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The Spark Story, Now on Instagram

Our Director of Social Impact Investments, Lucy Jodlowska, also happens to be our in-house photographer extraordinaire. Thanks to her incredible skills, you are able to see our work in action in vivid detail – and since she’s in the field so frequently, we get lots of beautiful and timely images to keep you up to date with the newest Spark developments. Lucy posted a couple of photo stories on her personal Instagram account recently. With her permission, we thought we’d share a sneak peak here as they provide such a powerful glimpse into our work. If you want to see the rest of the incredible images (and other amazing photos of our work), don’t forget follow Spark Ventures’ Instagram account!

Photo 1/9: Almost eight years ago, a small Chicago-based nonprofit called Spark Ventures was formed, which would soon develop a long-term relationship with a local Zambian organization that was providing services for local children affected by poverty, the HIV crisis, malnutrition, and lack of access to healthcare. This photo series originally posted by @ljodlowska, Spark’s Director of Social Impact Investments and in-house photographer extraordinaire.

A photo posted by Spark Ventures (@sparkventures) on Jun 15, 2015 at 10:01am PDT

Photo 1/9: Almost eight years ago, a small Chicago-based nonprofit called Spark Ventures was formed, which would soon develop a long-term relationship with a local Zambian organization that was providing services for local children affected by poverty, the HIV crisis, malnutrition, and lack of access to healthcare. This photo series originally posted by @ljodlowska, Spark’s Director of Social Impact Investments and in-house photographer extraordinaire.   A photo posted by Spark Ventures (@sparkventures) on Jun 15, 2015 at 10:01am PDT

Photo 2/9: Hope Ministries, which was started by a reverend and his wife, rented one classroom and sought out volunteer teachers to help kids in the village with no access to any formal education. The organization, via a partnership with Spark, would eventually grow to become Hope Village, offering among several things, a quality primary school education that would soon arrive at 100% 7th grade passing rate, compared with the national average of ~85%. This photo series originally posted by @ljodlowska, Spark’s Director of Social Impact Investments and in-house photographer extraordinaire. #Zambia #Africa #socent #educationforall #volunteer #businessdrivenphilanthropy #childhoodeducation #socialimpact #socialenterprise #impactinvesting #hope A photo posted by Spark Ventures (@sparkventures) on Jun 16, 2015 at 10:05am PDT

Photo 3/9: Through the growing collaboration and network of supporters, Hope has been able to provide a solid primary education, daily meal program, and access to resources such as uniforms, shoes, and school supplies. #Zambia #Copperbelt #Twapia #HopeMinistries This photo series originally posted by @ljodlowska, Spark’s Director of Social Impact Investments and in-house photographer extraordinaire. #Zambia #Africa #socent #businessdrivenphilanthropy #educationforall #childhoodnutrition #primaryeducation #socialimpact

A photo posted by Spark Ventures (@sparkventures) on Jun 16, 2015 at 1:50pm PDT

Photo 6/9: At the very onset of the Hope and Spark collaboration to provide services to vulnerable children, focusing on education, nutrition, and healthcare, healthcare, was always the question: how will these social services be sustained in the long run? How do we not add to the harmful effects of foreign aid-dependent cycle of continual charity and all its associated problems? #Zambia #Zambezi #fisherman This photo series originally posted by @ljodlowska, Spark’s Director of Social Impact Investments and in-house photographer extraordinaire. #Africa #internationaldevelopment #healthcare #education #nutrition #childhoodhealth #sustainable #sustainability #sustainabledevelopment #socent #socialimpact

A photo posted by Spark Ventures (@sparkventures) on Jun 17, 2015 at 3:20pm PDT

Photo 7/9: The answer that we came up with was a model of business driven philanthropy- investing charitable contributions for the purpose of developing commercial scale businesses, which with time are able to become significant revenue generators that can sustainably support social programs. After much research, we wound up launching a poultry farm in Lusaka. What started as a small outfit that grew 2,000 chickens in May of 2011, this year celebrates its fourth birthday at a scale of 20,000 chickens/cycle, getting ready to grow to 26,000 birds for the biggest buyer in the country. This photo series originally posted by @ljodlowska, Spark’s Director of Social Impact Investments and in-house photographer extraordinaire. #Zambia #Africa #businessdrivenphilanthropy #sustainable #local #socialprograms #smallbusiness #localbusiness #philanthropy #sustainabledevelopment #scale #internationaldevelopment

A photo posted by Spark Ventures (@sparkventures) on Jun 18, 2015 at 7:00am PDT

“The story doesn’t end here. Maybe a vignette, but there’s a long way to go…”

Follow us on Instagram for more on this incredible photo series!