BrandOutLoud argues that a strong profile and professional marketing communications will enable local aid organizations to reach out on their own, create new partnerships, and diversify their funding.
Are we overlooking the capacity of local NGOs? Rather than being the lowest common denominator of international assistance, indigenous organizations should be regarded as the fundamental unit of effective development aid.
A local sovereign organisation is an authentic expression of the will and voice of its own constituents. While it may accept funding to provide services, it is not a surrogate vehicle for the projects of another agency’s purpose.
Sovereignty is both a quality to be developed and a right to be respected and defended. It is a particularly powerful concept when applied to organisation, suggesting authentic qualities, describing a home-grown resilience, an inside-out identity, the idea of an organisation being the expression of the free will of its own constituents.
“I have witnessed how ‘mending fences’ was tied up with relinquishment of dignity…Many people in our social good sector have been required to be ‘the bigger person’ for far too long.”
“Within teams and organizations where consent is an afterthought (if we’re lucky), ‘No’ has to be a complete sentence – for my sanity and for our survival.”
The encouragers matter so much right now because they are inviting us to see the bigger picture, to believe in ourselves, to take the risk…to become unstuck.
“COVID-19 and the climate crisis are asking me to move towards everything that home offers.”
Listen or read my conversation with Kurien Thomas on his podcast, SeroTunein, a day after the attack on the U.S. capitol.
Healing Solidarity is creating the solidarity, healing, and sound communications we crave.
How to be anti-racist AND an international do-gooder.
