Carolina García Jayaram: Changing the World with Compassion and Code

What is one defining moment in your career or life that empowered you to create change, and how has it shaped the path you’re on today?

The event that most empowered me to create change was watching Mother Theresa in action when I went to volunteer with her in Calcutta in 1996. She’d built and run dozens of missions across the city – from children’s hospitals to homes for the dying, which is where I spent my days; feeding, cleaning laundry, doing whatever needed to be done, really. It was mesmerizing to witness the precision of movement through our daily rituals, from sunrise mass which she led in our dorm, to the methodical ways in which everyone worked, like an orchestra led by the most loving and kind conductor. There were dozens of volunteers at any given time, from all over the world, and just as many nuns, clad in their signature blue-trimmed white linen saris. I learned so much during that time with her, but most of all how one woman, within an extremely limiting culture, persevered to become a global symbol of goodness, compassion, and effectiveness. I watched her and knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life trying to make even a fraction of that impact.

As we look into the future, what is one key change or innovation you believe is essential to advancing equality and empowerment in your field?

The answer is AI, and the future is now when it comes to advancing greater equality because, with its almost incomprehensible capacity for good, AI can never achieve its promise without baking equity into its model and providing universal access from the beginning. In the social impact space, which means all spaces where humans are living and trying to thrive, AI could be effectively deployed across education, nutrition, healthcare, agriculture, art and media, climate change, and more to help expedite solutions and do so with fewer resources. The added benefit is that through the non-profit network, AI can both help scale companies and train the AI models on remote communities to then better serve a more diverse global population. We have this incredible opportunity to harness this power, and I hope we can soon see greater investments here.

Who is a woman who has inspired or mentored you, and what lessons from her influence have stayed with you?

When I think of a woman whose ideas helped spawn my feminist outlook, it would be the author Marilyn French whose groundbreaking novel, The Women’s Room, I happened upon in a dollar bin at the local Barnes + Noble when I was sixteen. I had no idea what I was getting into with that story, and it changed my life. As a Latina immigrant, it’s hard to put into words how influential her description of a woman’s quest for autonomy and the freedom to be an intellectual being was to me. Growing up in the 1980s, there were so few examples of alternatives to the pursuit of traditional marriage and the resignation of patriarchal models that for me, her words planted the earliest seeds of a growing self-awareness. She allowed me to break the mold set by my culture, religion, and generation. Countless books, films, essays, and journeys have taken me further toward the reaches of a woman’s immeasurable power and potential, but it truly began in that dollar bin with Marilyn French.

What is the legacy you hope to leave behind as a changemaker and leader in your industry?

Over my twenty-five-year career in the nonprofit sector, I hope that as a woman, an immigrant, and a Latina, I have been a part of the cohort of women who have been able to shift the culture of leadership and what is possible for the many young women and marginalized folks who come into this extremely fulfilling work. It took most of those years to build the confidence to lead authentically, which for me means from a place of love and belonging, of collaboration and joy; unapologetically challenging norms that never worked for me and only held me back. Leadership has been my calling because my greatest love is uplifting others; encouraging their visions and dreams and building the safe and generative spaces that allow for our unique talents to thrive. Maybe it was so many years working with artists, but I have a deep passion for diversity – of ideas, experiences, generations, and perspectives. I’d like to believe I’ve set that example not only for my own team but also for the many wonderful teams we have the honor of working with through our awards and partnerships.

In honor of Gloria Steinem’s 90 years of advocacy, what do you believe is her most enduring contribution to women’s empowerment, and how has it inspired your own journey?

I wouldn’t dream of choosing the ONE thing that made the MOST difference because it’s all of her and it’s in the showing of all of it – the struggle, the femininity balanced with the masculine, the drive, and ambition, the overtly sensual and comedic energy, the artistry, the irritant and instigator, the fashion (that style!), the absolute woman who she always is packed with the strongest kind of vulnerable realness. It’s been the being herself in all the spaces that would have wished her gone or, worse, forced her out. She never wavered (at least not in front of us) and just kept showing up. It’s the stick-to-it-ness over a lifetime of having to explain the most basic principles of fairness to people half as smart with twice the power and so her most enduring contribution has been her own f*cking magical endurance. There’s no way out but through, and for those of us lucky enough to have been so deeply influenced by Gloria’s work, we’d follow her anywhere, and because of this, we will never go back.