would be structured.

I will always make time to listen to GFPs, RFPs, and RCCs. I will provide accountability in monitoring and evaluating the progress and assist where necessary.

My weekly 85 hours will be allocated as shown below:

So, what’s my motivation?

Human motivations are complex and deeply personal. I’d love to discuss my motivations with you and hear what your motivations are too. Let me briefly share my top five motivations:
1. I have a profound belief in the power of our mission and young people.
2. There is no other organization like UNMGCY in the world.
3. UNMGCY is where I can best practice problem-solving skills.
4. UNMGCY is where I can make the most impact at this point in my life.
5. I love my neighbours because Jesus first loved me. I express that love by empowering generations of young people to create a more inclusive, fair, prosperous, and sustainable future by solving the climate crisis and achieving the SDGs.

Thank you

Thank you for reading and watching the videos. It would be my honour and privilege to serve UNMGCY as your next Organizing Partner. I will be reaching out to each and every one of you to organize a video or Whatsapp call to listen to your thoughts and vision for UNMGCY. I look forward to working with you and answering any questions you may have.

I look forward to your vote, once the election for Organizing Partner launches.

Contact Steve

I’d be happy to talk to you! Please contact me for any questions or discussions or just to say hello and get to know each other!
+1.416.786.8938 Whatsapp
steve.lee@unmgcy.org