A veteran of years in international development, academia and the nonprofit sector, Ella Gudwin joined VisionSpring in 2015 as president and became CEO in 2019. Her enthusiasm for the 20-year-old nonprofit’s mission of improving poor people’s lives by making eyeglasses accessible to them is palpable as soon as you start talking about VisionSpring’s work.
David Hessekiel: Describe the personal and professional journey that led you to the helm of VisionSpring and what motivates you to take on this challenge.
Ella Gudwin: My career in international development began in Indonesia. I first went in 1995 to conduct research on reproductive health and family planning. I loved it so much that I returned to teach at a university. This coincided with the Asian financial crisis which pushed 36 million people into poverty, and the ensuing people power revolution which brought down the dictator, Suharto. They were formative years that inspired my passion for health equity and economic development. These passions guided my path to the Council on Foreign Relations followed by graduate school, then the Population Council and working on global health and emergency response with AmeriCares, before joining VisionSpring.
When I was first approached for this role, I remember asking myself, “Eyeglasses? Is this the issue I’m going to focus on?” But the more I dug into the details, the more excited I became – and that continues to this day.
Very few tools precipitate so many human development benefits as a simple pair of eyeglasses. They enhance income earning, education, road safety, gender equity, mental health and well-being, and financial inclusion. That’s powerful stuff. If you are counting, creating clear vision with eyeglasses underpins the achievement of five of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
There are many intractable problems in the world. It’s fun to be working on one that is solvable. We can get eyeglasses to every person who needs them. We just can’t do it alone!
VisionSpring CEO Ella Gudwin
David Hessekiel: Describe the problems VisionSpring addresses and how it partners with businesses to tackle them?
Ella Gudwin: Imagine your company or organization, if all your team members or employees who need eyeglasses didn’t have them. Now imagine a billion people do not have the eyeglasses they need globally, the majority in low-income settings.
These are people working throughout our global supply chains. They are the garment worker, Sanjida, who made your shirt in Bangladesh but got fired because she could no longer thread her needle. They are the tea pickers and coffee bean sorters behind our morning cups, and the truck drivers navigating hazards on the road as they bring products to markets and door steps everywhere.
Cocoa farmer Regina Quayson (50) hand-pollinating a tree wearing VisionSpring eyeglasses with her ... [+]
We partner with businesses to bring sight tests and eyeglasses to employees, sourcing communities, and stakeholder and emerging customer groups. VisionSpring specializes in reaching people where they work — in factories, co-operatives, agricultural districts, and transportation hubs.
For worker and businesses, our See to Earn programs are win-win. Workers experience increased income and well-being, and businesses see improvements in productivity, product quality and workforce retention.
The business community has a powerful role to play in creating clear vision workplaces and communities. Companies like Target, Williams-Sonoma, Levi Strauss, VF, Warby Parker, Chetak Logistics, Baja, ICICI Bank and many others are now working with us.
David Hessekiel: VisionSpring's ability to provide screening and glasses to those who need them for less than $7 per person unleashes striking ROI yet only about 40 companies work with you. What are the most common objections you encounter when talking to businesses? What have you found most helpful in overcoming them?
Ella Gudwin: Glasses yield an extraordinary return on investment. Every $1 input into VisionSpring creates $43 of new earning potential for eyeglasses wearers living on less than $4 per day.
The issue is that most business leaders don’t know how big the problem is, or that they are coping with it. We like to call it “the problem hiding in plain sight.”
As an example, we’ve screened the vision of more than half a million garment workers and artisans in recent years; 30% of them are making products and generating their country’s export earnings with uncorrected blurry vision. In agriculture it is worse. We find that 85% of farmers and tea, coffee and cocoa workers who need glasses, do not have them to harvest, sort quality grades and engage in the mobile economy through their phones. This problem is producing global economic losses estimated at over $272 billion annually.
But we’re talking about a 700-year-old technology. It’s affordable and scalable. We just need to get the issue out of business leaders’ blind spot, literally. Conversations like this one help!
Once people are aware of the solution, we find that companies engage VisionSpring with different motivations. International brands are working to improve worker and farmer well-being in their supply chains. Manufacturers are looking for productivity hacks and invest in clear vision as a workplace benefit. Banks and insurance companies need their customers to see clearly so they can interact with mobile apps. Corporate social responsibility divisions want smart, replicable interventions that advance their livelihoods, education, gender, and stakeholder engagement strategies.
We are proponents of companies acting out of enlightened self-interest. And, we are working to solve this issue within a generation. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?
In 2022 VisionSpring celebrated its 20th anniversary of making eyecare accessible to people in need ... [+]
David Hessekiel: What are some successes that VisionSpring has enjoyed recently with business partners that you are excited about?
Ella Gudwin: On World Sight Day last month, we announced our vision for Livelihoods in Focus, a multi-year initiative to unlock more than $1 billion of new income earning potential for agricultural and artisan workers through eyeglasses in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030.
A transformational gift from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s of $15 million serves as a springboard for the effort. But to reach our target of conducting sight tests for 12 million people will require $70 million in funds. So, we are inviting the business community, as well as philanthropists and governments to join Livelihoods in Focus as a collaborative, high leverage collective effort.
We are focusing on tea, coffee and cocoa growing regions and neighboring artisan clusters in India, Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana at the onset.
David Hessekiel: As we look ahead to VisionSpring’s third decade what are you top two goals you have for 2023?
Ella Gudwin: We want to get vision correction for workers on the agenda of the global business community, and enlist many more brands, producers and companies up and down the value chains to provide workplace sight tests.
A decade from now, we should all look back and say, “Remember when workers couldn’t see? Aren’t we glad that’s not a problem anymore.” We’ll start by correcting the vision of 1.6 million people with eyeglasses next year.
