Steve Smith

President, Media for Development International (Colorado, USA); Vice President, DSR Computer Sales and Service (Maryland, USA); Member of the NESsT Board of Directors since 2004

"NGOs can do good and do well at the same time. They need to operate effectively and efficiently just like a business: be organized, meet commitments, provide quality service to customers. But most importantly, NGOs need to ensure their own survival and the expression of their own goals and objectives through at least partial financial independence."  

Steve Smith has worked in both the for-profit and non-profit worlds. In the mid-1980s, he and his wife started a non-profit company to produce and distribute African social message films, and a for-profit computer sales and service business to support the film business, and cover their living costs. In the year 2000, they set up an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, which gave half the stock of the computer business to the employees, and gave them enough to semi-retire to the Rocky Mountains. He also helped set up Media for Development Trust in Zimbabwe in the 1980s, which is now well established as one of Africa 's premiere film, TV and radio production houses.  

Steve worked for a couple years in the early 1980s for the Population Communication Services of Johns Hopkins University, funding projects in west Africa. Before that he worked for the International Project of the Association for Voluntary Sterilization, funding clinics around Asia. In the late 1970s he worked as a volunteer for Mennonite Central Committee in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He also worked a couple years in the mid-1970s for Salisbury Dairy in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). He has a BS from the University of Michigan and an MPH from the University of Pittsburgh.   As a teenager, he ran a house painting business to pay for college. He has visited 60-65 countries, lived 5 years in Bangladesh and 2-3 years in Africa. He has two grown children. He and his wife of 30+ years enjoy life in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, skiing, camping, hiking, and outdoor living.  

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