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CONVOY WORDSMITH: Hal Donaldson, CEO and president of Convoy of Hope, is co-author of "What Really Matters" with daughter Lindsay Donaldson-Kring.
Rebecca Green | SBJ
CONVOY WORDSMITH: Hal Donaldson, CEO and president of Convoy of Hope, is co-author of "What Really Matters" with daughter Lindsay Donaldson-Kring.

Seeking Compassion: Convoy of Hope founder and daughter team for book about service and self-care

Posted online

While some might think the founder of an international humanitarian relief organization that employs hundreds and responds to dozens of global disasters annually long ago figured out an ideal work-life balance, they probably haven’t visited with Hal Donaldson.

As CEO and president of Convoy of Hope, which has a $600 million operating budget this year, Donaldson said it took him decades to learn how to better balance his desire to help those in need and practice self-care. Having founded the nonprofit 30 years ago, Donaldson said that balance was lacking in his younger years as he missed time with his family and is a regret he carries to this day. He even harbored those feelings in 2021 at the dedication of Convoy of Hope’s 250,000-square-foot distribution center, reflecting on the toll it had taken on him to launch the nonprofit in 1994.

That memory, in part, served as the impetus for Donaldson to team with one of his daughters, Lindsay Donaldson-Kring, on a new book, “What Really Matters: How to Care for Yourself and Serve a Hurting World.” The nearly 200-page book that was published late last month through Baker Publishing Group shares some backstory in the founding of Convoy of Hope, while exploring the fine line of serving others but not losing oneself in the process. The book, which he said took about six months to complete, is for sale at Barnes & Noble and Target, among other retailers, as well as on Amazon. Sales will benefit Convoy of Hope, officials say.

“I thought, if I’m going to write this book, I need to be very vulnerable and transparent,” he said. “And when people look at the success of Convoy of Hope and the things that we’re doing around the world, it’s easy to assume that there hasn’t been a price that’s been paid. There certainly has been a price that I paid, others have paid. It doesn’t come easy.”

Donaldson’s childhood was impacted by tragedy when as a 12-year-old in 1969, his parents were hit head-on by a drunk driver – a wreck that killed his father and seriously injured his mother. Financial struggles followed as the family navigated poverty, and Donaldson said as he got into his 20s, wealth and success were goals.

“I was driven, certainly in my 20s and early 30s, by a desire to escape poverty,” he said. “That’s what I had known, and I just didn’t want to go back to that lifestyle where you have holes in your shoes and the cupboards are empty. I think our upbringing certainly plays a role in that, too, as do other people’s expectations and a desire for success.”

Ghostwriting opportunity
With a bachelor’s degree in journalism from San Jose State University, Donaldson is no stranger to writing, having worked at news publications covering politics and sports before he started a career in his 20s as a ghostwriter. Since then, he has written over 30 books with topics including advice from church leaders for successful Christian living and parenting. For contractual reasons, he’s unable to talk about the books he’s ghostwritten, which make up more than half of his body of work.

“Most of them would be organizations that wanted a book about what they were doing or a biography,” he said, noting several of them were written within a month. “It was a great opportunity.”

Ghostwriting helped support Convoy of Hope in its early days, which began in California, when Donaldson, along with friends and family, held food distributions out of trucks and trailers filled with groceries.

“My wife was teaching in school, and I was writing books, and because there really wasn’t much of an organization to speak of, it was just doing what you can do to pay the bills,” he said, adding he stopped ghostwriting around 20 years ago. “I cut my teeth just writing books at a young age, and it was one of those book projects that took me to Calcutta, India, to write a book for some missionaries there. They’re the ones that introduced me to Mother Teresa. And that conversation with her would be life changing and really would be a catalyst for Convoy of Hope.”

Since its founding, Convoy of Hope has served more than 250 million people and distributed over $2.5 billion worth of food and supplies in approximately 130 countries, officials say. The company ranked No. 3 on Springfield Business Journal’s February list of the area’s largest charitable nonprofits with 263 local employees. It reported 529 total employees in 2023, a near 42% growth over the past three years. Its 2023 revenue exceeded $638 million, up roughly 46% since 2021.

An awakening
Through the book, Donaldson said he wants readers – particularly those in their 20s and 30s – to make sure they’re living under the right expectations. That’s something he said he occasionally failed to do during that age period.

“I was ambitious, but it was reckless ambition. There were consequences to working too many hours and traveling far too much,” he said, noting that at one point he was working two jobs, authoring books and taking speaking engagements. “I wish I had, in the early days anyway, prayed more and worked less.”

As a married father of four daughters – Lindsay, Erin-Rae, Lauren and Haly – Donaldson said he sometimes missed out on family moments. He recalled being in Kenya one year distributing water to a drought-stricken area but missing out on one of his daughters scoring her first goal in soccer.

By age 50, he was hospitalized with heart issues and said it was obvious his demanding schedule and prolonged stress had contributed to his illness.

“Right then and there in the hospital, I really determined that I was trying to do way too much, and I needed to get focused,” he said. “So, when I got out of the hospital, I resigned from one job. I canceled two book writing projects. I resigned from I think eight to 10 board of directors that I was on. And I began to say ‘no’ more frequently.”

As a person of faith, Donaldson said he was making sacrifices God wasn’t asking him to make.

“That’s been my message in this book is that if you want to know the secret sauce to growing an organization, be healthy – emotionally, physically, spiritually,” he said, adding people must know their limits for how much to put into work. “I think along my journey, I discovered that I was trying to do too much. When I got focused, that’s when Convoy of Hope saw a lot of growth.”

Selfless action
“What Really Matters” marks the third time the father and daughter have teamed for a book, following “Disruptive Compassion: Becoming the Revolutionary You Were Born to Be.”

Donaldson-Kring, who works in Convoy of Hope’s marketing and communications department, is on maternity leave after giving birth earlier this month to her first child. She was unavailable for comment for this story.

“She brings strengths that I don’t have and perspective I don’t have,” Donaldson said, adding his daughter served as researcher and helped shape the writing for a younger audience. “If I do more books in the future, I don’t know that I’d want to do it without her. And I think at some point she’ll probably be writing on her own. She’s pretty gifted.”

Donaldson said by writing the book he desires to help others find a work-life balance, be mindful of self-care and avoid a mindset of reckless ambition.

“For leaders of businesses, pastors, organizational leaders, let them know that taking care of themselves is not a selfish act. It’s actually selfless,” he said. “Because the stronger we are, the healthier we are, the more that we can do for other people.”

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