Interviews with purpose-driven leaders who are dedicated to helping others and making a positive impact in the world.
December 8, 2022
Nivi Achanta | Soapbox Project
Nivi Achanta is the CEO of Soapbox Project headquartered in Seattle. Follow them on Twitter and Instagram and learn more at soapboxproject.org.
TELL US, WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU DO?
I’m Nivi Achanta, the founder and CEO of Soapbox Project. We make it really easy and fun for busy people to take action on issues like the climate crisis.
HOW DID YOU GET HERE?
Before I started Soapbox in 2020, I was working at a corporate job that I didn’t necessarily feel was necessary to the world. This was at a time when it was very clear to me that society was falling apart in a lot of different ways. Every day I was trudging to my corporate job as a tech consultant, just feeling this sense of purposelessness. That’s not a great feeling when you’re working 60-80 hours a week. The more I wanted to do something about this, the more I realized how hard it was to make a change. It’s not very obvious what you can do to make a difference. Getting involved with nonprofits was challenging because they either weren’t accepting volunteers or the volunteer opportunities were during the day. I talked to people around my age and career level and found that 100% of them also had a shared sense of needing a purpose. Soapbox was born out of this desire to do something, to show all of us that we have power and it doesn’t mean you have to quit your job to make a difference. We can all do something with the limited time, energy, and money that we have.
Nivi Achanta is the CEO of Soapbox Project headquartered in Seattle. Follow them on Twitter and Instagram and learn more at soapboxproject.org.
WHAT DO YOU STAND FOR? WHY IS THIS WORK IMPORTANT TO YOU?
There’s a big gap between the number of people in the world who want to do something about an issue and the number of people who do something about it. I think we all have fallen into that category at some point. Even right now, I know there are a lot of issues I feel I should do something about, and I haven’t. If you already know that you want to be an activist or you’re already deep in the nonprofit world, it’s easy to find ways to have an impact. But for everyday people with comfortable lives, there’s not a lot of support for putting these good intentions into action.
From my own experience, I thought it was ridiculous how hard it was to take action when I wanted to do something. At Soapbox, we believe every single person who wants to make a positive contribution to their community should be able to do it without a lot of headaches. We live in a time when information is readily available. There are solutions to a lot of these problems, but the connections are missing. At Soapbox, we’re simply leaning into that connection aspect, and really just showing people where they need to go. It just seems like such an obvious problem that is hard to fix, because it’s a human problem.
WHAT IMPACT ARE YOU MAKING?
One thing that is interesting about Soapbox is the question of what impact means. This is honestly a very existential question that we haven’t really solved. When we think about the impact that we’re making, it’s very upstream. Many organizations will cite metrics like one ton of carbon that’s removed from the atmosphere, or 200 trees planted. What’s interesting about Soapbox is counting the number of people activated to do those things. We’re still on this journey of figuring out how to quantify the people motivated to take action thanks to us. So far, that’s been quantifying our impact in a variety of different ways. One metric is how many people we’ve moved to action. Sometimes that looks like the number of letters we’ve written to incarcerated people, sometimes that looks like the number of families we donated clothes to over the holidays. Through corporate matching, we’ve raised almost $100,000 since 2020 for social and environmental justice organizations. I want to consolidate these into a single impact indicator of the work that we’re doing but I haven’t really found something that feels powerful enough.
WHAT (OR WHO) INSPIRES YOU TO DO THIS WORK?
Our community members inspire me on a regular basis. Out of the 6,000+ people who sign up for our free newsletters, we have around 150 paid members. They’re the ones contributing to what Soapbox should look like and the types of events that we should do. Seeing people who consider themselves average, but are actually doing so much inspires me on a daily basis.
Before I started Soapbox, my fiance’s hometown burned to the ground, so we returned to provide relief work. I witnessed the community coming together and helping each other in a way that was not only compassionate but also efficient. It was one of the most powerful examples of actions I’ve ever seen and was a defining moment for me.
WHAT’S YOUR VISION, YOUR BIG DREAM FOR THE IMPACT YOU WANT TO MAKE?
My big dream for the world is that every single person will understand if they want to do something, they can find the right person to talk to. Obviously, that’s the work of a lifetime. It’s not going to get solved overnight. We’re living in such an age of civic disengagement. Even on a smaller scale, you should know who can help with certain issues in your own community. I think that the one thing I’ve seen is that we are all treating ourselves like we’re consumers of this world instead of active participants. My dream for the world is that we all take a little more ownership of what we want it to look like.
WHAT CHALLENGES ARE YOU FACING?
The biggest challenge is scaling local action for a global member base because every single place in the world looks so different. In the United States that might mean attending city council meetings, but that doesn’t apply worldwide and doesn’t even apply to every community. I want to make Soapbox’s role clear and encourage people to create their own frameworks in a way that works best for where they live. The average young person cannot always figure out where to find answers about the issues that are most relevant to them. The challenge is helping them figure out what those local issues are and where they can help.
The second big issue is incentive misalignment. We’re living in a world with finite resources. I get frustrated when we invite people to take action, and they have other things that are a priority. I realize we’re all busy, but there needs to be a recognition of what is more important than preserving the planet. I think that as long as incentives are misaligned, it’s always going to be a challenge.
WHAT’S ONE THING YOU WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR CAUSE AND/OR THE WORK YOU’RE DOING?
I want people to know that Soapbox is the most fun way to take action. I think that joy and fun have been societally underrated. If you sign up for anything Soapbox-related, my promise is that it will genuinely be a good time. Not only are we focused on community building and action, but we also want it to be part of what makes you happy as a human being. I definitely will never miss a chance to talk about how much fun we have as a community.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE QUOTE OR WORDS OF INSPIRATION TO SHARE?
Thomas Edison apparently said, “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
I love that quote because I think about this every day. The sun is just so cool, it’s just there fueling our lives. That makes me happier to think about than getting our energy from a bunch of underground fossil fuels. I think it’s hilarious and predictive that the great innovator Thomas Edison called it back then.
HOW CAN OTHERS SUPPORT YOU OR YOUR CAUSE?
The easiest call to action is signing up for our bite-sized climate action newsletters. I promise they’re fun. We pick a topic every month and break it down over the four Wednesdays of the month so it’s not overwhelming. For people looking for more community and connection, we have a community membership driven by a six-week course. Enrollment opens three times a year. It’s an awesome way to meet people who care about the same things you do and to figure out how to harness these thoughts about healing the planet but not knowing where to go. Our promise to anyone joining our cohort is that you will leave with an action plan for the rest of the year. Plus you will be in a community with others to find ways to implement your action plan. We’re there to hold your hand, introduce you to the right people and figure out the things you’re interested in doing that also make you happy. You can register for our newsletter or enroll in the community course at soapboxproject.org.
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