It’s a world different from banking and investing, but it’s one that’s as important to Ed Carpenter as his business.
The business of International Medical Corps is saving lives and helping rebuild communities in parts of the world torn by war, disease and natural disaster.
Carpenter, who runs Irvine-based financial advisory firm Carpenter & Co. and its Carpenter Community BancFund, (see entry in OC 50 Special Report, starting on page 15), has served as a director of the Santa Monica-based organization for nearly 20 years of the group’s 30-year history.
“Many business executives find charities they believe in,” he said. “This is the right one for me. I think it’s an obligation for the business community to not just give money but also to give their valuable time to be workers and mentors.”
There’s been no shortage of opportunities to give as IMC charged forward to deliver aid in numerous high-risk spots around the world, including:
• Somalia, where IMC entered in 1991 as the first American organization to provide relief during the civil war.
• Rwanda, where the genocide of 1994 created a humanitarian crisis.
• Kosovo during its fight for independence from Serbia in 1998.
• Iraq in 2003.
• The U.S. Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita in 2005.
Time and agility are critical to IMC’s mission. The organization was in Haiti 22 hours after the 2010 earthquake struck. It was in Japan only 48 hours after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. It reached the Philippines within 24 hours of Typhoon Haiyan.
IMC’s focus, though, isn’t entirely on short-term missions as a first responder around the globe. It aims to ultimately establish bases in the respective countries and train and equip locals who can then continue to impact the lives of those living in their communities long after volunteer teams leave, said Nancy Aossey, longtime chief executive of IMC.
“We’re a training organization. The big focus is helping people help themselves,” she said.
“The most high-profile work happens during the emergency response. You’ll see us on TV in the Philippines and in Haiti. But 95% of our work happens after that, in the recovery and rebuilding stage. That’s where most of our resources are allocated. A lot of times people go in [to emergency situations] and come out, but they’ve only helped those people. We want to help people exponentially. We want to multiply our impact. We want to train someone so they can go help someone else.”
Around the World
IMC currently is doing that work in 37 regions—a list of countries and territories that many have said nonprofits wouldn’t be able to enter—including Darfur, South Sudan, Syria and Afghanistan. Indeed, IMC’s first overseas medical training operations, led by founder Robert Simon, were in Afghanistan in the 1980s following the Soviet invasion.
Simon at the time was working as an emergency-room doctor at the UCLA Medical Center. He learned of the shortage of doctors and healthcare available to Afghan refugees during the war and made trips to the country to help civilians directly. He formally founded International Medical Corps in 1984. A grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development helped IMC set up a full-time medic training clinic at the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“It’s such a fine line when you’re there in such embattled situations,” Carpenter said. “IMC seems to find the heart of the people there. They wade right in. They are very good at triage and difficult situations. They’re universally accepted as a party that is there for all the right reasons and never for the wrong reasons.”
Professionals, Volunteers
International Medical Corps has about 4,500 professionals in its worldwide network, most of them local, trained and supported by IMC. It has several hundred who make longer-term commitments to overseas assignments—typically a year or more—as well as a roster of about 10,000 volunteers who it can draw on as necessary.
“There has to be a certain amount of continuity and stability,” Aossey said. “We don’t believe you can bring in and rotate people every month. The relationships are important. So a big focus is to have people long term whom the locals can trust and get to know. And then we bring in the shorter-term volunteers to supplement the longer term. That has worked well.”
3.7 Million Patients
IMC’s programs last year conducted 3.7 million patient consultations and treated nearly 1.7 million children younger than 5 for illnesses.
The residual impact of training is continuously demonstrated. Programs in Haiti currently serve about 1,000 patients a day. The estimated 2,000 Afghan midwives trained by IMC reach more than 600,000 women a year, who currently face a 1-in-22 chance of dying during childbirth—more than 300 times the rate in the U.S.
“IMC leaves behind a well-trained local group of people to care for their communities,” Carpenter said.
He came to know International Medical Corps through a third-party introduction in 1995.
“The number of charities that came through my office at the time was very high, but IMC struck me as being truly humanitarian,” he said, recalling his first meeting with Aossey and Simon. “I didn’t feel I could contribute in the medical arena, but I felt I could be an impetus for change as it was growing and as it relates to raising support.”
IMC was about 12 years old when Carpenter joined as a director and was running on an annual operating budget of about $12 million.
It was “an incredibly pivotal and important time” as the organization looked to grow in scale, Aossey said.
“By then we were already working in these various regions, and we knew that we could take it to a much bigger scale, but it was going to require investments in management and investments in technology,” she said. “And that’s right when Ed joined. He had this extraordinary ability to see the potential of our work. His joining the board has been such a critical piece of our organizational growth and management.”
Revenue Up
IMC’s revenue in fiscal 2013 was $190 million, up 18% year-over-year. Its estimated 2014 revenue is $270 million.
Carpenter also has been a “big mentor and an incredible support to me as the CEO,” Aossey said.
She was in her mid-20s when she stepped into the chief executive role in 1986, a couple of years after IMC was founded.
Aossey grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and earned her bachelor’s and MBA from the University of Northern Iowa. She got a job at AT&T there and moved to California when a transfer opportunity opened up.
“I drove out to California in 1985, and I was living in Fresno at the time,” she said.
She began looking for volunteer opportunities in the area and came across the efforts of International Medical Corps.
Aossey drove to Los Angeles to interview with Simon and learned the organization was looking for a chief executive.
“I wasn’t looking for a job, but I fell in love with the mission, and I interviewed with them,” she said. “I spent quite a bit of time with Bob [Simon] and Dick Riordan,” former Los Angeles mayor, who offered a home he owned for IMC and its handful of employees to use as an office. Riordan is an IMC director emeritus.
Simon called Aossey the day after she finished her interviews—and went back to work at AT&T—and offered her the chief executive post.
“It was the only thing I wanted; it was very strange,” she said. “I said ‘yes’ right away.”
She has since helped grow the organization and its impact worldwide.
She said credits go to the “incredible team” she has alongside her, including Carpenter, who’s a consistent source of counsel.
Carpenter said he credits International Medical Corps for helping him stay focused and grow as an individual.
“IMC is an amazing story,” he said. “It’s helping me grow, and I’m perhaps making a small contribution to its growth.”
