Terry Kawaja welcomed Jay Sears of Team Dayā at the LUMA DMS conference in NYC May 16, 2023
Team Dayā enjoyed seeing a myriad of our early and ongoing supporters at the LUMA DMS (digital marketing summit) in New York this week. Most folks know that our work building schools in some of the most impoverished places in the world would simply not be possible without the support from support from over 600+ founders, CEOs and executives across the advertising and technology ecosystem.
Team Dayā presented the updates on our three completed schools as well as our future building plans along with a call to action:
#1 Invest. Help us reach our $40,000 fundraising goal for the LUMA DMS conference. Donate and invest in our generational impact, high ROI “primary schools start-up” – donate to the LUMA campaign here. Special gratitude for major gifts from Rajeev Goal at Pubmatic ($5,000), Stephen Master at GTCR ($5000) and Brian Barnum and Stephen Royer of Shamrock Capital ($5,000).
#2 Voice. Invite us to speak at your conference or to your employees. Big, big thanks to Terry Kawaja, his newest partner Conor McKenna, Ashley Holmes, Susan Marshall and the rest of LUMA for integrating us into there annual DMS event.
#3 Team. Consider joining our Team and travel to a school build in Nicaragua (November 2023), Nepal (spring 2024) or another destination. We promise one of the most joyful experiences of your life. Reach out to any team member or contact our head of recruiting.
Team Dayā members Nicolle Pangis of Ampersand, Jay Sears of Team Dayā, and Mike Benedek of Datonics at the LUMA DMS conference in NYC May 16, 2023
Our team members Nicolle Pangis of Ampersand, Mike Benedek of Datonics or Jay Sears of Team Dayā (fka mastercard, Rubicon Project) were waving the team flag. All three are part of a larger group of ten headed to the groups next school building project in Malawi (East Africa) in early July.
The current classroom in Caserío Sector Los Castro
Next week Team Dayā heads to Guatemala and the community of Caserío Sector Los Castro to build our third school. Please consider a donation – we cannot do this without the help of our many supporters.
Caserío Sector Los Castro is an agricultural community of 700 people within the municipality of San Pedro Jocopilas in the larger department of El Quiché. You can see the area, northwest of the capital Guatemala City, on this map. The primary crops in the area are black beans and corn.
Similar to what we found in Senegal last March, this community built a basic school building two years ago with boards, sheet metal and an earth floor. The single teacher teaches 34 students (19 boys and 15 girls) in grades 1st through 6th. The new school will offer increased capacity for students and there are already plans for a second teacher.
We welcome your donations for our Guatemala school build. You can donate to Team Dayā overall or to any of these three members traveling to Guatemala :
Donate to Jordan “Gone Fishing” Mitchell. Jordan is a founding partner of Team Dayā and a longtime ad tech executive. He has worked at the IAB Tech Lab, Rubicon Project and was the founder of Others Online. He can often be found fly fishing across the American West.
Donate to Michael “The Bricklayer” Benedek. Michael is the president and CEO of leading independent data marketplace Datonics, with over 25 years in the Internet, financial services and healthcare fields based out of New York and in Tel Aviv.
Donate to Jay “The Instigator” Sears. Jay is the founder of Team Dayā and a longtime ad tech executive. He works at Tentrr and has run the local media news site MyRye.com since 2006. He has worked at Mastercard, Rubicon Project, Pulsepoint, ContextWeb, EDGAR Online and Wolff New Media.
We will be telling you more about the Guatemala school build in future updates.
We are very pleased to announce our first head of recruiting will be our friend and team member Jaryd Knutsen.
Jaryd will be working with us to make sure we continue to build out Team Dayā and support our team members. Making our team members successful means we can continue Building Change in communities in need of schools.
Meet Jaryd. Then we’ll see you on a future build … -Jay
Jaryd Knutsen on a Team Dayā school build in Nepal.
Your name: Jaryd Knutsen
Your Day Job: I lead sales for TRUSTX, a programmatic supply-side platform.
Your Team Dayā Job: Head of Recruiting
How do you describe Team Dayā’s purpose to friends and family?
Knutsen: I describe Team Dayā as a group of friends of the digital advertising community, who want to make a positive impact in a scalable way. We do this by enabling a safe environment for childhood education, with a focus on the most impoverished areas of the world. In societies where the majority of children don’t have access to infrastructure that supports education, the impact of a new school facility carries on for years, and reaches generations of people within these communities. We build schools in partnership with buildOn, and work hand-in-hand with the communities, with the support from their local leadership.
Knutsen: I’ve come to realize that the key to genuine happiness and feeling fulfilled is by serving others. When exploring various outlets to give back, having the opportunity to get hands-on and do something face-to-face with the people we want to help, became an important criteria. When Jay approached me about starting Team Dayā, the opportunity to live and work with the local communities while helping them build the infrastructure for education, was most appealing and motivating to get involved.
What is one of your best memories from that first school groundbreaking?
Knutsen: The welcoming ceremony the local community gave us was something I’ll never forget. The speeches from the local leadership, the songs, the dancing, the traditions, the children running around, everything about it was awe inspiring. We were welcomed with so much kindness and gratitude, it really made me realize the positive impact we’re making on these families and communities.
Jaryd Knutsen on on a Team Dayā school build in Nepal.
Each team member helps to fundraise–what are the good and bad parts of fundraising?
Knutsen: The good is that you get to reconnect with so many old friends and colleagues, with something genuinely positive to talk about. It’s always inspiring for me, when engaging with a friend about supporting Team Dayā, as you often hear how they too are doing something meaningful by serving others. It really reminds you how much good really does happen in this world, when it’s so easy to get lost in the negative news cycles we’re all exposed to.
The bad, or I supposed the hard part is that you have to really put in the time and effort. Money doesn’t raise by itself. You have to manufacture the energy and enthusiasm to do proactive outreach.
School building also includes dancing.
What are the various ways someone can get involved and support Team Dayā?
Knutsen:
#1 Join an upcoming build! Connect with me or Jay, and we’ll give you some options to join upcoming builds in Malawi, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Nepal and Senegal.
#3 Sponsor an entire School build. Have a group of family or friends that would like to join you? Reach out to me knutsen.jaryd@gmail.com, and we’ll review some options for your group to sponsor a school.
The Team Dayā school in Nguiddine Keur Sara in the Fatick region of Senegal is complete! Previously operating from two temporary classrooms made from millet stalks, sticks, leaves and cardboard, the community’s 100+ first, second and third graders now enjoy a proper, permanent school building.
(PHOTO: Fatou Gueye and her father Waly Gueye in the new school in Nguindine Keur Sara.)
Waly Gueye is the father of four boys and four girls, who all attend Nguindine Keur Sara’s primary school. He has expressed that he does not want his kids to experience the same problems he encountered which resulted from his lack of formal education.
“I never had peace of mind when my children attended classes in the temporary shelter because of the dangers that were there. The classrooms were very dangerous because of the scorpions, plus there was no door so the cows and donkeys would often roam around inside. The heat and the wind would also make them sick,” he revealed.
Fatou Gueye, age nine, is one of Mr. Gueye’s daughters. Her favorite subject is math and she would like to become a teacher when she is older. She is very happy with the new classrooms and their beautiful desks, blackboards, and cement floor. Before the construction of the new school block, Fatou was not motivated to attend classes due to the frustrating conditions.
“The dust in the old school made me cough a lot,” recalls Fatou.
Fatou and her dad are very grateful for the gift that Team Dayā and its non-profit partner buildOn have brought to their community. On behalf of the whole community they would like to thank Team Dayā for changing the children of Nguindine Keur Sara’s lives forever.
(VIDEO: Students of Nguiddine Keur Sara send thanks to Team Dayā supporters for their new school. You can see the old school build from millet stalks in the far background.)
The Build
After the school groundbreaking in March, building continued though May. The students were able to move in and enjoy their new school at the end of their year before their summer recess of July, August and September. The school has two classrooms as well as a separate structure with a girls and boys latrine.
(BEFORE: In a classroom made from millet stalks, sticks, leaves and cardboard.)(PHOTO: One of the new classrooms.)(PHOTO: One of the new classrooms.)
True Collaboration
Team Dayā and its non-profit partner buildOn built this school alongside the community of Nguindine Keur Sara. The community contributed the land and natural resources such as sand, water, and gravel to the project. A Project Leadership Committee consisting of six men and six women from Nguindine Keur Sara were selected to oversee the school build.
(VIDEO: A Project Leadership Committee member from Nguindine Keur Sara explains the importance of the school during the school groundbreaking in March.)
“Being the only woman who knows how to read and write in this community makes me feel that education is the key for opportunity – that education is the key that opens any door in this world,” said one of the women on the Project Leadership Committee via a translator during the school groundbreaking in March.
These incredible leaders not only helped to collect supplies, they also organized crews to volunteer on the worksite each day. By the end of the project, the men and women of Nguindine Keur Sara had proudly contributed 1,340 volunteer work days to the building of their new school.
Please consider a donation so Team Dayā can continue its work. Three Ways You Can Help:
Make a Donation Online
Example investment opportunities:
$100 Five shovels for excavating the school’s solid foundation
$250 All the nails, nuts, and bolts to build a roof for the school
$500 In-country mason during the entire construction of the school
$1,000 Paint for a school
$40,000+ Fund an entire school
Spread the Word
Share our mission with your friends, your company and your industry
Invite us to speak about our mission to your network
Follow us on our website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
Join the Team & Travel on a School Build
If you have a combination of fundraising chops, an adventurous spirit and the belief each of us has the capacity to be Building Change, get in touch with us and have a conversation.
The BricklayerMike and Hasan of Team DayāThe FoundationDancingThe Covenant
The flight to Senegal for a Team Dayā school build with Jay Sears & Hasan Arik was a short flight at the end of a long journey that began years ago when I read about Jay Sears’ vision to give back and launch a charity— Team Dayā–backed by corporate and individual donors from the adtech / martech world to build schools in the developing world.
It Seemed Far Fetched
The vision spoke to me at the time but it seemed so theoretical and far-fetched—- how would I and others like me do something like that? I was focused elsewhere–my work at Datonics, my family, my co-op board, and my involvement as a co-sponsor (the less important one) in launching a charter school in Manhattan–a well-intentioned project that ended up getting rejected by the State of NY’s bureaucratic, charter-granting body despite numerous meetings with state and local representatives, community board meetings, and more.
Education & My Family
The importance of equal access to education has always been top of mind for me. My grandparents, who had their later school-age years stolen from them, never attended college but made up for it with street smarts and ensured that their children, who grew up in Canada, went to college.
Mike talks about the purpose and meaning of the school build.
My father arrived in Canada as a teenager from Romania, speaking neither English nor French, but graduated with a PhD in engineering from McGill University about 10 years later. My mother studied French in college & worked as a teacher in her early years; my wife taught in progressive schools in New York City & now runs a middle school in Manhattan; and my own company Datonics has played a leadership role with a charity called Futures and Options for many years–providing gifted and talented high school students from historically underrepresented communities with the opportunity to intern with and work for technology / financial services companies in New York City–opening students’ eyes to opportunities they might not have been aware of. Education is and always will be part of my DNA.
Team Dayā
When I read Jordan Mitchell’s heartwarming post about Team Dayā’s Nepal school build and his sentiment that “I’m not sure I will ever find the words to describe the experience (and I tear up when I try), but I hope that everyone I know has a similar experience at some point in their lives ”, I knew this was something I had to do.
LUMA Meeting
Brickmaking with The Bricklayer
A bit before COVID-19 hit, I saw that Luma Partners was hosting a Team Dayā info session in New York led by Jay Sears. I put that in my calendar, but work got in the way and I did not attend. But I remembered meeting Jay at IAB Leadership Summit in Palm Springs a couple years prior and getting a great vibe, so I gave him a call and gave him my best pitch about why he should accept me as part of his team and let me get involved.
Thankfully, he accepted me, telling me “Welcome aboard— as soon as you raise $10,000 you can go on a school build.” And off to the races I went, during COVID-19, benefiting from generous corporate/personal donations from old friends, new friends, family, and from Datonics’ own adtech giveback initiative with agencies and brands that helped me reach our goal–but how were we going to build a school during COVID-19 in developing countries where most are unvaccinated? The school build was inching closer but still seemed so far away!
Senegal Quick
In January 2022 I get a call from Jay–“Mike, our school building partner, buildOn, told me we may be able to build a school in Senegal starting in mid-March–are you in? I want to get this done ASAP to build momentum and make up for lost time due to COVID-19–so that we can then do the next builds in Malawi & Guatemala.” This is a man with a vision–he was planning for Senegal to get done as a path to the next two! I loved it and said, “Let’s do it!”.
Only two months later, after countless vaccinations, multiple COVID tests & the promise of 2-3 tests more before we arrived to & during our time in the village–we met at JFK on a Friday night for our flight to Dakar.
Senegal Welcome
All Team Dayā members are required to dance. No experience is necesary.
Three days later, after receiving our names in Wolof (mine was “DIEN GAI”) along with valuable language/cultural instruction, we arrived in the community of Nguiddine Keur Sara in the Fatick region of Senegal accompanied by two translators, and were met by galloping horses, pick-up trucks with cheering children, and a parade of dancing women and children. There were drums & local dance moves, and a ceremony in honor of the school groundbreaking. The whole community (I would estimate 200+ adults, with 150+ children were at this celebration) then signed a covenant to build the school with us, and we delivered speeches of thanks in response to their speeches of welcome and thanks, putting the first shovels in alongside the Village chief, village imam, and women leaders.
Team Dayā being greeted as we enter the village for the first time.
Our Days in Nguiddine Keur Sara Village
Over the rest of the week, we connected deeply with members of the community–a community without electricity or running water. We slept on the floor in a grain shed adjacent to their homes under a mosquito net (normally we would have stayed in their homes but to protect them from COVID-19, we stayed in the grain shed), walked through their fields, played soccer with their children (and I even taught them how to play some card games), danced to Senegalese music, and worked hand in hand with them, day in and day out, for five hours per day in 109 degree heat.
Days started with stretching and that led to brick-making, cement mixing, digging the foundations of the school and the latrines, and more. Like Jordan experienced in Nepal, we wore work gloves and earned blisters, while the community worked with their bare hands (with no blisters)!
Each afternoon we spent on cultural exchanges–meeting the Village Chief and elders, meeting the representatives of the women, meeting the principal & teachers, learning how to prepare millet, learning how to build a chicken coop, tame a bull, and just hanging out with the kids and their animals–donkeys, sheep, chickens, roosters.
What’s Next
My takeaways were like what Jordan experienced in Nepal. First, WOMEN RULE!!!!–the Senegalese women, dressed to kill, often with babies hanging from their arms (and breasts), outworked the men–mixing and carrying cement, rallying the men to work longer and harder, and dancing at the work site.
The second key takeaway was–something that should be obvious to all–that money and material things do not bring happiness (though your donations do help build a school!). This community had very few things, yet they had everything they needed and were very happy. The only thing they lacked easy access to was “education”–with their kids walking 5 miles to school in some cases, and in other cases having classes in a thatched hut.
When it was time to say our goodbyes, the whole community again came together to dance and sing, and we all shed many tears that will bind us together forever. The world is a small place and while I arrived to give, I received far more in return–happiness and fulfillment that cannot be described.
I pray that with the support of Team Dayā and our generous donors–you and others like you–Senegal was only my first school–Malawi, Nicaragua and Guatemala here we come. I can’t wait to get started with your help!
Mike’s remarks at our closing ceremony in Nguiddine Keur Sara
Donate to Michael “The Bricklayer” Benedek. Michael is the president and CEO of leading independent data marketplace Datonics, with over 25 years in the Internet, financial services and healthcare fields based in New York and in Tel Aviv.
Donate to Hasan “Trust & Transparency” Arik. Hasan is the founder & CEOof Redmill Solutions, a specialist media data management company headquartered in London. He has worked at Mediacom and GroupM.
Donate to Jay “The Instigator” Sears. Jay is the founder of Team Dayā and a longtime ad tech executive. He has worked at Mastercard, Rubicon Project, Pulsepoint, ContextWeb, EDGAR Online and Wolff New Media.
We will be telling each of you more about the Senegal school build in future updates.
$100 Five shovels for excavating the school’s solid foundation
$250 All the nails, nuts, and bolts to build a roof for the school
$500 In-country mason during the entire construction of the school
$1,000 Paint for a school
Spread the Word
Share our mission with your friends, your company and your industry
Invite us to speak about our mission to your network
Follow us on our website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
Join the Team & Travel on a School Build
If you have a combination of fundraising chops, an adventurous spirit and the belief each of us has the capacity to be Building Change, get in touch with us and have a conversation.
(PHOTO: 5,000 Bottles & Cans Were Redeemed to Generate this $250 Donation for Team Dayā schools.)
It is not everyday you meet a high school student running a non-profit. Early in the pandemic we met Mark Copple, the founder of Nickel by Nickel.
Now a senior at Crean Lutheran High School in Irvine, California, Copple collected and redeemed 5,000 cans and bottles in order to raise $250 for Team Dayā. We are excited to share our interview with Mark and to put his investment to work during our upcoming school build in Senegal, West Africa.
Please meet Mark Copple:
Team Dayā:Introduce Yourself.
Copple: My name is Mark Copple and I am 17. I am a senior at Crean Lutheran High School in Irvine, California.
Team Dayā:You founded your own non-profit called Nickel by Nickel Corporation – tell us about it.
Copple: My nonprofit works to collect bottles – aluminum, plastic, and glass – and redeem them for the CRV value. This is then donated to various charities, Team Dayā is one of them, in order to make a difference. I started this charity about five years ago with my father, and I work on it mainly on the weekends.
Team Dayā:What inspired you to start Nickel by Nickel?
Copple: I used to go door to door in the neighborhood collecting bottles in my toy wheelbarrow. I then figured that I could make a difference doing this, which is how Nickel by Nickel was born.
Team Dayā:Where do you find all the bottles and cans to collect, redeem and recycle?
Copple: I save them from home, collect them from various people I have agreements with, and also collect them from my school.
Team Dayā:Recently Nickel by Nickel donated $250 to Team Dayā – thank you! Your gift will pay for all the nails, nuts, and bolts to build the roof of our next school. What appeals to you about Team Dayā and its mission?
Copple: Education should be everyone’s top priority. A society cannot function without an educated population, and it is great that you are building schools and providing people with education.
Team Dayā:For one of your peers, or for an adult, what advice would you give to someone who has dreamt of starting a non-profit project to give back?
Copple: I would say that it is important to note that it is a lot of work. If you are not willing to do the work, it will be very difficult. However, if you are willing to do the work, it is very rewarding to give back.
There was never any doubt if–the only question was when.
In late March, Team Dayā will be back Building Change.
For the first time since the global pandemic derailed our plans, a small intrepid group will be heading to Senegal in West Africa to work on a school build.
“A school is an open door to the world,” said Michael “The Bricklayer” Benedek, CEO of the independent data marketplace Datonics and one of the Team Dayā members that will be heading to Senegal. “It is truly humbling to be part of such an amazing cause and help open a world of opportunity to a community so far from home.”
Senegal currently ranks 168 out of 189 countries on the UN Human Development Index. Nearly half of all Senegalese over the age of 15 are illiterate and more than 6 million (38 percent of the total population) are living below the poverty line of $1.90 a day. Nearly half of all children living in rural areas are not enrolled in school, compared to 21 percent in urban areas.
We will be sharing details about our school building project in the weeks leading up to our departure–be sure to follow us.
If you have a combination of fundraising chops, an adventurous spirit and the belief each of us has the capacity to be Building Change, get in touch with us and have a conversation.
Meet the Team Dayā Members Traveling to Senegal
Michael “The Bricklayer” Benedek. Michael is the president and CEO of leading independent data marketplace Datonics, with over 25 years in the Internet, financial services and healthcare fields based in New York and in Tel Aviv.
Hasan “Trust & Transparency” Arik. Hasan is the founder & CEOof Redmill Solutions, a specialist media data management company headquartered in London. He has worked at Mediacom and GroupM.
Jay “The Instigator” Sears. Jay is the founder of Team Dayā and a longtime ad tech executive. He has worked at Mastercard, Rubicon Project, Pulsepoint, ContextWeb, EDGAR Online and Wolff New Media.
We will be telling each of you more about the Senegal school build both leading up to, during and after the build.
Just four months after breaking ground in Dhayapur, Nepal, the local community, in conjunction with Team Dayā and its supporters, and our non-profit partner buildOn, has completed the construction of a beautiful yellow, maroon and white three-room schoolhouse. The students and teachers are already at work in the school.
On behalf of Dhayapur, buildOn and Team Dayā, we want to send a very big Dhan’yavāda (thank you in Nepali) to all our supporters. Doing this was a dream before we began the group in November 2018, and now we can point to our first successful school completion.
Support Team Dayā 