Jolene Smith Email & Phone Number

Mission: JOY--Finding Happiness in Troubled Times is a film featuring His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whose final joint mission was to show us all how to create more joy. The film's impact campaign has made the film available in 244 countries and territories, with more than 500,000 people seeing it for free. Its social media campaign has reached 340 million people and won 3 Anthem Awards (a division of the Webby Awards). The film's global launch resulted in 13.3 million views within 48 hours, and was supported by artists, athletes, and thought leaders such as Forest Whitaker, Kevin Love, Gloria Estefan, Cher, Justin Baldoni, Mayim Bialik, Melissa McCarthy, and Sir Richard Branson. Partnering with The Mind and Life Institute, the impact team created the Global Joy Summit that garnered 186,513 participants, watching in 29 languages. The impact team created The BIG JOY Project with scientists at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco to help people operationalize the lessons of the film in their daily lives. BIG JOY is a free online experience that takes 7 minutes a day for 7 days, where participants try a different micro-act of JOY each day. More than 96,000 people from 208 countries and territories have participated, completing 390,000 micro-acts of JOY. It is the world's largest-ever citizen science project on JOY. Participants report on average a 25.59% increase in well-being after the 7 days. BIG JOY has been featured in outlets such as The Guardian, National Public Radio, MSNBC, Fortune, and Forbes.

This organization uses an innovative transitional school model that educates enslaved children, and in the process frees entire villages from generations of slavery in India. In just the past 5 years, they have helped 3,385 people free themselves from slavery and achieve sustainable freedom, with 961 more on their way to becoming free. I was a founding Board Member, and recently came off the Board in order to advise Voices4Freedom leadership on overall strategy, scale-up planning, fundraising, and financial management on a day to day basis.

VentureAlign helps founders and senior executives use business obstacles as levers to 5x and 10x their revenue growth, industry leadership and positive impact. VentureAlign's leading edge coaches quickly identify the internal and external barriers to reaching mission-critical objectives, and align teams to either dismantle the barriers or grow around them while enjoying their jobs more than ever.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

During my tenure as CEO, Free the Slaves grew to have programs in Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Haiti, Nepal and Uganda in addition to its work in India and the United States; helped to shape and implement the Harkin-Engel Cocoa Protocol, the first industry-wide agreement to take responsibility for the slavery in its supply chain; published a call for the eradication of slavery titled Ending Slavery: How We Free Today’s Slaves; and helped launch what is now called the Alliance To End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), the first congressional coalition in the United States dedicated to eradicating all forms of slavery. During this time Free the Slaves also launched the highly acclaimed Freedom Awards and created the world’s largest freely available video library of modern slavery in order to facilitate education on this issue.

I co-created this non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to eradicating modern slavery around the world. Free the Slaves conducts social science-based research, supports grassroots anti-slavery organizations, works to eliminate slavery from product supply chains, educates the public about the existence of slavery and encourages governments to enact and enforce effective anti-slavery policies.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

This private foundation awards grants to organizations doing work in peace, arms control and foreign policy; population issues and reproductive rights; government reform and public policy; or civil rights and civil liberties. In my role as grants manager, I reviewed and evaluated proposals from applicant groups, facilitated the selection of grantees, and helped to manage the endowment.

Through research and advocacy, CIP’s programs address the most urgent threats to our planet including war, corruption, inequality and climate change. As director of finance and development I oversaw the budgeting and strategic planning process, conceived of and executed fundraising efforts, and managed the overall financial health of the organization.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

In this role, I created and oversaw administrative and financial structures for a growing organization, set and implemented policies, and worked in tandem with the Executive Director to ensure the organization was managed smoothly.

Houston, Texas Area

Notre Dame, In

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Anthropology

Activities and Societies: National Security Education Program Scholarship to study Quichua in Ecuador (1995-1996); Helen Kellogg Institute.

Certificate In Inter-American Studies

While taking classes in Spanish and Quichua at this university in Quito, Ecuador, I completed a research project accompanying leaders.

Qualified Paratrooper

As a member of the Army Reserve Officers Training Corp, I trained at Ft. Benning, GA, and completed 5 successful jumps to “earn my wings.”