After living and working in Africa for four years, Alexis Chavez wanted to do more to combat the various challenges she saw facing the continent.

She asked herself, “What’s next?” to addressing the issues, a question that led her deeper and deeper into problems that needed to be solved. She found that despite her efforts, she wasn’t making the progress she hoped.

“I got to a place where I realized a lot of the things I was doing weren’t working,” she said. “When I was doing the work that I was doing, I was doing it from a Western perspective.”

So Chavez decided to try and help the people of Africa help themselves. In 2014, Chavez founded Einstein Rising, a nonprofit geared toward helping African entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground and set them up for success. The nonprofit’s tagline is to change the world, one new business at a time.

“I guess what inspired me was I knew all these people that had amazing ideas,” Chavez said. “I wanted to take that entrepreneurial experience and help people get access to what they needed to be successful. I wanted to create a space for those people to be successful in a way they wanted to be supported.”

Einstein Rising partners with its entrepreneurs after they fill out an application online for their business. The nonprofit assists with creating a business plan, providing mentorship and coaching, marketing tactics and helping with pursuing startup capital.

If the business successfully meets all of its goals through the development process, the business may seek investment from Einstein Rising.

Chavez said the nonprofit’s greater mission is reflected through its three-pronged slogan “People, Profit, Planet.” Through her work, Chavez aims to empower communities, improve human health, conserve the environment, protect endangered species and generate revenue among the people.

“Instead of me going out trying to help, I have to help this one person have a kick-a— business and once he has that going, he helps 10,000 people,” Chavez said. “We find the right roots in the system, we feed the right roots and those roots take our message and spread it. We don’t have to be all the pieces in the puzzle; we get the right pieces to help solve the puzzle.”

Chavez began working in Africa in 2008, doing animal rescue and welfare. She primarily worked in Uganda and Namibia.

“I started off raising baboons and running around with lions,” she said. “I love Africa. It has a special place in my heart.”

Chavez spends three months of the year in Africa, working the rest of the year from her home on Mercer Island. The Einstein Rising team consists of three other board members and two program managers, all divided in Uganda and Nigeria, which are the nonprofit’s target African countries.

As founder and president, Chavez said fundraising and grant writing are a big part of her job in providing support to the Einstein Rising entrepreneurs. This year, the nonprofit’s annual fundraising event will take place June 2 at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. Chavez said the event provides people a closer look at the work of Einstein Rising and its accomplishments.

“We ask everybody to remember the people that helped put them in the position they’re in today,” she said. “These entrepreneurs have the same potential that we do, and so we ask [potential donors] to be the people who help put them in the position they need to be in.”

As someone who’s spent the past eight years working to help various African causes, Chavez believes no one knows better how to help themselves than the people of Africa.

“The people think they’re going to be successful, they just want that chance and there’s not a lot of opportunities to get it,” Chavez said. “What I kind of observed was that people were falling into the cracks … all these people that were just kind of lost in the shuffle and left behind. I think what I wanted to do was put the power back into the hands of the people because no one else is going to save them but themselves.

“These people are ready to go, now let’s just get them moving.”

For more, visit www.einsteinrising.org.