I was born in South Africa during apartheid, and was lucky to grow up with a family that didn’t believe in that.
When I was 16 and had just finished school, I got a scholarship to study in Israel. I went on to university and did a BA in Art History and English Literature, and then went teaching.
I moved to a kibbutz, which was a fascinating experience. It was both exciting and challenging to live in a group of about 350 people. It’s a beautiful place to bring up children (like my two sons), but challenging because it is really a society based on everybody working according to their ability and receiving what they need. In theory it’s fascinating, but the reality is quite damaging.
After leaving the kibbutz, I moved to the city for about eight years, running a florist business. Then I decided to move to Australia, emigrating in 1998 with my two sons. I can a couple of florist shops in Australia, then went into an event production business. It was great – I was independent and worked to develop and build a client base while producing beautiful events in the early days of the industry, which was really exciting.
Straight in the bin
Food was a central part of events. It was a wonderful indication of the success of an event. I kept doing larger events, some of them high end, and food was central to all of them. My attitude was that the more food there was, the more successful the event.
What kept happening was there was this wonderful array of food at the end of the night. It was just going straight into the garbage bin. As many events were offsite, we were throwing away thousands and thousands of kilograms of food.
I started taking some of the leftover food to drop it off somewhere, and started wondering about my own purpose in life and what I could do that was significant. When I thought about what I knew and my skills, I kept coming back to the idea of surplus food. There was all this food, and there were people in need all around. I dropped off food to various places when I could, but it wasn’t enough.
I started researching for a model of food rescue to see if there was anything already set up so I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. That’s exactly what happened with AngelHarvest in the US, even though we haven’t grown in the same way. I adapted their model and brought back to Australia. OzHarvest was born in 2004.
Law changed
The following year, I realised there was capacity to upscale. So many big businesses (like supermarkets) were giving away food, but they told me they couldn’t give me food for fear of liability. That’s when we realised we needed to make it easy for those businesses to donate food. Together with a group of amazing pro bono lawyers, we lobbied and had the law changed in New South Wales (2005), the ACT (2008), Queensland (2009) and South Australia (2009).
For me, the biggest difference in transitioning from events and corporate hospitality to working in the for purpose sector was accountability. In my own business I could decide whether I wanted to work that day or not; I could decide which business I wanted to take on and what I didn’t. I was not accountable to anybody except the clients I’d chosen to take on. In the NFP sector, being accountable to others is key. In my own event business, I had only a couple of employees – now I oversee 100 staff members and 2000 volunteers.
I don’t call our sector “not for profit”. I call it the for-impact or for-purpose sector, because we are not for loss. We have huge profits, but they are just not measured in dollars. It is hugely relevant in our sector today is to understand the power of our impact. When I came into the for-purpose sector, it was a steep learning curve – suddenly I was using other people’s money, and that was an enormous responsibility, one I take incredibly seriously. Every dollar in my hand is a result of someone entrusting us to deliver what we promise. That is exciting, but a huge responsibility.
Being CEO of a charity like OzHarvest is all about setting the vision, the strategy, managing people and maintaining culture. I’ve found that a good culture is the most important thing. Our stakeholders say we are family. They invest in us and support us because they feel like we are family, and that’s precious. It is important to maintain that.
On a daily basis, apart from governance and making sure we’re sustainable, one of my biggest roles is raising funds. We are completely philanthropically funded, so it’s about inspiring potential investors in our model and in the impact we can make.
Enormous impact
I believe the biggest leadership challenges are to do with maintaining the trust of our investors and managing people. It’s about getting the most out of people, empowering people and keeping them inspired which is an ongoing, daily progress. However, I don’t regard these as challenges, but rather just part of day-to-day business. They actually inspire me to keep going.
The best way to overcome obstacles is to surround yourself with a great team of passionate people. I have a deep belief in my spiritual life, read a lot and believe that the quality of my thoughts impacts the quality of my life. I also believe in finding resolutions to challenges. I am passionate about making a difference, delivering change and impacting disadvantaged lives on every level. I go to bed excited and wake up excited. I am driven in knowing each day that OzHarvest will make a significant difference to people’s lives.
In Australia, the for-purpose sector is important because it fills an enormous role that, for whatever reason, the government is not fulfilling. Firstly, we provide hope, meaning and purpose to thousands and thousands of volunteers (which adds up to millions of dollars of workforce). Secondly, the impact on the community is enormous.
There are things that governments can’t do, and powerful things that motivated, positive people can achieve. I think the government has to work hand-in-hand with the for-purpose sector – instead of minimising the dollars invested, it should start recognising the value.
My goal is to do myself and OzHarvest out of a business. I would like my legacy to be a significant minimalisation of food waste with the cycle of intergenerational poverty broken as widely as possible.
This article originally appeared in the March print edition of Third Sector magazine, see here for more information.
Ronni Kahn is the CEO and Founder of OzHarvest.