Get That Life: How I Became the CEO of DoSomething.org

Aria Finger cites two passions from her formative years: math and helping people. She was the nerd in algebra always raising her hand and the student on campus trying to get her classmates to volunteer. After studying economics in college, Finger began her career in social justice at a small startup organization called DoSomething.org, which had grand ambitions of changing the ways young people give back to their communities. In 10 years, the organization has grown to reach 4.7 million young people with campaigns that motivate them to take action on issues such as global warming, gender discrimination, and police brutality. During her tenure at the organization, Finger launched some of its most successful campaigns, including Teens for Jeans, which has clothed 5 million homeless teenagers to date.

Finger, 32, has spent her career at DoSomething, and in November - fresh off maternity leave - she took over as its new CEO. She talks about making it to the C-suite, relentlessly fighting for justice, and the value in sticking with one job her entire career.

I grew up in the Bronx, and then in Westchester, one of four kids. I was lucky enough to excel at the two things that matter when you're in middle school and high school, which is school and sports. I was definitely a math nerd and I still am. I was also a big athlete. The third thing that defined my childhood was my parents and their sense of social justice, fighting for the underdog, and combating the unfairness of inequality of opportunity. My parents imbued this in me.

I went to school at Washington University in St. Louis, purposefully, because I wanted to get out of the Northeast. I studied economics, political science, and Spanish. It turned out to be the perfect school for me. I got to revel in my classes and learn from amazing professors. I had a Nobel Prize-winning economist, Douglass North, teaching one of my classes. I started to become more and more interested in the economic side of political science. Anyone who wants to do social justice needs to have a background in economics. It's a matter of understanding numbers to make sense of how the world works. I had one internship my junior year at an economic consulting form in D.C. It had nothing to do with social change, but it taught me how to use my economic, statistical mind in business.

I graduated with a degree in political science, and I was a little stressed about what I was going to do until I decided to go back to New York to be near my family. That summer, I was working with my dad to start up a nonprofit that was all about getting high-achieving, low-income African American and Hispanic middle school students in honors and AP classes. In the spring, I started applying for every job I could find on Idealist.org. I came across DoSomething.org. I had never heard of it. At the time, there were six people working there. The website was horrible. But the job description said I would get to work on an array of causes, and described it as, "You're equally comfortable watching The Daily Show and reading The Economist." Hilariously, I had to create a PowerPoint presentation for why I should be hired for the job and then fax it in. I was so broke I almost didn't apply because I couldn't afford all the copies at Kinkos.

I got in the application an hour before midnight on the day it was due. Two days later, they called me in for a first-round interview. I wore something like mesh slippers to the interview, like what you'd find on the streets of Chinatown for 99 cents. Those were the fanciest shoes I owned. I had a tongue ring and didn't even think about taking it out. When I met with the CEO, Nancy Lublin, and said, "Oh, you're like the Boy Scouts but without the discrimination," I thought I had bombed the interview. But I got the job.

I was hired as a campaigns associate. We were only six to seven people at the time, so I did a little bit of everything. I came up with new campaign ideas, wrote the content for the website.

The idea of DoSomthing.org is that young people want to take action and they want to make the world a better place. They're not actually this group of apathetic people, which is a label that so often gets bestowed upon them. But like any of us, they might not know what to do. They might not know how to make an impact. They might not have time. It's like when you watch a documentary and get all fired up and then think, Now what? DoSomething helps take down those barriers and makes it really easy for young people to volunteer and make an impact. We do this by running cause campaigns on issues from homelessness to the environment to sexual assault. Members can run a campaign at their school, and do it with friends.

A great example is Teens for Jeans, which is our longest-running campaign, and one of the first I created. We called homeless shelters and asked them, "What is one of the top things teens experiencing homelessness need?" To our surprise, they said a pair of blue jeans. In the first year, we had more than 100,000 pairs of jeans donated. In the course of the campaign, we've given more than 5 million pairs of jeans to homeless kids.

I've never been short on passion. It doesn't take much to fire me up. Even when DoSomething was in its infancy, we were not motivating millions of folks back then, but every single person you talk to who says, "Wow, DoSomething turned me on to social change." Or, "DoSomething changed my life." It only takes a few of those stories to get you really excited. I just heard we're one of the top referrers on a monthly basis to the bone marrow registry, Be the Match. That's because we have a campaign on our site that asks kids to swab their cheek and get on the bone marrow registry. We've had over 80 matches. That's saving actual lives.

I was lucky to join a small organization that was growing. I was directing PSAs with big-name celebrities at 24, which I had no business doing. We were doing a PSA with the Jonas Brothers before any of them could drive. I worked with David Archuleta and all sorts of American Idol talent, Nick Cannon, Demi Lovato, Drew Barrymore. This was not in my job description, but when there was no one else to do it, I was doing it.

I was in my first job for about a year. Then I just got a nominal promotion to coordinator, whatever that means. My job really changed two years in. I was promoted to be the director of business development. That's when I was responsible for revenue for the organization. There's an added level of stress and responsibility when you know you are responsible for the salaries of the people on the team.

Then I became the CMO for about 2.5 years, beginning in 2009. That's when I oversaw all of our celebrity PSAs and all of our marketing. In 2010 I was promoted to COO, which was similar to my CMO job, but it added the finance piece. I was thrilled. A lot of people are allergic to numbers, but by looking at an organization's expenses, you understand what its priorities are. I was excited to learn new things.

Nancy Lublin was such a champion of me. Three years ago, I sat down with her at one of my reviews and said, "Listen, I've been here seven years, I should probably get going." We talked and talked, and I decided to start a new business, TMI Agency, as part of DoSomething. That was Nancy's way of keeping me here.

TMI was an idea I had been bouncing around for a little while. Not only do we see a lot of young people want to participate in social change, we see a lot of brands that want to do it as well. So we use our expertise in marketing and motivating young people, and connect them to brands [like Keds, Microsoft, and Foot Locker]. All of the additional revenue of TMI goes back into DoSomething, allowing us to do more campaigns at even greater scale.

There's no reason to leave DoSomething except to leave. Getting new blood into places is so important, but so is loyalty. I am always learning. There is always something new. Today, the organization has no resemblance to the five-person tiny nonprofit I joined 10 years ago. We went from five to 55 employees, from $2 million in revenue to $12 million. We now have over 4.5 million young people participating in our campaigns. Every day at DoSomething, we have thousands of people reporting back on the tangible thing they did that made the world a little bit better. On your worst day, you can say that you made a difference. That's pretty powerful.

Get That Life is a weekly series that reveals how successful, talented, creative women got to where they are now. Check back each Monday for the latest interview.

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