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NESsT
Board Profile
Steve
Smith
President, Media
for Development International; Vice President, DSR Computer
Sales and Service; Member of the NESsT Board of Directors
since 2004 and current Chairperson
 "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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