Nonprofits Create Community is NIA’s theme for 2026, as we celebrate the ways that nonprofits come through for their communities in spite of all the challenges facing them. In this series, meet some NIA-insured nonprofits who share their stories of creating community in their own words.
Meet Relief for Human Suffering Foundation of Philadelphia, PA
Benson Fayehun, Founder & President of Relief for Human Suffering Foundation, explains:
“Relief for Human Suffering Foundation (R4HSF) restores sight and reduces suffering by delivering community‑based eye care in underserved African communities, proven in three countries, with a goal to reach one million people by 2035.”
How does your nonprofit and your mission create community for the people and places you serve?
Restoring sight and expanding access to eye care.
“Relief for Human Suffering Foundation (R4HSF) creates community by restoring sight and expanding access to eye care in underserved communities in Africa.
Our volunteer‑run foundation partners with local NGOs to deliver screenings, surgical referrals, corrective lenses, and affordability support in ways that are culturally aligned and trusted.
By prioritizing women and youth who often face cost and transport barriers, we strengthen inclusion and belonging.
Each outreach event becomes a gathering point where families, neighbors, and local leaders come together around the shared goal of preventing avoidable blindness.
This collective experience builds resilience, dignity, and togetherness while connecting communities to a broader vision of equity in health across the continent.”
What are your nonprofit’s biggest challenges or obstacles to creating community?
Funding and staffing constraints, along with stigmas and lack of awareness.
“Relief for Human Suffering Foundation (R4HSF) is volunteer‑run, which limits staff capacity and makes scaling more difficult.
Funding constraints mean affordability support and transport stipends cannot always meet the demand, especially for women and youth who face the greatest barriers.
In some communities, stigma and lack of awareness about eye health also reduce participation.
Despite these challenges, we have already reached more than 50,000 people through eye screenings, glasses, and surgeries.
Our partnerships with local NGOs and our proven model allow us to continue building trust, inclusion, and togetherness around the shared goal of preventing avoidable blindness.”
A broker’s take on community in action.
Before a nonprofit can help build community, they need insurance — and brokers are their guide to helping them find coverage, maintain it, and, if needed, make a claim on it.
Relief for Human Suffering Foundation partners with Ross Mattis, a broker with Lionstone Insurance Agency, who helps them get the most value from their NIA coverage.
As their broker, Mattis shared his insight into the benefit Relief for Human Suffering Foundation brings to the community:
“Working with Relief for Human Suffering Foundation has given me the opportunity to see how a relatively small, volunteer-driven nonprofit can make an extraordinary impact.
What Benson and his team have accomplished — bringing essential eye care to more than 50,000 people in underserved communities — is a great example of how nonprofits can turn a focused mission into meaningful, lasting change.
As an insurance agent who works extensively with nonprofit organizations, I know that organizations like R4HSF face challenges and risks that are very different from those of a traditional business.
My role is to understand those risks and help make sure the insurance program supports the organization rather than becoming another obstacle to fulfilling its mission.
Having a carrier like Nonprofits Insurance Alliance, that understands the nonprofit sector, makes that job considerably easier.”
