Meet Maggie Hoffman | World Love Founder and Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Maggie Hoffman and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Maggie, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Taking a risk is really just having the courage to manage your fears. I have to have a conversation with myself that says if this doesn’t work….well at least I tried. And I would rather die having tried things rather than having a perfectly preserved life where everything works out because you never stepped outside. To me stepping outside of the box and taking a risk is motivating. I know to some it is paralyzing. I think you just have to keep a good perspective on what next if this doesn’t work. Never see yourself as a failure only a learner.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My life was practically perfect as a child. Then I stepped out into the real world and learned a lot of life lessons. One major life changing chapter was when I was 23 years old and 8 months pregnant. The moving truck that was loaded with everything I ever owned was stolen in the night. All I owned were the clothes on my back and 2 hungry dogs. It taught me how things are just things and you should try not to get too attached to them. By the time I was 35 I had to gain enough courage to leave an abusive marriage and start my journey as a single mother with 3 girls. It was a tough journey. I sometimes worked 3 jobs just make sure my kids got to have not just food but soccer uniforms and Christmas presents. I remember being tired and wishing that someone would help me. I thought it would be so nice to have someone lend me a hand once in a while. I made a promise to myself that if I could make it through the challenge and still have a sense of humor, that I would take my time and resources to help other women that were struggling. Well I survived! And for anyone that has raised teenaged girls, you know what it means to “survive”. When my youngest daughter made it through college I decided it was time to start realizing my dream to help other women who struggle. I’ve always traveled to places in the world where I see how many women don’t have access to help like women have in America. I found it particularly troubling that so many women would have to resort to selling their bodies just to buy something to eat. When you are hungry you resort to ugly things in order to eat. The unfortunate thing about s*x workers is that they often contract HIV Aids and sometimes die leaving children orphaned. Or some woman work in a sweat factory 18 hours a day with no days off earning only $1.50 per day. This leaves the children at home raising each other. These issues resonated for a few reasons and that led to me to create my non-profit called World Love Global. Our goal is to find ways to teach women some skills that they could use to make money in a healthy way and to give them self confidence and courage. We hope to help them overcome the challenges of social and economic disparities and lack of education. We started working in South Africa with some Zulu women. I designed some meaningful bracelets and with the help of some volunteers, we package up the materials for the women to use. We sit down and work beside these women giving love and encouragement and then I return with the items to sell mostly in the USA. I have had the good fortune to have my friend from Sweden join me and at least one other person. My daughter has been able to come along on some of the trips but that is hard for her because she has young children. We all have the same goal and that is to lift these women up and empower them to step in the right direction. We took our project to Cambodia next and now we are preparing to go to India and begin our work there. In the beginning we only made bracelets but as we learned while selling them that there are a lot people that would like to help but don’t wear jewelry. So we began making other items as well and try to keep the focus on positive mental health with motivational sayings. I am a photographer who grew up with a dark room in our house in the era where we loaded our own film and processed it. At one time I used photography as a means to earn money to support my children. But now I can photograph things I love as I travel and then use the photographs to earn money for World Love Global. Putting all of this together requires a lot of coordination of people and places. We have to have someone that speaks the local language so that they can translate the instructions. We have to keep an eye on our personal safety as you can imagine a car load of women traveling out in the bush can be risky. We have to haul and lot of supplies to the locations and generally end up with luggage that is definitely overweight. The logistics can be challenging but what I find to be the most difficult part is the humans. Reaching someone’s heart is sometimes the most intricate part of what we do. We want them to feel loved and appreciated and encouraged but that is complicated when you are dealing with humans that are feeling very broken. So when someone asks me about the success of my little company I measure it in terms of how many lives we have improved instead of the dollars earned. We pay the women a fair wage as we work with them. And when we sell things here in the US we return 100% back into the project. We take our profit and donate it to their communities. We were able to help a woman in Cambodia buy 6 months worth of food as she was struggling to feed the 2 grandsons that she was raising. These situations are why I do what I do and consider it a success. In philanthropy there are check writers and there are doers. Check writers are critical but they aren’t comfortable being a doer. I am most at home in my own skin when I am sitting next to someone giving them the help that I needed at one time.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If we are talking about the Phoenix area this is what I often do when my best friends come to town. I say friends because I couldn’t really narrow it down to one bestie. My home is usually my favorite spot. My backyard is paradise and visitors usually drink coffee on the porch and listen to the birds sing. I frequently take my friends to the Desert Botanical Garden because I love it there and it gives such a nice glimpse of what it’s like living here. Most of my friends are artsy so we often find our way to an art store or fabric store or both. I like to take people shopping at the Scottsdale Quarter. I like the ambience there and a handful of the stores. I actually really enjoy a few of the restaurants there as well. As girlfriends do love a good spa treatment I usually recommend the JW Marriott at Desert Ridge. Not because it is the best in town but because I love that you can sit outside and have lunch by the pool before or after the treatment. It’s a great atmosphere for having relaxing conversations. And of course I love to view the sunsets nightly. They are pretty amazing in my backyard but I am also still searching for the perfect place to be at sunset.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My parents were incredibly positive. They encouraged me to try things, do things and go places. My father in particular was a forward thinker and really knew how to execute a plan while still being creative. My parents traveled the world and always had such great respect for other cultures. They taught me from a very early age to love other people no matter where they were from, the color of their skin or what they had in terms of money or things. I really hit the parent lottery!

Website: worldloveglobal.com

Instagram: worldloveglobal

Other: worldloveglobal@gmail.com

Image Credits
Maggie Hoffman