Season of Giving: Nepali Nonprofit Executive Rupa Shah on Building Your Dream Career in the Nonprofit World
“Understanding what defines you helps shape who you are and that will help you choose the career you want to be in.” We are excited to kick off the Season of Giving with today’s woman dreamer, Rupa Shah. A nonprofit leader passionate about social impact since the age of 15, Rupa is the Director of Philanthropy at The Scratch Foundation, a platform used by over 30 million kids globally to learn how to code. She has also been actively involved in the Nepali community & philanthropies. In 2019, she launched Nepal's first-ever capital campaign to raise over $12 million to build Kathmandu Institute of Child Health. An inspiring and dynamic changemaker, Rupa shares her top tips to women in the nonprofit sector, how her Nepali culture helped shaped her identity, and her next big dream!
1) Tell us your story. You have had quite a dynamic career from the PR world to as a nonprofit director. How did you find your passion throughout your career?
I started my career in non-profit when I was 15 years old. When I was growing up, Nepal was going through a civil war. In ninth grade, I had signed up at a nearby non-profit called Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Center to help displaced children from the war. My main task was to tutor math, English, and science to kids my age so they can catch up on the years of school they had missed. I never really thought much about it until I came to the US and took up an entry-level position at a PR firm in Beverly Hills, California right after undergraduate. My main task at this job was to make sure that the celebrities we worked with wore specific designers for their media appearances. I remember thinking this is not what I wanted to do long-term.
I decided to quit the job and apply for graduate school at Cornell University with a focus on non-profits. I got in with a full scholarship and, I started getting involved with local non-profits for school projects. I also got an internship at one of the largest non-profit consulting firms in New York City. This experience solidified my interest and passion for working in the impact sector. In 2015, when Nepal was hit by a major earthquake, I raised $30,000 within the Cornell community to donate relief materials to new mothers and infants living in relief camps in rural Nepal. This made me realize the direct impact I could have through raising funds for specific causes. Since then, I have worked on philanthropic projects worth $2 billion and have raised over $500 million for various non-profits.
2) You are currently the Director of Philanthropy at the Scratch Foundation, a platform to teach kids coding based in the MIT media lab. Tell us more about your role, what is the most interesting/rewarding part of your work?:
The most rewarding part of my job is seeing kids being creative and expressing themselves. Every day, I see kids around the world creating projects on the Scratch platform, learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for everyone in today's society. It gives me so much joy to see that over 30 million kids around the world use Scratch.
My role at the Scratch Foundation is to design and execute a fundraising plan that will result in the long-term financial sustainability of my organization. I engage with donors, large and small, from around the world every day. It really inspires me to learn about why people support our mission of providing young people with digital tools and opportunities to imagine, create, share, and learn. The most interesting/rewarding part of my work is to help connect individuals with Scratch's mission. I enjoy communicating about the impact of Scratch on millions of kids around the world and why our work is important. The favorite part of my job is helping individuals connect with a mission.
3) You also do significant work for the Nepali community, such as you worked with Kathmandu Institute of Child Health. How do you seek to inspire other Nepali young women like yourself?
In 2019, I moved back to Nepal to launch Nepal's first-ever capital campaign to raise over $12 million to build Kathmandu Institute of Child Health, a non-profit hospital for children in five provinces across Nepal. It was a challenge I wanted to take on because Nepal is a country supported by so many aid agencies from around the world and the idea of a formal fundraising campaign to support large projects like the hospital is new. It was both challenging and rewarding and I got to learn a lot about philanthropic projects outside of the US.
I think more than seeking to inspire others, Nepali women today inspire me. They are so smart, intelligent, outspoken, and are aware of the social, political, and cultural problems they face every day. I love that the women today are not scared to speak for themselves. One of the things I have always believed in is standing up for yourself, your morals, beliefs, and your values. Understanding what defines you helps shape who you are and that will help you choose the career you want to be in.
4) As the platform for women dreamers, what is your next big dream?
I really believe that every child in the world deserves access to education. Growing up in Nepal, I wouldn't be who I am today if I didn't have access to education, therefore, I have made it my personal mission to ensure that every child, especially girls, gets access to education around the world.
Thank you Rupa for sharing your inspiring story with us! We are excited to have you in our global women’s network!
Bio: Rupa Shah is an accomplished non-profit executive with over 10 years of experience in the US and abroad. She currently serves as the Director of Philanthropy at Scratch - one of the largest creative coding community of over 30 million kids around the world. In her various roles, Rupa has helped raise over $500 million in capital campaigns and collaborated on projects over $2 billion. Born and raised in Nepal, her interest lies in the areas of children’s health and education. At an early age of fifteen, her passion for social impact inspired her to volunteer at a local non profit to help homeless children displaced by the civil war. In 2019, she moved back to Nepal to launch a $30 million capital campaign to establish Nepal’s first philanthropically supported non profit children’s hospital. Working with the key stakeholders, Government of Nepal, private sectors and various foreign aid-agencies, Rupa helped build a network of health system that will provide comprehensive healthcare to more than 12 million Nepali Children. She continues her passion of supporting children’s education and health through Scratch, and various engagements with the Government of Nepal, and non-profits supporting STEM education. Rupa has a master’s degree in Non-Profit Finance and Management from Cornell University. Outside of work, she is a visiting lecturer at Cornell University where she teaches non-profit finance and management. She enjoys outdoors. In 2019, she climbed three peaks over 5,000 meters in the Everest region. She follows cancer research through her husband who is a research scientist at MIT.
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