US-based international development organizations will now need to heavily rely on private funding to grow—and even maintain—their operations around the world. Can that work? If so, what kind of programs are well-suited to private funding?
World Neighbors, a nearly 75-year-old development organization based in Oklahoma City, OK, has relied overwhelmingly on private funding for nearly all of its existence.
The private funding model is suited to a different methodology than those of most development organizations that rely on government funds. The corporate world provides an analogy Public companies tend to get very focused on quarterly results. Private companies, freed from that pressure, usually have more room to focus on long-term results.
In a similar way, World Neighbors’s methodology is built on long-term, comprehensive development that results in community self-reliance. Its programs, which always include a savings and credit mechanism to generate capital, usually last a minimum of 8 years. They are run with and through local partners and coordinated with government bodies so communities can obtain long-term funding and other support that drive—and sustain—economic and social development. World Neighbors has a handful of headquarters staff. Nearly all paid staff live in the communities in which they work. They, in turn, rely heavily on community volunteers on health, clean water, nutrition and other dimensions of the comprehensive community development programs.
The key to this long-term approach are World Neighbors’s private funders. They donate to the organization with a full understanding and appreciation of its long-term approach. While certain quarterly “metrics” are provided, donors know development success is measured after a number of years. Specifically, when a community has lifted itself from poverty, obtained self-sufficiency and World Neighbors’s involvement is no longer necessary. The organization’s goal truly is to work itself out of a job, and has done so in numerous communities in Haiti, Kenya, Guatemala and nearly a dozen other countries. That can take 8, 10, 12 years or more.
I think you might enjoy a discussion with World Neighbors CEO Kate Schecter about how development organizations can adapt to the new funding landscape.
John Jordan
Principor Communications
