PhilanthropyMiami: Miami is special because…”

Raul Moas: Our people hustle hard and have innate grit.

PM: What does our nonprofit community to be at our best?

RM: So often we fall in love with our own ideas of how change should come about. This is true in the public, private and NGO sectors alike. A good check on that is to always design interventions in partnership with the neighbors we’re aiming to serve. In “startup speak,” we should build alongside and with the end-user in mind, not for them.

PM: What are you reading?

RM: Beirut by Samir Kassir

PM: Where is the one place in the world you are dying to go?

RM: Petra in southern Jordan.

PM: Who inspires you?

RM: My wife — she’s resilient, compassionate and a total badass.

PM: If you could invite any five people, dead or alive, to dinner, who would they be?

RM: My great-uncle Rafael Bencil, St. Teresa of Avila, Maya Angelou, Theodore Roosevelt, and Josephine Butler

PM: When you are not working you are…?

RM: Chasing after a two-year old, making sure he’s not about to jump off a table, stick his finger in an electrical outlet, or eat the dog’s food. The basics.

PM: A night on the town is…?

RM: My wife and I, a bottle of wine, some people watching, and taking in the sounds of the city.

PM: What advice would you give to your younger self?

RM: When presented with two options, one easier than the other, choose the harder path. Most of my regrets thus far relate to having taken the easier path.

Raul Moas is the Miami Program Director at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.