Joanna Slocum Conti, EG'79, spent almost two decades as a success in corporate America before realizing that the happiness she was after didn't come from power and profit.

As she was busy climbing the corporate ladder for the likes of Procter & Gamble and the Campbell Soup Co. and later operating her own food companies, a software company and working as an international marketing consultant, she never found the sense of satisfaction she felt in her 20s when she did volunteer work with abused children.

Finally, after having children of her own, Conti took the plunge and transferred her business skills across the border from the profit to the nonprofit sector, first working for a fundraising agency and eventually founding the Alliance for Youth Achievement Inc. (AYA), which raises money and resources for organizations in Africa and Asia that care for abandoned and orphaned children.

She's come full circle from the time she mentored a 9-year-old girl who had been so severely beaten that she had to be hospitalized and removed from her home.

"We would spend hours together shopping, cooking, going to movies. She was so excited each time I picked her up, so thrilled to have somebody take her away for some special time each week," Conti says.

After a fulfilling two-year relationship, the child was returned to her home, and her father refused to allow her to continue in the mentoring program. Though saddened by the unexpected ending, the strong sense of satisfaction and purpose Conti had felt during that period never left her.

"I am blessed with four healthy children who are fortunate enough to have a safe and comfortable lifestyle, and I just couldn't get over the feeling that I wanted to do something for children who had neither," she says.

When she learned that Project C.U.R.E., an organization that sends medical supplies and equipment to hospitals and clinics in developing nations, was looking for a vice president of development, she took the job, looking for firsthand knowledge of how international not-for-profits work.

While there, she began to understand the magnitude of the plight of children in Africa and Asia, especially in light of the AIDS epidemic, and she developed a sense of urgency for helping these children whose needs are so great.

After gaining valuable experience at Project C.U.R.E., she founded AYA as a conduit to transfer resources from the United States to African and Asian agencies that work with abandoned children.

"I spent a lot of time trying to decide the best way we could help, and what I realized was that we could partner with groups already caring for orphans and street children with only minuscule funding, pick certain projects, then raise money in the U.S. for those projects and send it to these groups to administer," Conti says.

Since choosing the best partners was critical, she spent weeks in Africa and Asia visiting organizations helping orphans or street children. She was looking for places that lovingly cared for the children, were obviously in need of financial support, were scrupulously honest and had a track record of success despite their limited resources.

While in Uganda at the Africa Foundation, an agency that provides food, shelter, clothing, medical care, counseling and education to 800 homeless street children and abandoned babies, another special child entered Conti's life.

"Ali had been living on the street for five years, leading a gang of 100 kids, when he convinced 30 of them to walk to the Africa Foundation and demand they be taken in and educated," she says.

Conti was impressed with his natural ability to lead. "This is a guy with potential," she says. "I was convinced that, with the opportunities the Africa Foundation offered charismatic Ali, he could become a future leader in Uganda."

She and her husband, Peter, became Ali's sponsors, and her experience with him and the Africa Foundation became the cornerstone of the Alliance for Youth Achievement.

AYA now partners with agencies in Thailand, Vietnam, Uganda and Kenya, raising money through its web site, [http://www.allforyouth.org/index.htm].

In its first year of operation, AYA was able to fund major projects for a number of its partners. Low overhead and a volunteer staff enables the organization to pass on 95 percent of contributions received.

Conti is particularly proud of AYA's work with the Africa Foundation.

"They're doing a wonderful job of rehabilitating and educating children, but the children's diets consist mainly of beans and corn. When I visited them last summer, there were signs that there wasn't enough food of any kind. We were able to raise $3,000 in one month so that the Africa Foundation could plant a fruit and vegetable garden. Plus, we just sent them another $1,000 raised by a group of middle schoolers by selling magazines. That money will be used to buy cows, enabling 160 of the youngest children to drink a glass of milk each day. What a difference that will make to their development!" Conti says.

"A very small amount of money goes a really long way," she adds. "A $100 grant can completely change the lives of a family. It only costs $10 to $15 for an African child to go to school for a full year, yet millions of orphans can't afford any education. Also, a $100 grant can completely change the lives of an entire family by enabling them to purchase a cow, chicken or coffee seedlings to generate income. Because we're so small, we can keep people informed as to exactly what their donations mean in the lives of destitute children," Conti says.

The AYA web site devotes an entire page to describing how individuals and businesses can become involved; there's even a link that allows people to donate money for a birthday party for a child.

The site also is full of heartwarming success stories with accompanying pictures. There's Pim, for example, an infant who came to the Agape Home in Thailand underweight, unresponsive, suffering from ear infections and skin disease. A photo taken of him one year later shows a chubby, healthy, laughing child wrapped in the arms of an Agape worker.

Successes that demonstrate a child's life transformed are much more fulfilling for Conti than her achievements in corporate America, where she was responsible for changing consumers' tastes in fabric softeners, bath soap, cleaning products and frozen dinners.

"The scope of [the AIDS] catastrophe demands that compassionate individuals and organizations band together to develop innovative programs to care for and educate these neediest of the needy," Conti says. "Children are the future of our world. If these children don't learn how to love and trust and receive a basic education, what will happen as they grow up and give birth to the next generation?"

--Barbara Garrison