Sasha Chanoff is the founder and executive director of RefugePoint, a humanitarian organization that finds lasting solutions for the world’s most at-risk refugees and supports the humanitarian community to do the same. He is the co-author of From Crisis to Calling: Finding Your Moral Center in the Toughest Decisions, with a foreword by David Gergen. He is a recipient of the Schwab Foundation / World Economic Forum Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the Harvard Center for Public Leadership Gleitsman International Activist Award, the Charles Bronfman Humanitarian Prize, and is an Obama White House Champion of Change. He has received social entrepreneur fellowships from the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Ashoka, and Echoing Green. He is a member of New England International Donors, and is an advisor to The Good Lie Fund, the philanthropic arm of the Warner Bros. film The Good Lie about the resettlement of the South Sudanese Lost Boys and Girls. He is a Goodwill Ambassador for the Aurora Forum, which includes the Million dollar Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. Prior to launching RefugePoint in 2005, Sasha consulted with the UN Refugee Agency and worked for the International Organization for Migration. He holds an M.A. in Humanitarian Assistance from The Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Friedman School of Nutrition, Science, and Policy, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.
RefugePoint is recognized for creating new models for humanitarian response and influencing the field to expand solutions for refugees. In addition to the important work of improving the lives of individual refugees, RefugePoint works strategically to influence global refugee policy and practice. To accomplish this, they partner closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), governments, NGOs, and community-based organizations to build capacity and improve systems related to refugee resettlement and self-reliance. RefugePoint has capitalized on opportunities to disseminate best practices and led and joined global policy dialogues as well as training staff of other NGOs and UNHCR on RefugePoint’s resettlement and child protection methods.
RefugePoint has helped more than 80,000 refugees to resettle to the US, Canada, Australia and over a dozen countries around the world from more than 200 locations across Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and contributed to the 1.4 million refugees resettled since its founding in 2005. The organization also provides life-stabilizing and self-reliance services to thousands of refugees in Nairobi and has helped over 2,000 to “graduate” from needing humanitarian aid. Based on this success, RefugePoint has helped to lead a global effort, The Refugee Self Reliance Initiative, to advance refugee self-reliance globally.
I first met Sasha when in 1997, at a soccer tournament for refugees in the Boston area. More than 100 players, dozens of volunteers, and hundreds of spectators descended on Cambridge’s Danehy Park for a tournament that Sasha said enabled refugees to exhibit their strengths.
“He’s a remarkably engaging, charismatic young man, completely passionate and decisive about what he wants to do,’’ I said of him at the time. “He’s a wonderful fusion between a person who has a vision and someone who has the ability to enact the vision.
Brazilian, Haitian, Iraqi, Russian, Somalian, Sudanese, and Vietnamese soccer players came together last April to form the "World Citizens" and play the Tufts University soccer team as part of the "Game of Nations" day that concluded EPIIC's year on refugees, migration, and global security. Co-sponsored by EPIIC and Jewish Vocational Service, with support from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, this day brought together Tufts students, members of the greater Boston community and refugees and immigrants in the region for a day-long international festival of sport and music.
I had the honor of nominating Sasha successfully for the Bronfman Humanitarianism Award.
“Rather than simply building Mapendo’s own operations, Sasha is using his organization’s partnership relations with the US and UN Refugee Agency to affect fundamental change in the way refugee resettlement is handled altogether. This past fall, Mapendo and the UN Refugee Agency co-hosted a resettlement training for NGOs working across Africa, a landmark collaboration that intends to increase and broaden life-saving opportunities for refugees who live in perilous situations. In addition, Mapendo’s work with the UN Refugee Agency at the Geneva level aims to strengthen refugee resettlement and protection globally through enhancing and supporting NGO and UNHCR collaboration. What all this means is that Mapendo International is now recognized as a model for how resettlement can be done and is exerting a multiplier effect on the process. This is the essence of social entrepreneurship.”
We actually together conceptualized Mapendo International’s mission on a napkin in a pizzeria in Somerville’s Teele Square We helped seed Mapendo, and happily a few years later I introduced Sasha to Rick Wayne, one of my Board members at a Susan Sarandon soiree to benefit Sasha, and Rick became the Chairman of the Board of Refuge Point.
Sasha took on as his first employee Institute alumnus Matt Edmunson, who had created a significant Kakuma project with us.
Sasha and his wonderful wife Marni are close friends, and I take responsibility for encouraging their welcoming a pup into their family!
I have recently nominated Sacha and his wonderful organization, RefugePoint, to the Tallberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize. My nomination can be found below:
SECTION 1: CONTACT INFORMATION
First name of nominator: Sherman
Surname of nominator: Teichman
PLEASE TELL US IN YOUR WORDS WHY YOU ARE NOMINATING THIS PERSON.
The critical experience that shaped Sasha Chanoff’s life occurred in 2000 while on a refugee evacuation mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He and a colleague from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) had been sent to evacuate 112 massacre survivors from a compound outside Kinshasa, with orders to take only those on the list approved by the Congolese regime. At the compound, though, they found a group of 32 widows and orphans not on the list. Sasha and his colleague were confronted with a life and death moral dilemma- attempt to take the additional people and risk everyone’s chances at evacuation and survival or stick to IOM’s directive and leave the widow and orphan group to their fate. Despite his boss’ strict instructions that any deviation from the list would jeopardize the entire mission, Sasha and his colleague decided to attempt evacuating everyone. Against the odds, their effort succeeded. Sasha found his life calling in that experience, which led to his founding RefugePoint, an NGO dedicated to creating solutions for refugee communities in extreme danger. Under Sasha’s leadership, RefugePoint has made a reputation for devising and carrying out innovative resettlement and self-reliance programs that have reshaped humanitarian action and advanced solutions for refugees who would otherwise be stuck in limbo for years or decades. Sasha’s commitment to building solutions to the global migration crisis is sorely needed in the broken international resettlement system. Tens of thousands of life-saving resettlement slots went unused annually (250K in total between 2000-2014). Sasha’s vision for a re-imagined, more equitable and robust system has mobilized other NGOs, international agencies and national governments to carry out new programs enabling the most vulnerable refugees to resettle to another country if they could not otherwise survive safely. Today RefugePoint deploys staff across Africa and the world to identify refugees in need of resettlement and works closely with others to expand access. RefugePoint has directly helped resettle over 120,000 refugees, tripled refugee resettlement from Africa, and through training and influencing other organizations, UNHCR, and governments, contributed to 1.5 million resettled since RefugePoint began. In addition to reshaping refugee resettlement, RefugePoint focuses on shifting the traditional care-and-maintenance paradigm of refugee response to one of facilitating socio-economic inclusion and self-reliance. RefugePoint developed an innovative, holistic program in Nairobi, Kenya, to enable refugees to stabilize, build social and economic capital, and engage in dignified livelihoods. The program reaches approximately 10,000 refugees per year and has graduated more than 3,000 from dependence on assistance to sustainable livelihoods, a first-of-its-kind effort. Recognizing that the majority of refugees are stuck for decades in a host country and that 30 billion plus annually is spent on short emergency aid, RefugePoint then spearheaded, in partnership with others, the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (RSRI)—a global collaborative made up of practitioners, refugee-led organizations, and governmental, UN, philanthropic, academic and private sector actors. The Initiative aims to reach five million refugees in five years, build an evidence base of best practices, and spark a global shift in humanitarian response. Today the initiative has 100+ partners in 26 countries creating and measuring programs to advance self-reliance, is influencing the use of tens of millions of dollars in foundation and government funding, and has reached nearly 2 million individuals with self-reliance programming. The RSRI is leading the Global Refugee Forum pledging process to bring together global development actors such as the U.S. State Department and UNHCR in a unified effort to advance self-reliance opportunities for refugees. This is a unique catalyst role in the world for refugee self-reliance. RefugePoint’s method of program creation includes three phases: innovation to start a new program, demonstration and evaluation, and finally uptake by governments, UN and other actors to scale. RefugePoint has built new pivotal resettlement-related programs in recent years to respond to unprecedented displacement, including: 1) a labor mobility pilot project with the Canadian government, which is influencing other governments. 2) a family reunion project with the UN Refugee Agency and IRAP to reunite unaccompanied children and parents in the EU and other countries. According to the UN, these programs could reach two million people in the next decade. 3) the Afghan Sponsor Circle Program in the US, which contributed to other sponsorship models such as the U.S. Welcome Corp. At this unprecedented moment in history, with forced displacement at an all-time high, RefugePoint is building programs that re-think humanitarian action to help meet challenges greater than any since World War Two.
NOMINEES CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
Career history and employment experience (250 words) Sasha’s career as a social entrepreneur focused on working with the most vulnerable people began with the Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) as a refugee job developer. Sasha then moved to Kenya to work with the International Organization for Migration and consult with the UN Refugee Agency. Seeing that competition among agencies limited collaboration, he spearheaded an effort at JVS to share job leads and resources, which led to higher placements all around. The insight that supporting others leads to better outcomes for refugees has guided RefugePoint. Sasha’s collaborative approach has led RefugePoint to support locally-led organizations with funding, work with diverse stakeholders to improve refugee-response systems, build coalitions such as the RSRI, and play a distinct connector role between humanitarian action and philanthropy. Sasha has held a number of leadership roles in humanitarian philanthropy. He advised the Warner Bros. Film The Good Lie and worked with the producers to create The Good Lie Fund, which raised more than $750K for South Sudanese-led organizations. Sasha is also a Board Member of Network of Engaged International Donors Global, a philanthropic initiative of nearly 200 members to galvanize funding for international causes. Sasha’s career has also focused on centering refugee leadership and funding refugee-led organizations. He has introduced a number of refugee leaders to former U.S. Presidents, brought in refugees to serve as RefugePoint Board Members, created a pass-through funding mechanism at RefugePoint, and elevated voices and leadership of refugees in other ways. (237 words) Education and credentials (250 words) Sasha Chanoff is the Founder and CEO of RefugePoint. The organization has grown from a small program in Nairobi serving the most at-risk refugees into a global response organization working across the globe to build new pathways to resettlement and self-reliance. At RefugePoint, Sasha has convened a leadership team and built mechanisms committed to progressively improving how the organization operationalizes the value of being refugee-centered, by fostering a refugee-centered service delivery approach, supporting refugee leadership and solutions, shifting power dynamics towards refugees, and elevating visibility of refugee perspectives. Over half of RefugePoint’s Board of Directors are former refugees themselves or persons with proximate and lived experience. Furthermore, the organization established an Oversight and Accountability committee in Kenya and a Steering Committee for the Refugee Self Reliance Initiative that includes refugee leaders to help design and provide feedback on programming. As someone who plays a leadership role in the philanthropy and humanitarian space, Sasha regularly offers advice and guidance to philanthropists and other non-profit and business leaders, including taking on a role as a Goodwill Ambassador for the million dollar Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. Sasha has a M.A. in Humanitarian Assistance from the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Friedman School of Nutrition, Science and Policy. He served as the commencement class speaker and centered his master’s thesis on “A New Paradigm for Refugee Group Resettlement: The Somali Bantu Case in Point.” Sasha also holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University. (246 words) Awards, recognitions, major publications (250 words) Sasha Chanoff is the co-author of From Crisis to Calling: Finding Your Moral Center in the Toughest Decisions, a leadership book about moral decision points that shape our lives, with a foreword by David Gergen. The lead story in the book is about the life and death decision he and a colleague faced in the Congo. Sasha has also shared that story at The Moth Mainstage events and on the NPR Moth Radio Hour. He is a recipient of the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the Harvard Center for Public Leadership Gleitsman International Activist Award, the Charles Bronfman Humanitarian Prize, and is a White House Champion of Change. He has received social entrepreneur fellowships from the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Ashoka, and Echoing Green. Sasha has also written many op-eds and articles published in various media outlets such as the Washington Post, USA Today, and others, and regularly appears in media. Sasha continually looks for ways to elevate other staff and refugee leaders themselves. Amy Slaughter, the Senior Strategy Officer, received the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur Award. Marty Anderson, the Geneva Representative, received the Child 10 Award on behalf of RefugePoint for its groundbreaking work to reunite unaccompanied children with their parents and build a new global program to do so. RefugePoint has had opportunities to bring refugee women leaders to the White House and to introduce them to President and Michelle Obama.
SECTION 4: ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
1. An Impossible Choice Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3WxFGr7720
The Congo evacuation operation mini-documentary and RefugePoint’s founding story.
2. https://twitter.com/NBCNewsNow/status/1453345113204215810
Interview on NBC Morning News about the Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans Based on the success of the Afghan Sponsor Circle Program, the U.S. later launched the Welcome Corp, a private sponsorship program through which Americans can sponsor refugees from around the world to come to US. Over the past year Sasha has been interviewed by the New York Times, NPR, AP news, and appeared in dozens of media outlets speaking about the Welcome Corp and refugee sponsorship. I’ve selected this NBC News clip to give you a sense of how Sasha speaks about refugee sponsorship in the media.
3. World Economic Forum (WEF) refugee labor mobility video, https://www.facebook.com/worldeconomicforum/videos/946692529660000/
(This video highlights RefugePoint’s role, in collaboration with the Canadian government, to build a new refugee labor mobility program. Bahati Ernestine, a former refugee from Rwanda, is the featured speaker in this video alongside Sasha. Bahati is one of the first people to arrive in Canada through the program RefugePoint has built. RefugePoint has now hired Bahati to represent refugee labor mobility efforts on a global stage. She speaks alongside government ministers, the UNHCR High Commissioner for Refugees, and other leaders to ensure that refugee voices are represented in building labor mobility efforts. A short documentary about Bahati was just accepted into the Cannes Film Festival. Bahati’s growing prominence is another example of how RefugePoint works to elevate refugee voices and leadership in the sector. In addition to the WEF video, RefugePoint’s labor mobility work has been featured across Canada on CBC News, The National, and others recently.)