Rescuing and Resettling At-Risk
and Forgotten Refugees
Sasha Chanoff is the Founder and Executive Director of RefugePoint, a humanitarian organization that provides lasting solutions for the world’s most vulnerable refugees. RefugePoint identifies, protects, and resettles refugees at risk of genocide and violence who have fallen outside the net of humanitarian assistance. As a visionary, a social entrepreneur, and a successful fundraiser, Chanoff has strengthened refugee resettlement alliances with the UN Refugee Agency, NGO partners, the United States and other governments. RefugePoint is now recognized as a model for how resettlement can be done, and is influencing the field of resettlement globally to bring lasting solutions and safety to refugees.
In its first seven years, RefugePoint has referred over 15,000 refugees for resettlement to the United States, Australia, Canada, and six other countries, and provided life-stabilizing services to another 7,000 refugees in Nairobi. In 2011 the organization made up approximately 20% of all refugee resettlement out of Africa. RefugePoint is increasingly focusing attention on the most at-risk refugee children.
Prior to founding RefugePoint, Chanoff worked as a Refugee Job Developer at the Jewish Vocational Services in Boston where he provided employment services to newly arrived refugees. He later became an Operations Officer and Cultural Orientation Trainer at the International Organization for Migration, working across Africa, and was a consultant for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kenya. In Africa, he conducted emergency evacuations for Congolese refugees, bringing them from the Democratic Republic of Congo to the US for resettlement. He also organized, supervised and implemented group resettlement efforts for Somali and Sudanese refugees to the US, Canada, and Australia.
Sasha Chanoff holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a Master’s degree in Humanitarian Assistance from the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Friedman School of Nutrition, Science and Policy, a joint degree program implemented through the Tufts Feinstein International Center. At the Fletcher and Nutrition schools his focus was on NGO management, ethics and humanitarianism, humanitarian aid in complex emergencies, nutrition in complex emergencies, and forced migration.
Chanoff was born in Finland and grew up in the U.S. His great grandparents escaped pogroms and persecution in Russia, and their experiences helped motivate his work. He now lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, with his wife and two children, and is passionate about aiding refugee victims of violence and those at severe risk. RefugePoint and Chanoff personally have gained global media coverage on CNN, ABC World News with Diane Sawyer, NBC, BBC, Fox, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, and 60 Minutes. His work was recently profiled in Morgan Stanley Smith Barney's Perspectives in Philanthropy: Next Generation Changemakers. Chanoff has received fellowships from Ashoka, the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, and Echoing Green.
