Episode Details

Sami DiPasquale put three border properties under contract in the same week. Abara had received its 501c3 status the month before. He had no money, but he moved anyway.

Abara is a nonprofit in El Paso that works on both sides of the US-Mexico border, in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, creating spaces for connection, belonging, and peace across deep divides. 

The three properties sat right against the border fence, on a piece of land Sami calls one of the most historically significant in the Americas, five and a half acres of historic buildings that could become the physical hub of the work. 

He'd wanted the land for years. It had never been for sale. Then, a month after Abara finally became its own legal organization, all three parcels listed within a week of each other.

This conversation covers how Sami structured private loans and LLCs to close the deals before Abara could even legally receive tax-deductible gifts, why he was nearly certain before the moment ever arrived, and the leadership lesson he wishes he'd learned earlier.

He also explains why a book about leading without authority in a WWII internment camp is the most formational leadership read he can recommend.

Sami DiPasquale is founder and executive director of Abara, a border peacebuilding nonprofit in El Paso, Texas. He has lived and worked in El Paso for more than 20 years, and much of Abara's work grew out of an organization he led there previously.