Good Spirits are quarterly interviews with business leaders. During Good Spirits, we bring you a distilled look at business owners who are working to make a better future by giving back to their community through their work or philanthropy. These leaders inspire and empower us to make a positive difference in our own backyards.
Listen Here:
Transcript
Carolyn Keller: Hi, this is Carolyn. Welcome to our sixth episode of Good Spirits, quarterly interviews with businesses making a positive impact in our region. Today, we have Mary Jayne McCullough, the founder and CEO at Global Wordsmiths. Welcome, Mary Jayne! It's great to have you with us.
Mary Jayne McCullough: Thank you. It's great to be here.
About Global Wordsmiths
Carolyn Keller: Tell us a little bit about Global Wordsmiths - how you got started, and what you're doing now.
Mary Jayne: Global Wordsmiths is a language services provider. We provide language translation, interpretation, subtitling, phone interpretation, in-person interpretation, translation, post-editing—the whole array of language services. We're a little bit different because we also focus on language accessibility as a growing field and as an area of advocacy and social impact.
We do a lot of language accessibility consulting, and training in terms of teaching people about language access and why it's so important. I started Global Wordsmiths in 2017. I was a freelance interpreter and translator at the time. I was really disappointed by the lack of support for people who don't communicate in English and wanted to make a big difference.
The Dual Mission: Business and Social Impact
Carolyn: That's wonderful. You were very intentional about starting as a business. Can you talk a little bit more about why the business element was important from the start?
Mary Jayne: It actually continues to be really important, which sometimes can be hard because the nonprofit sector can be a little bit distrustful of social enterprises, understandably. And startup culture doesn't really take social enterprises seriously sometimes.
My foundational approach is that to be a social enterprise, you have to pay your staff what they deserve to be paid. In our case, we have to pay our translators and linguists what they deserve to be paid, also, and that's expensive. You also have to keep the lights on and provide opportunities for people. So you do have to generate revenue through business activities!
I want to remove the stigma from that idea because you have to cover your operating costs, and you have to be financially solvent if you want to have lasting and sustainable impact. So I always knew that was kind of the path for me. I also think within the business sector's side of things, unless you have a responsibility to shareholders to do so, everything doesn't have to be about maximizing profit. If you have profit, you can use it to do social impact work and still be financially healthy.
Standing Out as a Social Enterprise
Carolyn: You said that sometimes people in the startup community don't take social enterprise very seriously. How have you seen social enterprise either benefit you as a company or how has it made you stand out within the startup community?
Mary Jayne: I think it's been huge. We're not as attractive to investors. Venture capital doesn't have a lot to share with us, and that's okay. The startup community has given us a lot, and we definitely grew and learned a lot through all the incubators and resources available for new entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurship can also be something that builds your business in a tangible way. The social impact work that we do is spread through word of mouth and gets good publicity. It not only does good in the world, but it also drives sales conversions back into the business in a way that's authentic, honest, and straightforward. And I think it's okay to have that secondary benefit because many people want to support businesses that are doing good things.
Language Access: Definition and Importance
Carolyn: Tell me about and define language access and why is it a challenge that you chose to tackle through Global Wordsmiths?
Mary Jayne: Language access has a lot of definitions to a lot of different people. There's a legal and procedural definition, such as what’s covered under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, Executive Order 13166, and provisions of the Affordable Care Act, among others. It's also a growing field and area of study across the country.
Procedurally, language access is what you achieve when you use language assistance resources to make your services, resources, and information available to people who don't communicate in English in an equitable or meaningful way. But what language access means to people in their lives is the most important. When you can't communicate in English, it can be really hard to thrive, integrate, or even survive, and have access to resources and services.
Mary Jayne: Also, I'm a member of the disability community. It's not the same thing, but some issues of accessibility overlap, and it's really important to me. When I saw people not being able to access services, I felt compelled to change that from a place of personal experience. That's one of the big things that drives my passion for this work every day.
The Language Access Project
Carolyn: Some of that work happens through the natural processes [of Global Wordsmiths], but also through the Language Access Project. Talk a little bit about that project, what it looks like, and how it's making an impact?
Mary Jayne: The Language Access Project is my favorite initiative. It started with an idea I had back in the early 2000s. The idea was to enable nonprofits to offer their services and resources in different languages by partnering them with partner bilingual university students and volunteers with who could provide language assistance at no charge or reduced rates.
We structured the project as an internship where bilingual interns from universities get training on how to translate and interpret (because being bilingual is different from being a trained translator and interpreter). The students benefit from the training. Nonprofits get help with language needs, and the region benefits. It advances the narrative of language access, which can be transformational for the region. So it’s a wonderful program on all accounts.
Carolyn: What is the process to get involved?
Mary Jayne: We will probably open applications about four or five months before the program kicks off. So, shortly after the new year, we'll blast out applications through our social media, our newsletter, and on our website.
The Value and Skills of Professional Translators
Carolyn: Earlier, you mentioned teaching students that translation skills are different from being bilingual. Can you talk a bit more about the types of skills you teach?
Mary Jayne: Absolutely. The work of translators is often undervalued. Being bilingual is not the same as being a trained translator. Tools like LLMs and Google Translate can't fully encapsulate the nuances of translation, especially in rarer languages.
Untrained translators might summarize or leave out information, misunderstanding meaning, or use word-for-word translation instead of capturing the message. Equitable access is meaningfully conveying 100% of what's being said. Bilingual helpers or non-professionals might miss this, leading to bias or incomplete information, and other problems.
Carolyn: Can you give us some examples of projects you've worked on or clients you've had that required professional translation?
Mary Jayne: Pretty much any scenario that requires communication could benefit from or need translation into other languages. Our clients are from various sectors like education, healthcare, and government. We help draft policies, provide training, and perform translations and interpretations in diverse settings, across many domains.
The Role of AI in Translation Services
Carolyn: One of the things we've discussed before is the impact of AI. Can you touch on how AI is changing your field?
Mary Jayne: AI is tremendously impactful, especially in translation. It has changed the process and product of translation, as well as clients' expectations. The technology is exciting. It also brings challenges. High-resource languages benefit from more robust systems while under-resourced languages lag behind, creating inequity. Additionally, not all AIs are created equal, so understanding their appropriate applications is important.
We help clients navigate these complexities, advising when AI is suitable and when human translation is necessary, for example. Our project managers receive training to manage these expectations and ensure quality output.
The People Behind Global Wordsmiths
Carolyn: How many people do you have on staff currently, and what range of languages do you provide?
Mary Jayne: We have over 250 interpreters and translators in our roster and fourteen administrative employees. We cover more than 150 languages across all our services. Languages range from common ones like Spanish and Chinese to those spoken by smaller and growing refugee communities like Nepali and Pashto.
We recruit ahead of emerging needs, such as expected increases in populations from certain regions. We work closely with local providers to ensure we're ready to support new communities.
Measuring Social Impact
Carolyn: With your mission to ensure equitable access, what are some ways you measure the impact of your work?
Mary Jayne: We track quantitative data like the number of documents translated and participants in our programs. We also conduct post-program surveys to gather qualitative data. One significant measure is seeing nonprofits appointing language access coordinators after participating in our programs.
It's rewarding to witness the narrative of language access becoming embedded in the region.
Advice for Aspiring Social Entrepreneurs
Carolyn: What advice would you give to aspiring social entrepreneurs?
Mary Jane: Trust yourself and believe in your idea. It can be frustrating to get buy-in, and not many funders support social enterprises. The nonprofit community might not take you seriously, but if you know you have a good idea, stay the course.
Mary Jane: It takes time. We've had our share of challenges and losses. The first few years were tough, but we've learned and grown. Remember, entrepreneurship is hard, but it's equally rewarding.
For anyone interested in supporting the work of Global Wordsmiths or participating in the Language Access Project, please reach out to Mary Jayne McCullough at info@globalwordsmiths.com or visit our website at www.globalwordsmiths.com.
Curio412 is a consultancy for businesses and nonprofits who want to improve their bottom line, build relationships, and scale meaningful impact. We believe in creating lasting impact. Which is why we share knowledge and tell stories to keep nonprofits, business, social enterprises, and charitable organizations informed about current trends, ideas, and impact.
Comments