Honoring the ‘best of the best’ volunteers for 2023

At a company with more than 8,000 registered volunteers and more than 117,000 volunteer hours logged (so far!) in 2023, there are still some employees whose commitment, creativity and hard work stand out.

These are the winners of Mastercard’s “Best of the Best” CEO Force for Good Awards, recognized for their extraordinary service in 2023.

Global

Bonnie Leff, Isabel Kiesel, Katie Boudreau, Jenn deBerge, Melanie Gersten, David Housman, and employee volunteers around the world

In 2019, Mastercard helped form the CyberPeace Institute, an independent nonprofit with a mission to protect NGOs from cyberattacks. In late 2022, those efforts multiplied with the integration of the Institute’s CyberPeace Builders program. Currently, 186 Mastercard employees make up 53% of the program’s volunteers, who donate cybersecurity skills to educate NGO employees with security assessments, awareness training, Dark Web monitoring, phishing exercises and password management. To date, 37 NGOs have improved cybersecurity through CyberPeace Builders. As a member of the CyberPeace executive board,  Leff encouraged expansion of the program, with other executive team members playing key roles. The company commitment to CyberPeace Builders continues to advance through NGOs in new regions introduced to the program, using our company services like RiskRecon to improve automation, organizing group missions and recognizing intrepid volunteers. 

Shannon Hunter, Erika Alcalde, Nicole Turner, Ksenia Sussman and Scott Whitmore, Miami, Boston, Toronto and New York

This team furthered the work of Mastercard’s In Solidarity commitment to reduce the racial wealth and opportunity gap by developing a strategy to create financial sustainability for a historic Black community in Alabama. Africatown, located north of downtown Mobile, was settled by descendants of enslaved people brought to Mobile on the ship Clotilda — arriving after the 1807 law prohibiting importation of slaves. Africatown presents a wealth of history for visitors. Through the company’s Racial Justice Pro Bono program, the team worked with the local organization C.H.E.S.S. to develop and sustain Africatown as a tourism site, including a tourist map and guide, website advice, and a tourism promotion package with recommended logistics, community outreach, fundraising, digital marketing and external communication plans.

Asia Pacific

Shubham Gupta, Gurugram, India

Some volunteers stand out for their individual hours and efforts; some by giving and rallying others to give. Gupta does both, according to nominator and colleague Sharat Nambissan. “Shubham is instrumental in driving volunteerism for the Gurugram office. He brings the passion and encourages others to participate, providing a perfect immersion for those who haven’t volunteered before.” In the past year, Gurugram colleagues had multiple opportunities to follow his lead as Shubham helped plan and execute activities — from providing financial and payments literacy to marginalized communities to donating food and clothing. Gupta also does pro-bono consulting for an NGO, including upskilling the NGO’s internal project management and volunteering capabilities with a much-needed tech enablement.

Priya Sancheti, Sarthak Goel, Himanshu Tyagi, Tanya Dhingra, Mahima Goel, Saurabh Chhabra and Ritika Jain, Gurugram, India

This team extended our consulting and analytics services to CAPED India, a cancer awareness, prevention and early detection NGO supporting underprivileged women. Over a short 2-month period, team members streamlined and enhanced back-end operations and functionalities, saving the organization money, and developing an insights dashboard to help the NGO — and prospective sponsors — understand their impact

Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa

Kuntay Simbatova, Dubai, UAE

Simbatova was a 2022 Force for Good Individual and Best of the Best recipient who helped install a water station for a village in Rwanda. This year she partnered with Ugandan Water Project to build the infrastructure for a community of 3,000-plus outside Kampala to have safe drinking water. Simbatova and fellow volunteers — her own family and 10 others — commissioned a water borehole and then constructed a water tower and microgrid to deliver 14,000 liters per day across four community access points. The group also added two classrooms to a primary school. With up to a quarter of Ugandan students absent daily due to waterborne illnesses, safe water also benefits education. For her work, she has also been recognized as one of two winners of Mastercard’s s first ESG in Action Award.

Medamine El Yacoubi and Ikbal Touimer, Casablanca, Morocco

On September 8, near midnight in Morocco, an earthquake of magnitude 6.8 hit the Marrakesh-Safi region and was felt as far as Casablanca, nearly 150 miles away. El Yacoubi and Touimer immediately teamed up “to do the right thing with speed and decency,” says Anna Kaminska, their nominator. With millions impacted by the destruction, they gave their personal volunteering greater reach by fundraising in the Casablanca office to buy necessities for survivors. Then the pair drove several hours to the affected area to deliver the collected supplies. Making stops in five villages, the team distributed a total of 15 tents, 30 mattresses, 60 covers and 30,000 Moroccan dirham (about USD $3,000) of food and medicines. Natural disasters are a terrible kind of force, but employee volunteers like Medamine and Ikbal are the Force for Good that’s unleashed when tragedy strikes.

Europe

Claire Byrne, Dublin, Ireland

Back in 2017 — not long after the Force for Good Awards were launched — Byrne created Dublin MC Cares as a centralized employee volunteer group. Today, with upwards of five events each month, Dublin MC Cares is very active in the community. And Byrne stands out for her tireless efforts to galvanize others into volunteer action, beginning with her intuitive understanding that more colleagues will step up if service activities are planned for them. She  coordinates some events and has trained a volunteer team to organize more, providing Dublin Tech Hub employees with opportunities to pitch in for a host of worthy causes, from Feed Our Homeless to Cancer Research Ireland and others. With thousands of annual volunteer hours being filled, the impact is both immense and incalculable for charities and their service users. “Everyone who crosses paths with Claire is the better for it,” says Gareth Grehan, her colleague and nominator.

Athanasios Karampekos, Stellina Charizopoulou, Christina Georgiou, Miltiadis Margellos, Alexandros Papadatos, Apostolis Papadopoulos, Diagoras Vougas and Iraklis Stratigis, Athens, Greece

Some move mountains to make a difference — others climb them. For this team of passionate volunteers from Mastercard’s office in Greece, climbing Mount Olympus, banner photo, for a special cause was a challenge to rise to in an epic way. Joined by 39 other employees from eight different offices, the Greek team had one common goal: helping children in need. The 3-day hike, which took place in August, covered about 24 kilometers — think 95,000 steps — and scaled four summits, including Mytikas, the highest peak of Mount Olympus. That grueling effort raised 18,000 euros (close to USD $20,000) for The Smile of the Child NGO, based in Athens, which will help 247 children.

Latin America and Caribbean

Javier Guerraty, Santiago, Chile

When you’ve developed one of the leading financial education nonprofits in your country, it’s a safe assumption you don’t rest on your laurels. That’s certainly true for Guerraty, a 2022 Force for Good and Best of the Best winner. Earning another honor is testament to his dedication to Fundacion Chile Se Educa, which targets low-income Chileans with information delivered in a simple and friendly way. Since last year, more than 8,000 subscribers have joined the nonprofit’s financial education community on social media, now reaching 63,000-plus people in all 16 regions of Chile. More than 1,000 have taken its financial education courses. He also points proudly to some 15 professionals — economists, lawyers, teachers, journalists, historians — who contribute expertise daily to support the nonprofit’s activities. Guerraty’s own service is still inspired by our company values. “I work every day with the one team mindset,” he says, “and within my nonprofit we work toward our goal: Improve people's lives through financial education.” 

Carlos Alberto Rubio Pimienta, Claudia Escamilla; Jennyffer Alguera, Inigo Rodriguez, Sabrina Alvarez, Nikki Bertran and Larissa Navarro, Mexico City, San Jose, Costa Rica, and Miami

The Latin America and Caribbean region, a founding member of the Partnership for Central America, is committed to empowering 5,000 girls in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador through Girls4Tech by 2027. In pursuit of this goal, the team has been actively seeking opportunities and has successfully secured an agreement with the Ministry of Education of El Salvador. As a result of this collaboration, 26 schools in the Soyapango region are participating in our signature STEM education program. The first phase of the program has already been completed, which included two virtual workshops per week for two months, with the support of 41 employees as volunteers, certifying 812 girls. The second phase is set to begin in February, when the team plans to reach an additional 1,000 girls. "This is a groundbreaking initiative for our region, involving a strategic partnership with a government institution to plan over 40 Girls4Tech workshops in two phases," Rubio Pimienta says. "It's a best practice that can be replicated across all regions to make an impact and drive an inclusive digital economy and a more equitable society." For their work, this team has also been awarded the company’s ESG in Action Award.

North America

Allison Wachen, Arlington, Va.

Imagine the delight of a disadvantaged child receiving the gift of a birthday cake. Now, imagine thousands of children and seniors also enjoying these donated treats: 9,500 cakes and counting have been donated since Wachen co-founded Birthday Cakes 4 Free with her brother in 2015. Today, Allison is board chair of the nonprofit, which has more than 800 volunteers and received the Maryland Comptroller’s Helping People Award. But that’s not her only volunteer passion. She is a crisis text line counselor, fielding text messages from individuals in distress and responding with calm to help create safety plans and empower them with resources. As a court-appointed special advocate for CASA for Children of DC, she combines her concern for kids and crisis support as a mentor for children in foster care.

Justin Harnish, Salt Lake City, Utah

What does it take to stick with a goal for 14 years to grow a nonprofit when that work is not your only focus? Harnish has an explanation. “I believe that how you work and live are equally important to the results you deliver. Ensuring everyone in our community has opportunities to create their own priceless experiences is a cornerstone of my service philosophy.” Benefiting from his philosophy is Women of the World, which he co-founded with his wife, Samira Harnish, executive director. In a decade-plus, WoW has evolved into an internationally recognized women refugee service organization. Yet it maintains grassroots qualities of customized services for forcibly displaced women and their families, with over 5,000 helped to date. Thirteen full-time employees, along with contractors and volunteers, provide advocacy that might start with a cup of tea and includes English classes, direct service, and a popular employer partnership program.

Siva Dola and Pravallika Nannapaneni, St. Louis, Mo.

It’s not always knowable how service impacts others. But Dola and Nannapaneni can literally count those whose lives are improved by their recent project to rebuild a water tank in Sirikonda, India — 393 village residents, and potentially more. The original tank was crumbling and endangering the health of the cows and buffalo that drink from it and, by extension, the source of milk, farm labor and transportation in Sirikonda and three other villages that use the tank. Working thousands of miles away, they managed the project funding along with the logistics of rebuilding. “Siva and Pravallika live the company values by doing the right thing,” says colleague and nominator Carla Tousley. The project was so successful that building additional tanks in other villages is being considered. With less travel required to water village animals, they can be used more efficiently.