BE THE CHANGE
These New Yorkers quit their high-flying jobs to make a difference
S AVING the world is a tall order, but that hasn’t kept these New Yorkers from trying. They ditched their successful, well-paid careers to do something that effects change, and the results are significant.
Jessica Pliska, founder, Opportunity Network
Sitting in a window office in a Manhattan skyscraper having successfully launched a corporate marketing department before she was 30 didn’t feel like “success” to Jessica Pliska.
“I knew there was something more important for me to do,” she says, speaking of her aha! moment 13 years ago. Pliska remembers pondering her privileged background — white with well-educated parents, surrounded by a community where professional success was the norm, a diploma from Yale University and parental social connections that could introduce her to prospective employers — and wondering about others who weren’t born into such fortunate circumstances. She was disturbed by the inequity of it all. “For every 100 low-income students in the city, only eight will graduate from college and get good jobs,” she says. And it isn’t because they don’t get good grades and aren’t motivated, she adds, but because they aren’t set up for success anywhere nearly as well as their more affluent peers.
These kids went to high schools in lowincome areas that were short-staffed, where access to guidance counselors, college-prep classes and class visits from accomplished professionals and such were lacking. Not only that, but their parents and members of their social networks hadn’t gone to college, either.
Pliska couldn’t look past the disparity, so, she assessed what she had to offer that could make a difference.
“I could tap my social network to help,” she says. “That was my lever to pull.”
Not long after, Pliska quit her job, set up office on her couch and started the Opportunity Network (OppNet), a nonprofit that offers a six-year program to high-performing, highneed and motivated rising high-school juniors. It starts with college prep and continues until they get their first jobs. They meet mentors, learn business etiquette such as shaking hands and looking people in the eye, and complete internships and enrichment programs that set them up for success.
Fifteen years later, there’s solid proof that OppNet is working. Not only does it serve 770 students each year, but 100 percent of them now graduate from college. Some work in fields like academia, affordable housing, biotech and media. Others have joined the Peace Corps or gone on to graduate school.
How has the Opportunity Network affected Pliska’s own life?
“I wake up excited to go to work every day. It’s a gift I don’t take for granted,” she says.
Scott Harrison, founder, Charity: Water
If you waited in long lines to get to into hot clubs in New York City in the late 1990s, chances are Scott Harrison was the promoter wooing the “beautiful people” and picking who did and didn’t get in the door. The now-42-year-old Battery Park resident doesn’t hold back when talking about his once-decadent lifestyle. “I was into strip clubs, gambling and just about every drug but heroin,” he says, never mind his flashy Rolex and other things his fat wallet could buy.
The party went on until he hit a bottom of sorts, recognizing that he was “spiritually, emotionally and morally bankrupt,” desperately needing to do right by the world. He wanted to do charity work, but no charities wanted him until he found one in Liberia that brought him in as photographer — provided he pay them $500 a month.
While doing that, he saw firsthand how many people were getting sick and dying because their only access to water came from scummy swamps, dirty ponds and rivers. “One in 10 people were dying because they couldn’t get clean water,” he says.
Determined to help, Harrison high-tailed it back to New York to raise money. His first attempt was, of course, a party in a hot club. “Instead of getting people to drink, I could get them to donate to help people in impoverished countries get access to sanitation and clean water,” he says. He charged $20 at the door, which brought in $15,000 total. It’s then that Charity: Water began.
Charity: Water has raised more than $300 million since 2006, giving more than eight million people worldwide access to clean water. Celebrities including Alyssa Milano and Jada Pinkett Smith have asked that friends donate to Charity: Water in lieu of any birthday gifts for them. Non-celebrities have done the same.
How has Harrison’s life changed since founding Charity: Water? “Instead of getting people to pay money [to] drown themselves in alcohol, I’m convincing them to donate so that everyone on the planet can have access to clean water,” he says.