Charity Leader’s American Dream Is Aiding Kids Worldwide

Ahuma Adodoadji first discovered his calling nearly 30 years ago in the tiny Somali village of Las Durah. Then a novice

aid worker, Mr. Adodoadji dug wells, set up tents, and helped to run a therapeutic feeding program that saved the lives of hundreds of children who were dying of starvation.

Now Mr. Adodoadji, 58, is helping to lead the effort to improve children’s lives worldwide. This spring, he was appointed chief executive officer of Plan USA, a $46-million charity that recruits American donors to make monthly payments to help youths in 48 countries. The organization provides medicine, nutrition, education, and disaster-relief assistance.

Ghanian-born Mr. Adodoadji calls his rise to lead the Warwick, R.I., organization “a story of America.”

Born to parents of modest means, he was admitted to a Methodist-run boarding school in Ghana that counts Kofi Annan, the former U.N. Secretary General, among its alumni. He then studied philosophy and theology at the University of London, and had plans to pursue a career in academe.

But a meeting in a Nairobi church with the director of World Vision’s Africa programs steered him toward a different path. The aid worker told him that international organizations needed educated Africans to help run their projects.

In 1979, Mr. Adodoadji took his advice and joined World Vision as a relief associate in Kenya. The following year, he was sent to Somalia to help thousands of refugees who had fled the violence of the Ogaden War.

It was an experience that convinced him of the importance of international aid groups. “I saw children dying from lack of food,” he says. “But I also saw that with intervention, you could make a difference.”

Since then, Mr. Adodoadji has worked for four relief organizations based in the United States, including World Vision, as well as for the Carter Center.

A father of three, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1999.

Mr. Adodoadji’s nearly three decades of work with relief organizations has taught him not only how to run aid programs but also how to raise money to support such efforts.

As head of World Vision’s programs in Zambia, he brokered a deal with Citibank by which businesses that were pulling their money out of the country would donate a portion of their investments to the charity. Later, as World Vision’s associate to the vice president of development, Mr. Adodoadji traveled the United States speaking with donors about the organization’s programs in Africa and elsewhere overseas. In his jobs since, fund raising has played a major role.

“Ahuma is one of the most gregarious people I know,” says Chris Palusky, who worked with Mr. Adodoadji at World Relief. “He knows how to find out what donors are really thinking, what their interests are, and how those plug into the goals of the organization.”

For Plan USA’s trustees, Mr. Adodoadji’s biography and passion for aiding children made him an ideal replacement for Samuel Worthington, who was recruited last year to lead InterAction, a coalition of international relief groups.

“There’s a visionary quality about him and a commitment at the gut level to helping this organization and children around the world,” says Jane Covey, chair of the Board of Directors.

Indeed, Mr. Adodoadji, who will earn $175,000 in his new job, has a broad vision for the charity. He wants to increase Plan USA’s visibility in the United States, and hopes that disaster response can play a bigger role in its work.

Before joining Plan USA, he led a collaborative effort among seven charities — CARE, Catholic Relief Services, the International Refugee Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam Great Britain, Save the Children, and World Vision — to strengthen the organizations’ ability to respond to emergencies.

He says that more charities need to incorporate disaster preparedness into their long-term development work.

For Plan USA, that will mean educating young people in risk-prone communities about disasters and training them in how to respond. Eventually, he says, the charity may deploy to places where it hasn’t previously worked if a disaster strikes.

Mr. Adodoadji says that his career demonstrates the opportunities available in the United States.

“You can come here from a modest place anywhere in the world and play by the rules and become an American citizen and rise to lead one of the oldest organizations in the U.S.,” he says. “I am proud that America allowed me to fulfill my dream of leading an organization to help children around the world. In what other country can you do that?”

Mr. Adodoadji discussed his new position in an interview with The Chronicle.

How does being from Africa influence your work?

When I was first asked to do this kind of work with World Vision, I was nervous because I wasn’t sure how this African would be received in this largely white country. But I found that many people were more interested to see me because I was different and I could talk about the conditions in Africa and other third-world places with more authority than some of my colleagues who were born here. That played to my advantage.

What are your plans for the organization?

Plan was one of the first agencies to start sponsorship programs in the U.S. Plan USA was largely responsible for creating what we call Plan International. Over the years, Plan USA invested a lot of energy and resources into expanding globally.

But in spite of this significant achievement over the last 60 years, Plan USA doesn’t have the visibility and profile in this country. I plan to really work to give it a higher profile and better name recognition in the United States.

I also want to work, as a result of this increased visibility, to grow and diversify our resources. Currently, in partnership with other Plans, we sponsor 1.4 million children around the world. And we reach 12 million children and their families in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and across the world. I want Plan USA to increase its resource base so we can increase the number of children we help.

How do you intend to diversify the organization’s fund raising?

Currently we have 67,000 sponsors. I want to grow that. I also want to attract major individual donors. We’ve had sponsors who’ve been with us for many years. Many have the potential to be major donors. I also want to expand our partnerships and relationships with corporations and foundations. As a result of the tsunami, many more organizations have indicated an interest in being partners in the humanitarian and development agenda. I want Plan to be one of the agencies of choice for those donors.

One of your goals is to improve Plan’s ability to respond to disasters. Why is that a priority?

In disasters the people who suffer the most tend to be children and women. Therefore, an organization committed to helping children should be strong in that area. We should be one of the organizations that is there before the disaster strikes, there when the disaster strikes, and there after the media is gone.

What do you see as the biggest challenges of your new job?

The biggest challenge is always making sure that you get all of the right people on the bus. As Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, says, once you have all the right people on the bus, you can do anything. You can do the impossible.