In high school, Priya Haji helped her physician father start a free clinic in her hometown of Bryan, Texas, to serve low-income patients. As a Stanford senior, she founded a nonprofit—Free at Last—in gang-ridden East Palo Alto to provide treatment to ex-convicts and drug addicts. Nicknamed "the Firecracker" by her mother because she was born on the Fourth of July, Haji went on to found two more businesses. Her honors include designation as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum; a Social Innovation Leadership Award from the World CSR Congress; and inclusion in GOOD magazine's GOOD 100, a list of people driving change in their communities.
Haji, '93, died on July 14 of a heart attack at her San Francisco home. She was 44.
Haji, who cited the influence of her Indian grandmother who marched with Mahatma Gandhi for social justice, identified a need for a program to address the problems of drug and alcohol addiction in her East Palo Alto neighborhood. Together with community activist Vicki Smothers, she started Free at Last in 1994, serving as executive director and growing the organization to help 3,000 people a year with an annual budget of more than $2 million.
"Here was this young girl from Stanford who wanted to help a largely African-American community in East Palo Alto," Smothers said, "and Priya not only came up with a name for the organization, she got funding in the form of an Echoing Green Fellowship."
After obtaining an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC-Berkeley, Haji joined with Haas classmate Siddharth Sanghvi in 2004 to found World of Good, an online marketplace promoting fair trade for local artisans, NGOs and nonprofits by giving them access to mainstream retail markets. Haji also founded World of Good Development Organization, a sister nonprofit focused on improving the lives of low-income women in developing countries by ensuring artisans a fair wage by local standards, employment without discrimination and a clean, safe working environment. EBay bought World of Good in 2010.
Haji's most recent venture, San Francisco-based SaveUp, is a gamelike rewards program started in 2011 that helps Americans save money, pay down debt and manage their finances. Her co-founder and company CEO, Sammy Shreibati, said, "Priya was a dear friend who I looked up to both professionally and personally. When we started SaveUp, she was very honest about starting a family on her own. Priya had the energy to give 100 percent at work and then another 100 percent at home with her kids."
Haji is survived by her children, Zen and Omi; parents, Karim and Ashi; and sister.
Julie Muller Mitchell, '79, is a writer in San Francisco.
