Scott M. Curran: Disasters happen. Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, even pandemics. Tnd there's little we can do about them. But what happens after the disaster, and after the headlines fade, is something that we do have control over. 

Here's what most people don't know. The hardest part of a disaster, the enduring part, isn't always the disaster itself. It's the weeks, months, and years of recovery and rebuilding, or the failure to do so, that can make the biggest impact. Most of the help, it turns out, doesn't help in all the ways it should. On today's episode, we're gonna talk about how to change that with someone who has seen and done this work at scale in some of the most challenging circumstances in modern history: Ann Lee, the co-founder and CEO of CORE.

Welcome to Better Good, the show where you learn how the best do good and how you can, too. I'm your host, Scott Curran. For 25 years, I've served as a corporate lawyer, an in-house general counsel, and an advisor to some of the most extraordinary social impact work spanning the private sector, philanthropy, and social enterprises. On this podcast, I talk to the innovators reimagining how the world does good, bringing you candid and inspiring conversations and practical advice, guidance, and tools you can use in your life and at work. If doing good is something you care about, you're in the right place because the world's biggest problems won't wait and neither should you. 

My guest today is Ann Lee, co-founder and CEO of CORE, one of the most respected community-first humanitarian organizations in the world. CORE began in the rubble of the 2010 Haiti earthquake when Ann met co-founder Sean Penn and gradually built a shared vision of what responding to crises in a new and better way looks like. And what started as a frontline disaster response has since grown into an organization operating across five continents. Ann and her team at CORE work at the intersection of disaster response, climate resilience, and health access. Under Ann's leadership, CORE has responded to the war in Ukraine, multiple Caribbean hurricanes, COVID-19, and the 2025 fires in Los Angeles.

Through all of it, the CORE model she and Sean built has held strong: move fast, stay rooted in the people you serve, and treat recovery not as a moment, but as a long-term commitment. This episode explores Ann's unique story and what disaster recovery actually looks like and what it takes to do it right.

This is Better Good, and here's my conversation with Ann Lee. 

Scott M. Curran: Anne, thank you so much for joining me on Better Good. 

Ann Lee: Oh, I'm so happy to be here, and I'm so grateful to you, Scott. You've seen us from early days to now, and helped contribute to building a foundation for us. So I so appreciate you. I'm glad we're doing this. 

Scott M. Curran: Thank you. It does seem a long time coming and, and it's really awesome to, uh, to have a conversation where we can look back on so much and still look ahead at, at everything that, that's unfortunately, in the disaster response and humanitarian, uh, crises category, the, the, the work continues. But before we get to that, though, I'd love to ask you a question I don't know the answer to. When it comes to the concept, just the simple idea of doing good in the world, what's your earliest memory that that was something people did or something you might be able to do too in your life?

Ann Lee: I think it was something that was instilled in me and my siblings early on. Um, my mother has been such a huge hero of mine. You know, she, coming as an immigrant and coming to the United States, learning the language, and moving here, um, she did so much for people when she was able to establish herself and, and the family. You know, I remember just random people constantly at our house and staying with us at unspecified amounts of time. Yeah. Like, we had so many aunties and uncles, realizing later that they weren't really related to us. So she really instilled in us, like, a sense of responsibility to help people and to do something because we can. And I so remember, you know, I think it was probably early days in high school, you know, I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood, and there was some casual racism that was happening that, you just kind of, you're not quite aware of, you know, when you're, you're at that age, nd before social media was a thing.

And I remember going to a a Panda Express. This is so vivid. A Panda Express in one of our pavilions in the neighborhood that I was growing up in, and this guy was so harassing this very, very small Chinese woman behind the counter. He was yelling at her, and so—something just cracked in me, and I pushed the guy, and then I just…I don't know what happened. Not that I condone this but I punched him in the face. I just was like, "I'm not gonna stand up for this. I'm not gonna stand for this." 

Scott M. Curran: How old were you? 

Ann Lee: I was probably, like, in eighth grade or ninth grade. And he was just so shocked and, you know, people around us kind of took him away and stuff.

But, you know, it was like this moment of realization that I don't have to just stand there and not do anything. Um, and I think it was an awakening and kind of a moment of empowerment of, like, I, regardless of what happens to me, I won't stand for that type of injustice. 

Scott M. Curran: I love that, and I can see how that's super formative, and one of the things that, that I've heard and, and repeated lately is, like, in a, in a world full of options, it feels like doing nothing isn't the right one. That's the action you took in that moment is, "I'm not gonna stand here and do nothing. I'm gonna do something about it." I feel like in eighth grade you can get away with a swing at the racist guy on the bus ride. Well, I wanna connect some dots between then and now, but, but just to give listeners a sense who may not be as familiar with you or your work at CORE, how do you describe...When somebody asks you today, "So what do you do, Anne?" Which I can only imagine what your answer's gonna be. But we'll unpack all of this later, but, but tell me now how you respond when someone asks you, "What do you do?" And what does CORE do? 

Ann Lee: You know, generally people don't have an understanding of sort of this relief to recovery model that we have. So I think the easiest way that I kind of explain it is, you know—fter conflict or disaster, we try to get people home, or into a home. That's the easiest way to describe it. We support communities in crises and to recover from crises. That's the easiest way that I explain it. 

Scott M. Curran: I love that. That is an elegantly simple way of doing it, and we're gonna unpack a lot of that because, it's full of, of goodness and it's full of an incredible amount of work you've done since those early days in Haiti. But Iwondering, could you, could you connect some dots for us between that early awareness moment, that eighth grade Anne, um, and the work you just described? What happened between that? There's so many people who are interested in careers of impact and doing good in the world, and very few of us ever see how it's gonna unfold at the beginning, and we can only connect those dots looking backwards. So would you connect some of those dots for us about fr- what happened between eighth grade Anne and Haiti, living in Haiti when the earthquake struck Anne? 

Ann Lee: It was a meandering path. It wasn't quite direct. It wasn't like...You know, I knew I wanted to do something sort of in the, in service, in civic service, and I initially thought that I wanted to go to law school and, you know, be a lawyer and help people, um, you know, be a human rights lawyer. So I went to college in New York City, and I was studying and working for an entertainment lawyer so that I could get some, you know, experience, and was living downtown in, kinda near Soho, and then 9/11 hit. And I watched one of the towers fall, and that to me was like a huge turning point for me where, you know, being a lawyer wasn't, didn't feel tactical enough. It wasn't, it didn't have, it didn't feel like I would have the same type of prevention of something, that I had seen in New York City happen again. So it was at that moment that I decided I wanna join the Foreign Service. 

So that's when I went to grad school in one of the big feeder schools that, you know, basically send people to Foreign Service or World Bank, and that really changed sort of the entire trajectory of my life. So 9/11 was a huge moment. Um, I think, you know, so many of us, like people joined the, you know, the military and,  I tried to join the Foreign Service. When I was in grad school, I ended up interning for the UN in Kosovo, and then I was like, "Oh, God, I wanna do on-the-ground work. I don't wanna be in a bureaucratic entity like the State Department or the UN.” And so I ended up working for a nonprofit in DC, um, and that was it, and then from there it kind of, you know, landed me in Haiti, then the earthquake hit, and that was it. 

Scott M. Curran: First of all, there's still time for the law school thing. I'm a big champion and a big fan. Um, so there's always still time for that. I know you're otherwise busy, but, but just putting in a little plug there that there's still time to be a lawyer, and a happy lawyer, and a lawyer who feels like they're doing good. So anybody listening, um, you can be an impact lawyer, I promise too. But I'm really glad that you didn't go, because I think your career since has been far more interesting and meaningful.

So what were you doing in Haiti at the... 'Cause you were in Haiti when the earthquake hit, and you leapt into action. What were you doing that led you to Haiti at, at, at that time? Uh, and then what was it like in that immediate moment? Because this is where some of the career path where we are today started to come together.

Ann Lee: So I was in Haiti working for this nonprofit. At the time it was, um, CHF. It was a big nonprofit and, you know, I had, from grad school, because I spoke French and I did sort of like a, my capstone on, the conflict in Haiti, I was sent there for about a year. A year turns into two years. I mean, it's really hard to leave when you're doing the work on the ground, and this was in 2006. And you know, I'd been doing this work for four years.

Scott M. Curran: Originally supposed to be one year and it turned into four years? Yeah. It has a way of doing that in philanthropy, doesn't it? 

Ann Lee: Oh, my gosh, and it just goes by so quickly. And you know, I say- often, you know, how much I owe Haiti because it's a place that I feel really raised me as a human and as, like, the person doing this type of work. I learned every good thing that I have done has come from the Haitian people and learning, working in Haiti, working and living in Haiti. And, four years flew by doing a lot of infrastructure projects, livelihoods programs, sort of more development stuff. Stabilization work, 'cause it was right after, Haiti had a really, really sort of the first of its kind democratic election post so many dictatorships.

So yeah, we were there and, and I was doing a lot of work. I was in charge of the Port-au-Prince office. You know, and, f- there's definitely some sort of divine intervention, because when the earthquake hit, you know, my house was completely destroyed, and I was supposed to be home at the time, but I had extended my stay in Los Angeles over the holidays because I had broken my coccyx snowboarding 

Scott M. Curran: Tailbone for the non-medical people, and I have also broken mine, so ouch.And, 'cause it, that hurts, and you have to sit on a pillow for a really long time. 

Ann Lee: Exactly, and, and so I was... You know, it happened on, on January 1st, so just to give myself some time to heal, 'cause you can't really do surgery or do anything. You just gotta let it heal. Um, so when the earthquake hit, I was about 12 days into sort of the healing process, and, you know, I was supposed to be home on the 8th. And, you know, our office was just partially destroyed. My house was destroyed. So many of the places that I knew were completely gone, and there, you know, as you know, there's just so many people we lost from that, from that terrible disaster. You know, I just sometimes wonder, you know, just what would have happened, you know, if I were there. 

So I got very lucky in breaking my coccyx, because it allowed me to stay home. But three days after, um, the earthquake hit, I did end up catching a flight, on actually h- at the time, Secretary Clinton's plane, to get back into Port-au-Prince, like, carrying my, you know, one of those hemorrhoid pillows because I had broken my tailbone. Everyone was like, "Uh-oh." I broke mine in middle school and had to carry around a pillow, like, to band and classes. So yeah, I totally understand that. I, when I see that out in the wild, I'm like. So you were uncomfortable landing in Port-au-Prince, which I'm, I'm not sure everybody understands that Haiti's a tough place to be pre-earthquake and work pre-earthquake, because it does have this political history. Its civic infrastructure is different than most of our hemisphere. And so now you're coming in after an earthquake that, for those who either are younger and weren't as familiar with it, um, or maybe weren't, weren't a- as aware of exactly how bad it was, devastating isn't even an appropriate word. It was beyond devastating.

Ann Lee: I mean, you can't even imagine what it looked like. It just felt like a moonscape, because nothing was standing, and it was three stories high of just rubble, you know? And even months afterwards, we were still pulling out bodies. M- years afterwards, we were still pulling out bodies in some of the, the, the communities. So it was, it was really sort of the first, um- first place where I saw that type of devastation, but also it was really hard because, you know, so many of the people that I knew were also so impacted, losing people and, just changing the entire trajectory of that country. I mean, unfortunately, it was hitting at a time where Haiti was actually on this upward trend of security, safety, and economic life. I mean, it was really exciting. I was going to bars and driving everywhere around the country, so it was a hard disaster on so many levels. It really took Haiti back several decades. 

Scott M. Curran: And the sort of, like, universal connection of everything at that time, I was in-house at tat the Clinton Foundation, and I think by chance, President Clinton, who has a long affinity for Haiti, I think he and the Secretary honeymooned there, um, and so they had a deep connection. And he was, just by chance and circumstance at that time, the UN Special Envoy for Haiti, which was a separate UN gig, separate and apart from being former president, separate and apart from his role at the Clinton Foundation, and our mutual friend and one of your board members, Greg Milne, I believe, was working with him in that capacity when that happened. Um, and so we had... When, when it happened, I, I, I did not understand. I did not know what his role was, separate role, 'cause I was at the Clinton Foundation and, and not supporting that UN work. And within 12 hours, I remember getting an education, because one of the things I think early on that happened is they said they needed trucks. They needed trucks to move rubble, infrastructure, et cetera. And I think one of those sort of accidents that happened is that Bill Clinton went on television as UN Special Envoy for Haiti and said, "We need trucks." And then everybody in America started donating trucks, manufacturers, dealers, private individuals. Within 12 hours, I was meeting people I'd never met before and, and learning something that to this day still sticks out to me in my 20-plus year career in philanthropy, was learning what a ro-ro barge was. And people were saying this on phone calls, and I was like, "What does that mean?" And, and I had to Google that it was a roll-on roll-off barge that allows you to wheel things onto the barge and wheel them off of it, roll on, roll off. I'm like, "Okay, that, I, I get that. Now I know what a ro-ro barge is." Um, but they had this challenge that the port was damaged with the earthquake, and that even if you could've gotten the trucks off the ro-ro barge, they couldn't get them through the streets because there was so much rubble, and they couldn't even move the rubble as quickly as they wanted to because they wanted to respect the fact that bodies were buried in it, and they needed to do that removal first. And that just took this from being this idea of a disaster, this concept of something that happened that I'm watching on the news, to being a deeply human and real…like even those of us trying our best from afar to be helpful to the cause were running into the impact of the effort from afar to help, which I feel is something that CORE…

So walk us through sort of those early days of you being back in Haiti a- amidst this devastation, the humanitarian crisis, the response requirements. How does CORE start as JPHRO, it was then known as JPHRO, it's changed its name since. Um, but how does it start in those weeks? Aand how does that evolution happen for you? And where do you meet your, your co-founder, who some people have heard of? 

Ann Lee: So we were working together, we were actually forced in a meeting by one of the commanders of the, I think 62nd Airborne, um, who had landed and was... They were managing the largest camp in Port-au-Prince, Sean. Sean had arrived, and he had brought all kinds of materials and sort of landed and supported the camp, and then ended up taking over and managing the whole thing because people just were not coordinating, and it wasn't being done well, so he just jumped in, which is incredible because it's managing a small city, that was continuously growing.

Scott M. Curran: What were Sean Penn's credentials to do that, and what was your take upon learning that an actor with whom I, as I understand it, you didn't have a personal or professional connection at the time, and, and you were not immediately sold that this was the right guy. Is that right? 

Ann Lee: Yeah. So I mean, he, he and I met, um, because of this force commander or this commander that put us together. He asked us to come and kinda help and give advice, and at the time I was doing a lot of debris removal. I was trying to clear all the roads because I had just, again, serendipitously before the earthquake, started up a, um, heavy equipment training program for women. Um, yeah, so random, like six months before. So I had this relationship with like, yeah, the Caterpillar subsidiary in Haiti, which had, you know, the largest amount of equipment in the country. And so when the earth, when I had come back, I just called everybody up and said, "We need to get onto these machines and start just clearing the road, public spaces." You know, we kind of established like a system when we found bodies that was, you know, sort of approved by the local government and the national government, so we were just doing the best we could. We were just clearing all the streets, allowing for more assistance to get through, um, and got really good at it.

And so when I had sat down with Sean, he was managing this camp and needed some help with some of the drainage 'cause it was on this really hilly, golf course. And he says—I don't remember this at all. I mean, mind you, I was working, you know, 6:00 AM to probably like 6:00 PM on the streets, like clearing it out and, full mask and finding bodies and doing all the things. So very, very not full of grace and patience, as you can imagine. So- I was sitting down with him and apparently he essentially called me behind my back the “Korean Ice Princess” because I was so dismissive and, and rude. Um, because, you know, he wanted to understand what we were doing. He asked for help and, you know, of course we gave it to him. We, we brought our heavy equipment. We did all the drainage on the, the campsite that he was doing it, but very, very sort of in a curt way. Um, and so we didn't get off on the right foot. And for me, I do remember being a bit frustrated because, you know, at that time it was probably like the fifth or sixth celebrity that I had to go and talk to. You know, so it takes out like, you know, two hours out of my day. You talk to somebody who you're never gonna see again. They're just there for the day, taking a photo and then leaving. I knew that he was there, but didn't understand really that he was really there. I mean, he was living on the displacement camp for nine months.

And so, um, by the time I was providing support to his camp, doing the drainage, like I understood, no, he's, he's in it. Um, and that kinda unlocked and unfroze this Korean ice princess. And from there we became very, very close. Like we would retire almost every night, every other night in his little sort of command center, at the camp, and we would just go over the day, you know, be able to laugh, have a drink, smoke a lot, and just talk through some of the challenges and how we could help each other, and it kinda grew.

He's really great at sort of bringing people together, and so we had a great group of, um, different partners that we would just kinda problem-solve. And it was a command center. It was really amazing. And then from there we really stayed so incredibly aligned with like an approach and what I appreciate about, what I appreciated about him back then still holds so true right now, which is like his experience being an outsider in this space gives him this incredible ability to question everything. Like, "Why? Why do we have to do it that way?" You know, "Why don't we do it this way? Why can't we do this thing?" And also I think being in a place where he's like, you know, an Oscar-winning director, actor, producer, all the things, where he's very logistically minded and has done big production of, you know, hundreds of people doing kinds of all these complex things, like he kinda also gets that piece of it. It's been great to kinda have him as this person who can dream big, but also know how to operationalize it. So that, um, that person that, you know, provided that big dreaming, you know, nothing can stop us, um, thinking has really underpinned our organization and our ethos.

Scott M. Curran: I wanna talk about how the organization's evolved. At the end if we have time, we'll come back to this. But for those who aren't familiar or, or might may recognize this upon hearing it, Anne's skepticism is, is well-placed because a lot of celebrities, well-intended, well-meaning, certainly, you know, desirous of being helpful in the moment will take such trips. And it's not always, I mean, the skeptics among us will say it's just for the photo op, and it's just for People Magazine, or it's just for Instagram. And I think there is some percentage of that, that, that's real, but I think a lot of the time it's well-intended, but this is not what they do for a living. They, they are actors, or they are something else that has made them famous. Um, and so it, it's not because of a lack of sincerity, but it is sort of for a lack of ability. They aren't tasked with or expected to be good at these things, and so you usually see these quick hits. They fly down. They lend their celebrity. They help raise awareness. They're very good at raising money because they bring that attention and the Instagram handle. But Anne is forgiven for not assuming that Sean Penn had some logistics skill set or that he was in it for the long haul until all of a sudden he's— He was there for an extended period of time living in that tent in that little command center for months eventually. Is that right? 

Ann Lee: Yeah, he was there for nine months in this little tent on this, uh, tennis court at the golf course. And at the end of the, I think after the end of the second year after the earthquake, there were almost 50,000 people living there 50,000. So he and GPHRO, the genesis of CORE, they were managing, you know, a school, a hospital, a cholera unit, 'cause you can't just have, like, just tents, right? You need to have all of the services. You need water.

Scott M. Curran: Teaching kids and caring for the sick. I- it... When people start thinking about what goes into those situations and realizing exactly how much goes into daily life when you are displaced, that is a, it is a shocking amount of infrastructure, and if it's lacking, it requires some version of temporary, which turned out to be really long-term needs in Haiti, in those places, right?

Ann Lee: Yeah. Generally, displacement camps often stay, like, you know, 15 years or forever. And I think after five years, GPHRO and partners were able to shut down the displacement camp, which is great. 

Scott M. Curran: We could say for a whole hour on just talking about Haiti, but CORE did not stay just in Haiti. I think Haiti still remains the, the heartbeat of, of CORE and its, its origin story, but, and rightfully so. Um, but a lot has happened since then. And I love nonprofit leaders. I love people taking big swings at previously known to be intractable problems and trying to move old needles in new ways. But disaster relief and humanitarian crises, whether that's environmental or human-caused or exacerbated, never goes away. And so CORE has evolved, and I think just some of the quick hits include. And, and this is the way I describe CORE long before a show like this, um, but to others I say it started in Haiti in post-earthquake disaster relief, recovery, resilience, rebuilding, building back better. A lot of Americans have a familiarity with Katrina and New Orleans, that it's not just about solving the problem that happens after the hurricane. It's about how do you build back better so that when, not if, but when the next crisis comes our way, we are better prepared than we were the first time so that we have fewer of these problems. 

So you were in Haiti, one of the hardest places in our hemisphere, certainly, to do this work, and then other hurricanes start coming through the Caribbean. And my, my description of it, which you can correct me, is that other people in other affected islands, we're talking, you know, Branson in the BVIs, Kenny Chesney in the USVIs, other people in this region who get devastated, and I just, I mean devastated by multiple hurricanes that came through back to back, start calling CORE and saying, "How do we do this well?" And so you expand to still in the post re- or the post-disaster recovery space and the resilience. So you have these other hurricane, you have other natural disasters that happen, not earthquakes, but hurricanes. Then a pandemic happens. You do the largest testing sites, I believe, in the world, certainly in the United States, then vaccination sites. Then there's wildfires. Then there's more hurricanes. Walk people through the evolution of CORE in the nutshell version without giving short shrift to the severity and depth and importance of any of those, those occurrences and the communities impacted, but help people understand how much CORE has actually done and evolved over time. Oh, and Ukraine as well! 

Could you, could you walk us through that, or how do you walk people through that to give them a sense of exactly how much CORE has done and is doing? 

Ann Lee: After, let's see, in 2016, '17, I came on board as... and we revamped the organization. We started focusing internationally, not just in Haiti, as well as domestically. And as you said, you know, we saw so many hurricanes come through The Bahamas. We responded in, you know, the big one, Hurricane Maria, in, in Puerto Rico, Bahamas, and North Carolina. And in North Carolina, it hit this community called the Lumbee Tribe. It's the poorest, um, county in North Carolina, and there we found just this incredible partnership. We're still there. We've been there since. And, um, essentially we did everything that we learned from Haiti, taking that ethos into these spaces of how do we surge through and within local, um, government organizations and community groups like churches and stuff and, um, and the private sector, and started really doing relief and recovery. And sort of when you look at our logo, you see the CO that creates the infinity sign because we really feel like, the disaster response is the tip of the spear where you can get the most sort of social capital financing and sort of, you can leapfrog changes that normally take like a generation after a disaster to, you know, change an entire country after a disaster.You have that opportunity. And then from there it kind of feeds into, okay, you respond and you try to build as much resilience as possible, which is just preparedness for like the next disaster. So that should be feeding into each other constantly. And so that's why, you know, our logo has been such a, a reminder to us every day when we look at it of like this is one point in time, but we have to constantly be looking ahead in terms of recovery, recovery, recovery.

So working in these spaces, you know, we really were honing our skills around the different activities that we were doing. We try to do as much holistically as possible because, you know- I think one of the problems that we have in our sector is that we get too, um, specific in terms of what we provide. It's a very, uh, supply-driven model. It's like we have water, we're gonna do water. We do food, we're gonna do food. I mean, that's needed, but you kinda have to also look at the bigger picture of what makes a community resilient and come back and be stronger. It's gonna require more than just one thing, right? You need to improve their quality of life, so it's health, education, it's green spaces, it's lighting, it's- 

Scott M. Curran: Infrastructure, utilities, yeah, reliable over time and when the next disaster hits 

Ann Lee: And that's why we feel so strongly, like coordination is key. You have to have... It's, you know, all hands on deck, and not just with other partners, but with local community and the private sector and stuff. So, you know, we really had this approach that's sometimes very wordy and hard to articulate, hard to sell to the general public. Um, it's a lot easier to be like, "We are, you know, providing life-saving food or water." Um, so having a more complex view of things isn't always easy, but we feel like it's the right way to go about it. Um, so we started kind of expanding into more sort of a regional response, so domestically and sort of in the Caribbean and Latin America. And then COVID hit, and I so remember it was like, I think the shutdown was, like, at the end of February, and watching this happen and seeing the, the whole country—parts of the country shut down, you know, Sean and I were like, "We gotta do something." You know? And he was thinking like, "Okay, we gotta get, like, a barge," and like, you know, again, the big think- We were kind of brainstorming. We're like, "Okay, let's call our big partners in the health space to see what they're doing, and I'm sure somebody's doing something." Like, you know, this is, you know... And so we're calling everybody, and it was the weirdest thing. It was just sort of like, no, we're not, we're... We have no plans right now. And so Sean and I were like, "Okay, we're jumping in this. We've got to do something." 

And so we understood sort of, we figured out sort of the main five components on how to get tested, and we took that and broke it down and bought 2,000 testing kits and established a relationship with the lab. This is still early March. Contacted the mayor of Los Angeles, Mayor Garcetti at the time, and asked him, like, "Send us to the most COVID positive rated low-income community of color. We, we have 2,000 tests. We're gonna test everybody 2,000 people.” He's like, "You know what? I have no idea who you guys are. Come meet me at this fire station where we're doing some tests with the fire department," because Los Angeles City doesn't have a health department. He's like, "Just come and meet us, and let's see how we can work together." So we went there. Again, we got so... Like, the same shade that I was throwing Sean, they were throwing us because they were like, "Who...What the hell is happening?" Like, "Why do we have Sean Penn here, and, you know, this random organization that nobody's heard of in Los Angeles?" And so the firefighters were just like, "What, what do you want from us?" And Garcetti was like, "Hey, look, we can't afford to have all of our firefighters doing this because we need to increase and start going to scale. Can you guys run these testing sites?" They had the testing kits, and they had a lab already. This is early days when, remember, we were, like, wiping down all of our food. And so, you know, we were like, "Yeah, we're gonna run this site." 

So first day we called up all of our friends and, you know, people we knew. Like, "Do you wanna volunteer?" Nobody said no, not a single person, and this is when it was still scary, when they had to wear, like, a full HAZMAT, you know, bunny outfit with the goggles and gloves and stuff like that. And we ran the site one day, and they were like, "That was awesome. We, we wanna open three more in three days." We're like, "We're in." And it started from there, and it exploded. Why I'm going into detail about this is, like, the big thing that came out of that was Garcetti took a risk on us. Like, he had no idea who we were. Um, we, you know, just were...Who knows what coulda happened, right? He took a huge risk with us, and we took a huge risk because we were not...We're not, like, a health... Now we are, but back then, we hadn't really done health programming, let alone in the United States. And it felt like, at the time, as everybody else felt, like, the government must have something planned, right? And I guess the realization that kinda grew from that was, in these moments of just incredible, you know, where the world has shifted, there is no cavalry. There is no sense of sort of like, you know, organized, um, coordinated effort. And also that risk, taking risks matters. 

And so we went from running the LA sites and the biggest, you know, site in the world to expanding that into almost 15 cities, mostly in the United States, but also in India, in Uganda, and Brazil, as well as Haiti. So we replicated that model, but always making sure that we were very transparent and every week had phone calls with As many organizations as possible sharing manuals and documentation. How much does it cost? How do you set up a mobile site? How do you set up a site within a church or a FQHC or, you know, in a community center? How do you do a mass vaccination site at a stadium? How do you do a drive-in site? So for us, it's always been about there's no way in this world that one organization can do everything. We have to figure out ways to work together to coordinate and to take to scale the things that we know. We'll take the initial risk and lower the barriers of entry, but our role is to take bigger risks than, you know, the much larger organizations or, you know, like the UN and all that stuff. And I think that's where we found a really strong place for us to make an impact. 

And so in that same way, from COVID, you know, we ex- we, we are still in, doing some health programs in Georgia, and then kind of expanded into, like, the fire response and all kinds of other activities just domestically, but it's always with that ethos into take the risks, lower the barriers of entry, and try to encourage others to do more.

Scott M. Curran: So you've taken... Th- there's this amazing model of, of taking action, being present, being willing to lean in, lean forward, especially when it's hard. Maybe you get some benefit of having the novelty of a celebrity that's there. So, like, it's funny to me that, that people in LA didn't know that Sean had done this work in Haiti, but it also shows how consumed people are by their own lives and existence and work and geography that, look, we all give where we live, we do what we know, and we don't always pay attention to what's happening in the rest of the world.

But obviously most people in LA are gonna know who Sean is, but that they didn't know who CORE was and what its work was and how legitimate and deeply rooted it was. But now you're creating this model. So you go from hurricanes and regional support—I'm sorry, earthquakes, hurricanes—regional support in, in the Caribbean. Now you're in LA and, and you, throughout the United States, correct me if I'm wrong, largest testing originally and vaccination sites over time, right? As soon as the vaccine becomes available, you're using the same model, same infrastructure, same teams, which is so hard to do in one location, much less many, 'cause the human capital involved there and logistics is insane. Then, then you expand to Ukraine, Sudan, a- and, and other... A- and you're still doing all the work you started with before, too, to some degree or another. That creates a massive organization and a massive management and, and internal operations infrastructure requirement, but CORE's never really been that big.

Ann Lee: It was painful. 

Scott M. Curran: Can you speak to that? L- how much you do with ultimately relatively little, while disaster after disaster or need after need continues to unfold on top of itself? I have a question for you that I accidentally wound up in a hallway one day asking José Andrés. We were just the only two people in one of those CGI hallways one morning when other sessions were in place, and we just kinda ran into each other, and he said, "Good morning." I said, "José, I got a question for you. How do you scale?" And I'm, and for those who may not know, José Andrés is a world-renowned chef and also now a world-renowned, and better even renowned, humanitarian who feeds people in places that have experienced crisis, a lot like the ones we're talking about here. But there's never a shortage of more crises and more mouths to feed, and there's no shortage of need for the kind of work CORE does either. So how do you think about the issues of scale or sustainability, if at all? 'Cause sometimes the answer is, "I don't. I just do the best I can with what I have." How does CORE, over th- th- this period, think about how it does this work in all these places against all these very, and some would say seemingly impossible, conditions?

Ann Lee: I think that's such a great question because, you know, often we have to be looking sort of, you know…holistically, like, you know, up high looking down at the macro. But then our work really has to be at the micro, on the everyday sort of human level. And to do those things at the same time isn't always easy, and sometimes you get too micro or you get too macro. Um, s- scale is really important because... And I think that it's the hardest thing to do. Scaling is very rare as one organization, um, unless you're like, you know, the massively huge, like UN or Save the Children or whatever, where you just have massive amounts of money. We're not in that space. Like, we're much bigger than where we started. We have 10- we- y- you know, we used to have 10 employees in the United States, and then at the peak of COVID when we were doing 60,000 tests per day, we had about 3,000. Now we're about 250 people around the world, and that's a great spot for us because if we're at that space of, like, American Red Cross and all those things, like they have a massive huge net that can do like sort of the minimum for a lot of people. But, you know, their net is, has like very large holes between the netting, and then the... For us, our special, our sweet spot is sort of looking at the most vulnerable that fall through those cracks, and our netting is much finer to catch those folk. 

And so that's how we look at it. And so we're not in the space of trying to scale to like, you know, hundreds of thousands of people. We focus in on the most vulnerable within those groups that can provide, that often fall through the cracks. I mean, there's so many studies that show even in the United States that the majority of FEMA funding and, and aid go to middle income to middle higher income families, that the poorest communities really miss out. And so we try to kind of capture the most vulnerable groups. 

Um, so scaling, and the way that we see scaling and, and sort of the st- sustainability part of it is, like, don't build new stuff. There's no need to build new stuff. You can use the existing social and physical infrastructure and just grow on top of that, strengthen it, and that's what's gonna give you m- you know, the ability to scale a bit more, but also the sustainability piece. And so I have constantly sort of really focused in with our staff of, like, we do not compete with local, um, private sector. Like, we should not be bringing in tons of materials for free, for free for, like, you know, long periods of time. We need to be investing in the local private sector to provide that so that they can bring back jobs and, you know, all the things. So it's really investment in what's already there, and how do we build on that? 'Cause there's always so much there, and this is, again, going back to Haiti, something I learned so well, um, having lived there for four years before the earthquake. 

Like, you know, people came in from the outside into Haiti, and they were wringing their hands like, "Oh, we can't- We can't clear the rubble and we can't rebuild because, you know, the land tenure, it's like not clear and, you know, it creates legal issues. And it was like, people have been living here for like 30 years. You know, a piece of paper is not gonna change anything. If you go into that community and you try to take away even like a foot from their parcel, they will know and you will not survive. So regardless of having like a, a written down legal system, there's a system there. And so how do you build upon that system, whether it's formalized or informal, to be able to, you know, build that sustainability and build on, um, more of the scaling piece to it, I think is, is how we approach it. 

Scott M. Curran: So I love that your answer to scale and sustainability led to w- the, one of the things I wanna make sure we address, which is CORE's approach, which is...And, and for those who don't know and, and haven't gone to a school of public service or worked international affairs or recovery, there is a tendency for the rest of the world to parachute in. It's the, the phrase is parachuting in or a sort of savior's complex where people who think they know what is necessary for another place far away will bring what they think is right, whether that's products, services, models, et cetera, et cetera, and it doesn't always work. And there's very famous examples of this going back decades and some recent things, people and organizations you and I have worked with that we, I think we're all very well intended and with- know and love, and I'm thinking a little bit about Make It Right in New Orleans, which again, we've had lots of friends there, and we've worked and collaborated with those people and, and sometimes intention doesn't always result in the impact that we want.

But CORE has, I think, and I know, and I welcome your assessment of this, but your approach has been one of inside out support, so, and I would love for you to unpack that in the way that you do, and demand-driven relief, where you are u- you are showing up local, you are living local, maybe not you individually, but, but your teams are. You're hiring local people, you're engaging local people, you're empowering local people. The the cash advances, things like that, that give people what they need so that you're not bolting on from the outside a solution, but you are enabling up the local solution. Could you speak to that aspect of how CORE has done that successfully, and how that differentiates you from other organizations that might parachute in and bring an external solution?

Ann Lee: Yeah, I, I think, again, Haiti was such a lesson. I remember when folks were coming in, all of our coordination meetings were all in English, and the local authorities were not even invited, and it made me so mad. 

Scott M. Curran: It seems so obvious, right? 

Ann Lee: Yeah. I mean, we still struggle with that in our, in our international system. Um, but you know, I went to school at, at, uh, in New York, undergraduate, and I thought I was gonna be a cultural anthropologist. 

Scott M. Curran: You did your undergraduate degree in anthropology, right? 

Ann Lee: Yeah, mm-hmm. 'Cause I, you know, for me, like I imagined myself, like you have to learn a language, you have to learn the culture, you have to learn sort of people's belief systems to be able to understand and, and be a part of their system, right? So I think so much of that has really, you know, seeped into our culture here at CORE. 

For us, you know, we, when we get on the ground, we immediately hire locally. You know, that's our first thing. You know, I think volunteering is awesome, and I encourage people to come and volunteer and, you know, but I think that that period has to be short because there's a lot of great local people that need jobs that we need to hire up quickly. And then from there, you know, you're just learning by doing something with them on, you know, how they look at the world and how they see their future, how they want to rebuild. Um, and I don't think it's... It's like a, you know, very careful balance where, you know, you have to understand, listen, and prioritize the way that they want to recover. But also come with outside ideas and new ways of working and the experience that we bring. 

I have this great relationship with this, um, local organization that did so much after the fires in Altadena here in Los Angeles. They're called the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, NDLON. So they were doing a lot of...they work with undocumented workers. They provide a lot of protection, legal services, all kinds of stuff. Um, and so they were the folks that really came in to do, um, the cleaning of the ash-affected homes. And what was incredible... And they were doing tons of stuff like, you know, distribution, and they had, like, this entire, um, point of distribution for the community. And so they needed a lot of help 'cause they had n- that, that's not what they do. And so when I got connected with them, you know, we basically talked to them and said, "Okay, you tell us how you want us to help you. Do you want us to take over the distribution site? Do you want us to provide you with the technical assistance and the team members that can embed within your team? Or do you need financial assistance? Which of the... Like, whatever iteration or any combination of that is how we want to, you know, basically partner." And to them, it was like It was, they were awestruck because they were like, "We have never worked with another separate entity that offered like, you know, varying degrees of how you're supporting us." And since then we're, you know, we've been so close because I think that there's this..., at the time I just thought that's normal, that's what we do, and that's how we approach it. You tell us to what degree you want us to support you with the work that you're doing. But I do think, and I'm, it made me realize, like, that's not the norm or it should be, and I think that that's, um, how we, we look at the work that we should be doing.

Scott M. Curran: I love that. It's so powerful. And, and just for those who might not be familiar with this kind of work or, or may not pick up on the nuance and detail, think about the power of hiring someone local when an organization like CORE goes in. If that person's being employed and receiving a paycheck, that paycheck's staying in that community, and is im- that dollar isn't just a, a dollar that an organization like CORE gets to cite as impact because it put $1 into one person's pocket. That dollar then stays in that community. It supports that family, the, the education and overall wellbeing of that family. It brings the community back into resilience and recovery by staying in that economy and, and also hopefully giving that person not just employment, but also skills and ability, and now creating that more scalable and sustainable model that has a mindset of preparedness so that next time the community itself, through these individuals that CORE engages and trains, is stronger and better and experienced as a result.

 And so for those who are thinking about how you go next level in philanthropy in this area, think about the value of that model and, and, and how inside out and local demand-driven response and, and relief empowers and, and leaves the community better than it was found. 

I know we have limited time, but I wanna ask you, most of us in philanthropy say we wanna work ourselves out of a job, but when you work in the space of natural disasters or similar, there is no such thing because we're only gonna have more and different. When you look at CORE and its evolution from the beginning to where it is now and where it may go in the future, if you think about the story of CORE written some time from now, what do you hope is true or believe will be true about that story of CORE in your wildest dreams and expectations of where you're leading it?

Ann Lee: I'm actually working on this, this thing that I feel so strongly about. You know, we're in this really interesting space with, um, you know, USAID has been dismantled, FEMA's getting attacked and getting dismantled as well. Um, but more so than just the available resources that are so limited right now, there's an attack on empathy. There is an attack on civic culture and our responsibility to each other. There's an attack on nonprofits, you know? And to me that is so insidious, you know? And what I fear in our space is that it's gonna breed a lot of competition and, you know, fighting over scarce resources. And for me, rather than, you know, getting woe is me and mad, you know, I'm always creating hope by acting and doing.

So one of the things that I'm really trying to do with actually the Clinton Foundation and CGI is to create kind of like this, this alliance, right? Of how can we work with less and force the coordination and preparedness that we need. So we've been discussing, you know, with a few organizations that are kind of anchoring this of, you know, if the, if the private sector, local government, and NGOs can identify over this map of like what are the most likely hit counties that are the most under-resourced, that's the sweet spot that we need to be looking at. And then we agree beforehand as, you know, the biggest or the most, um, you know, experienced organizations that, that are doing this work, that we're gonna do this together, and we're gonna co-finance this, and we are gonna basically, do better with informing the public on how important it is. It's just gonna make for what I think is a much bigger turn to just the general public with more corporate entities to be able to fundraise, but so much more interesting to know that you're funding like, you know, five to 10 groups that are working together to have a holistic view for response and recovery than just one entity that's just, you know, focused on the thing that they're doing and like trying to get out there to, to, to get some funding.

I think that our sector is in the middle of a huge transformation. What that's gonna look like is up to us, and if we don't right now evolve- We're gonna die out. And I think it's scary for a lot of people, but for me it's very exciting because I'm hoping, as we often see after a major cataclysmic disaster, there is a huge window and opportunity for massive positive change. And so we need to take advantage of the space and time to make our sector more efficient, more coordinated, and more demand sensitive, more catering to the needs of communities rather than supply-driven. So I think that we have a role hopefully to kind of push that, from the inside and for the benefit of the affected communities.

Scott M. Curran: I wanna riff on that, but before, a- as I, as we close, but I... Before we do that, I wanna ask for, for big foundation leaders who are listening, for major funders, for people who are inclined towards action the way you are, the way Sean is, the way CORE is, um, and I'm gonna come back to that as we close. But where can people find CORE, find you, and, and find a way, a path in to support this work best, either from a financial perspective, a human capital perspective, an awareness across all sectors? What is the single best way, because I love how you're using the model to meet the moment, the same model before to meet this current moment that is not a natural disaster, but is one of real-time, man-made proportions. Um, how can people best support CORE in this iteration of its work and in the work you're still doing in all the places you've been doing it and are still doing it?

Ann Lee: We're very easy to find. Go to coreresponse.org/donate to provide financial support. We also have an email at info@coreresponse.org. We have people who are constantly checking it if you wanna contribute in different ways, you know, volunteering, social capital, whatever it is. You know, one thing that I think people forget about is, is, you know, th- there's this feeling of like, "But what can my $100 do? You know, it's not gonna make a difference.” And it's like, actually it can when things cost, like, $15 a day to support a family getting, um, access to clean water, whatever it is. But also how we felt about when we were so overwhelmed by the immensity of clearing out the rubble, it's like, just shut up and pick up a shovel and just start digging. You know? People will come and join you. You can move those mountains. And so, you know, if you have one person providing $100 but you can get, like, 10 friends to do the same, that becomes something, right? And then, you know, all those things have these ripple on effects, and I think that right now we're in a space where people should not be discouraged to try and just start someplace, anywhere.

Scott M. Curran: Momentum begets momentum, and all actions matter, and I think your life, your career, the work of CORE has proven that time and time again in location, uh, after location and on issue after issue. I feel like Mr. Rogers is having a big moment this year. He's been brought up a lot recently, and, and that theme of looking for the helpers that he talked about when he was scared as a child, his mother would tell him to look for the helpers. And I feel like seeing people who show up in real time and who do grab that shovel, you know, literally or figuratively, really matters, and I'm so glad that you are one of those helpers and that, that Sean is, too, and that, that CORE is. I just wanna say on a personal level, there's a lot of celebrity in philanthropy and you and I have both seen a lot of it, for better and for worse and everywhere in between as well as sincerely inended as it is, but there's some real celebrities who aren't famous Hollywood actors. And in my world, um, you have become one of those celebrities because of the way you show up and the way you work and the way you lead and the way you don't suffer any fools or foolishness because you've got work to do. To me, you are such an amazing example of, of somebody doing good better, and then leading the way and showing that action matters, that showing up matters, that caring about the people you're trying to serve matters and will always lead to the right answer, even if we do it imperfectly.

I am so glad that you took that swing in that Panda Express at that guy because you saw that in a world where there's a lot of options, doing nothing wasn't the right one, and you have modeled that every day in every way since through your life, your work, your career, through JPHRO and CORE, and you are, in my view, the, the, with all due respect to Sean, and he is awesome, um, you are the true star. And, and I am so Grateful for you, for your model. I've seen you in the hallways at CGI. I've seen you empower, encourage, and inspire others, and there's no question in my view that when your story is, is being written, it will be about that model you have demonstrated in our sector and for the world, and I am so grateful for the time we've been able to spend together here today and for everything you do, Ann Lee. Thank you for joining me on Better Good. 

Ann Lee: Thank you. 

Scott M. Curran: Thank you for tuning in to the BetterGood podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate, review, subscribe and share. You can watch the show on YouTube or Spotify, and for those who prefer to listen, we're on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts.

If you wanna learn more about how you can do more good better in your life and at work, order my book, Better Good, published by Simon and Schuster and available August 2026. It offers readers a simple yet powerful and proven framework for how to leave the world better than you found it—no matter who you are, where you live, or what you do.

I'd love for you to join the conversation about making a positive impact by joining me on Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn, or by subscribing to my Substack. You can find all the links you need to bring better good to your life and work at www.scottmcurran.com. Better Good is a Beyond Creative production. My executive producers are Kieron Banerjee and Aaron Shulman. Production is by Echo Studios in partnership with Palm Tree Island. 

Remember, the world's biggest problems won't wait and neither should you.