When Dorothy Unger picked up the book The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs, she didn’t realize that it would change her life. At the time, back in 2007, Dorothy was preparing to retire from her career in information technology.
The book gave her a new mission: use her computer skills to help address global poverty.
She hasn’t stopped since, and today she is a valued Diamond Volunteer for Grameen Foundation’s Bankers without Borders (BwB) program.
When she retired in 2008 and relocated to Washington, D.C., Dorothy reached out to Grameen Foundation and offered her services. At the time, we did not have a formal volunteering initiative. That didn’t stop Dorothy. She quickly became an integral part of the nascent, BwB team.
BwB is now the world’s largest reserve corps of professionals dedicated to social enterprise. This global pool of volunteers has provided consulting, coaching and training services to more than 1,128 projects worldwide. From its launch in 2008 as of August 2016, BwB volunteers have provided 279,000 volunteer hours worth $15.4M.
Dorothy has been there every step of the way, helping to develop and implement the program’s volunteer management system.
“I’ve learned so much working with Grameen Foundation,” said Dorothy. “I love the work GF does and I’m glad my background and skills can be of use.”
Dorothy went on to visit and support a Grameen project in Uganda and she helped set up Salesforce throughout Grameen Foundation, training employees to use the dashboards she designed and managed, which helped Grameen Foundation analyze data and track its progress.
As BwB Director Sabrina Quaraishi says: “Dorothy has been an invaluable asset to Grameen Foundation for almost five years now. I am simply in awe of her commitment to our organization and the time investment she has made.”