By Andy Owens
aowens@scbiznews.com
Published Nov. 19, 2009
Using pink socks and bars of soap as his only props, Derreck Kayongo held the audience in the palm of his hand at Blackbaud’s Conference for Nonprofits in North Charleston this week.
Kayongo is a naturalized American who was born in Uganda and spent much of his life there. His family fled that country for Kenya after losing everything under the dictatorship of Idi Amin, whose story was made into a film in 2006 called “The Last King of Scotland.”
Kayongo was 10 when soldiers rounded up members of his family and village after two of Amin’s men were killed. The soldiers picked people at random from a crowd and asked them who had killed the soldiers. If they answered that they didn’t know, they were summarily executed.
Pointing to the audience at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center, Kayongo said, “Come up! Come up! 1, 2, 3, 4.” That was how people were picked to die.
Four would be executed and then four more. Kayongo said no one knew who killed the men, but the soldiers weren’t concerned about justice, just retribution.
“A young man rose up his hand and said ‘I did it.’ We knew he was lying,” Kayonogo said, but the act he described as “saintly” saved others from death by Amin’s men on that day. They questioned the man, “Did you do it?” and then killed him when he answered that he had. The soldiers then dismissed the crowd and thanked them for their time.
“I don’t care how agnostic you are, when they have a gun to your head, God is good,” he said.
When Kayongo came to America with several others from Uganda, it was like a magical land of machines and wealth that most in Uganda could never imagine.
“We were all so new,” he said. “I realized I had come so far.”
He was amazed that hotels throw away lightly used bars of soap. His amazement turned to action as he approached hotels about donating bars to a program that recycles the soap and gives it to children and refugees. American hotels throw away 1 billion bars of soap each year, and 2 million children die each year from diarrhea and lower respiratory diseases, which can be prevented with a bar of soap.
“All you have to do is wash your hands,” Kayongo said.
The result was the Global Soap Project based in Atlanta. The most recent donor to the project is Embassy Suites in North Charleston where Kayongo stayed during the Blackbaud conference. Most donor hotels are in the Southeast, but the Global Soap Project accepts donations from anywhere.
“In true American fashion, I saw a niche and filled it,” he said.
Blackbaud’s 10th annual Conference for Nonprofits drew 1,000 attendees this year representing 500 nonprofit organizations from around North America. Conference organizers said that was about the same number as last year.
The conference featured more than 130 seminars on a variety of topics, including effective ways to raise money, when to launch a campaigns, how to use a Web site more effectively and how to use Blackbaud’s products and services, among others.
Many of the sessions were technically oriented, and exhibiting vendors offered a variety of technical and human services, including massage chairs, high-tech tools and a nonprofit newspaper along with products from area vendors and businesses such as sweetgrass baskets.
The technical-oriented take on the conference was everywhere, from screens showing live twitter feeds about the conference and terminals offering Internet access to passersby and live streaming of key sessions onto Blackbaud’s Web site. Blackbaud partnered with UniMedia, a visual communications firm located in Charleston, to stream sessions from the event, including the Internet Afternoon, which focused solely on Internet solutions and strategies.
In his Tuesday morning keynote address, Kayongo reminded the attendees why they were there and urged them to keep in mind the vital mission of their nonprofit efforts:
- Reconnect to your work
- Get inspired so you can inspire others
- Become crafty, become a social entrepreneur and innovate.
“What are you holding onto that we all could benefit from?” - Understand your mission
- Family
“In your organization, don’t forget your niche. I know the financial situation is tough and that sort of thing, but don’t lose what you love,” he said. “For me, my life, everyday is a miracle. I can’t tell you how many times we came close to dying.”
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