Colin Salisbury

Biography

Colin Salisbury has spent his adult life working to effect change in communities around the world. His mission is to "inspire learning, innovation and action to unlock the potential of vulnerable communities around the world."

Born in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, Colin left school with only three school certificate subjects and a note from his teachings saying “Colin is best suited to practical subjects”. Yet despite the lack of encouragement from his teachers, Colin went on to get his Masters in International Development and is the Founder and President of Global Volunteer Network.

Global Volunteer Network through Colin's leadership, determination and innovation received the following accolades. “Bill Gates recommends Global Volunteer Network as a first port of call for young people who want to make a difference in the world and Global Volunteer Network has been endorsed by CNN as one of the top ten organizations making an impact on the world.”

Despite his success and worldwide travels, Colin is a Kiwi boy at heart. He is married with two teenage daughters and he enjoys the outdoor life that New Zealand offers. Colin is keen on all water sports but in particular sailing. He also tramps and skis.

Filmmaker and producer

Colin Salisbury, is Founder and President of Global Volunteer Network (GVN), an organization that places volunteers in communities where contributing their time and energy can effect change.

Colin has spent the last decade growing Global Volunteer Network to include the GVN Charitable Trust, The Global Volunteer Network Foundation, the IC3 Academy, which is part of their growing social innovation centre, and the End of Poverty Project.

But Colin is always looking for ways to reach as many people as possible in the belief that they can be inspired to create change. His vision "To inspire learning, innovation and action to unlock the potential of vulnerable communities around the world" also inspires him to look at different ways to connect with people to show them how they can make a difference.

So Colin stepped into the Film Making industry. He believes that through the growing genre of documentary and our ability to consume online content easily, Global Volunteer Network has the potential to reach new audiences in ways they can't currently reach through their current program mix.

Their production company, Stomp It Out Productions, is producing humanitarian documentaries that not only educate, entertain and inspire, but will motivate viewers to become global citizens.

Their first film Undercover was put together with the assistance of a kick starter campaign. It has gone on to be in the official selection of the Pan African Film Festival 2013 and the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival 2014.

Their second film Stomp it Out is due to be released soon.

Global Volunteer Network

“I can create change.” Four simple words that have become Global Volunteer Network’s mantra and underpins everything they do and inspire others to do.

Founder and President of Global Volunteer Network (GVN), Colin Salisbury, has a big vision:

This vision has seen nearly 20,000 volunteers placed in 93 projects in 19 countries across five continents, raised US$2 million through the GVN Charitable Trust and Global Volunteer Network Foundation and inspired 1000’s of people to be the change they want to see in the world.

Colin’s journey began in Papua New Guinea in 1998 with the simple act of tossing a stone into Lake Kutubu. He was 18 years old. He recalls wandering down to the lake and throwing stones into the water feeling a deep yearning to help these people - to make a difference. But he wondered what one person could do and was overcome by a sense of hopelessness. But as he watched the ripples moving out and saw the impact one stone made, he thought if he could inspire others it would be like the stone’s ripple, one small ripple, leading to a bigger one and a bigger one - a ripple of change.

Colin later spent three months living in Ghana working with the Konkomba tribe as part of his Masters in International Development. What struck him the most was the schooling. A class of 100 children had one teacher. It was clear that many children were missing out on an education due to the lack of teachers. While he knew that long term trained teachers were needed; he could see that in the short term if he provided volunteers to the schools, many more children would be able to access education.

“The experience of being in a community where poverty is the norm teaches you so much about yourself and how you can make a valuable contribution to the lives of others. I wanted to give people the same opportunity to experience what I had, so in 2002 I founded Global Volunteer Network.”

Colin understood that he was just one person with limited time and skills, so he had to find ways to inspire and empower others to believe that they can make a difference, that they can create change. “Our vision is to inspire learning, innovation and action in order to unlock the potential of vulnerable communities around the world.” And Global Volunteer Network has come a long way from the placement of the first volunteers. You could say it has come of age. Global Volunteer Network has learned that successful projects are achieved through partnerships with communities and with those who have access to resources and knowledge. Building a school for a community is less successful than building a school with a community—a useful lesson to teach volunteers.

So not only does GVN continue to place volunteers, but they have got to the heart of affecting change. Through their social innovation, their IC3Academy (an online/offline training program that provides emerging social entrepreneurs with the tools they need to turn their vision for social change into an achievable plan of action), and their documentaries, they inspire others to believe they can create change.

"Gandhi said you have to be the change you want to see in the world. But for many people this seems too big, too hard. But when you understand your 'why', you can look through your own fears and understand those fears are just human nature and taking action is scary for all of us, but it doesn't have to stop us. At Global Volunteer Network our job is to inspire people to work through their fears and realize they can create change." Colin Salisbury, Founder and President Global Volunteer Network.

Global Volunteer Network has been endorsed by CNN as one of the top ten organizations making an impact on the world and Bill Gates recommended GVN as a first port of call for young people who want to make a difference in the world.

GVN Foundation

In 2004, after visiting a village in Uganda decimated by AIDS and seeing a real need to educate the children, Salisbury had a desire to assist their partners with funding for capital projects and programmes. The idea of setting up a foundation that could raise money was born.

Flying home from Uganda Colin saw an advert to climb Mt Kilimanjaro and raise money to save the Rhino. He thought, “We could do that, but we could build a school in Uganda instead." Back home he found a trekking company that would lead the trek, launched it on their web site and had 20 people sign up. Each participant raised US$2000 for the project, so with a combined total of US$40,000 they had enough for a new school. A year after conceiving the idea, the school was built.

Salisbury co-founded the GVN Foundation in 2005 with Courtney Montague after witnessing the impact that resources combined with volunteering could make in a community. The vision of the GVN Foundation is to support the charitable and educational work of local community organizations in various countries through the distribution of financial, in-kind and material donations.

The success of the first trek to Mt Kilimanjaro prompted Salisbury to organise another fundraising trek. This time they took a group of forty trekkers to base camp on Mount Everest to raise funds for a Nepalese orphanage. A trek to Machu Picchu in Peru soon followed. These socially conscious fundraising treks are now part of GVN’s major fundraising activities.

In 2007 Colin set up the Stop Child Poverty website, an advocacy campaign developed in support of the United Nations Millennium goals to help end child poverty. Salisbury was invited to attend the UN half time Millennium conference in Geneva and during that trip met Bill Clinton. The GVN Foundation is now officially recognized by the United Nations and has been granted Special Consultative Status (2009) with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Eat So They Can

In 2007 Salisbury co-founded the international fundraising campaign ‘Eat So They Can’. A campaign that invites citizens of the world to take part in what is collectively one huge dinner party in an effort to help stop child poverty.

Salisbury often refers to Eat So They Can as ‘the global dinner party with a cause’. The Eat So They Can campaign takes place annually over a weekend in October in support of the United Nation’s 'World Poverty Day'. All funds raised at the events go towards supporting orphanages and schools in Africa and South America, providing disadvantaged children with the essentials for survival.

Eat So They Can has become another major fundraising activity that the GVN Foundation undertakes on an annual basis.

Be The Change

Salisbury says his journey has just begun. As a naive 18-year-old he believed he could make a difference, one ripple at a time, and he has. Now through his visionary ‘Be The Change program', Salisbury is assisting many others worldwide to follow the words often incorrectly attributed to Mahatma Gandhi's - “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Many people have a dream or an idea to start a project or a charity but don’t know where or how to begin. Salisbury’s desire to share with people what he has learnt along the way resulted in the ‘Be the Change’ programme. This is a program designed to teach the skills and share the know-how, to make the dream a reality. The week-long program, led by Salisbury, takes participants through a series of workshops that focus on identifying and developing the skills required to make their ideas or dreams a reality.