Rethinking our existence
What happens when an organisation realises that it’s not living its values and principles? Anna Feuchtwang shares the EveryChild experience.
About three years ago, after yet another board discussion on how EveryChild could expand its reach so that more children around the world got the chance to grow up in a safe and caring family, some colleagues and I started a debate which dared to challenge our very existence. The conclusion we presented to the board was that our model and structure was incompatible with our mission.
A typical NGO structure
Like many other international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) we have a hierarchical structure with strategic decisions taken in the UK, approved by a board of British trustees which are then implemented through liaison offices overseas who deliver programmes directly in some cases and work through partners in others. Staff and partners contribute to strategic planning, we share information, we build participation and sustainability into our programmes. Standard practice and nothing wrong with any of it.
We see our role as an enabler to bring the voices of children and civil society organisations to the international arena.
Except that with an annual income of around £8 million we can only afford to work in 15 countries and only reach a fraction of the children who we estimate are living without the protection and support of families and communities. Not only that, but our structure and model directly contradict and undermine our values and principles.
Turning our structure on its head
Like most international NGOs we don’t want to just fund programmes that deliver services which might improve lives in the short-term - we want to contribute to societal change so that the lives of the children we care about are transformed for good. And when we asked ourselves what we thought our most effective contribution to change might be we realised that our structure was upside down. We decided to take the rhetoric of “empowerment” and “subsidiarity” to its logical conclusion and form a global alliance of national civil society organisations.
As a northern-based international NGO we recognise that the knowledge of the context, issues and successful interventions that can lead to positive long-lasting change for children without parental care sits with children themselves and the organisations that work with them directly. We see our role as an enabler to bring the voices of children and civil society organisations to the international arena. We recognise that we have a place to play in mobilising resources, advocating for change with our own government and internationally but that we are only a part of the picture.
What is needed is to bring organisations together, to learn from each other, improve practice and build a movement for change through shared experiences, research, policy development and advocacy, providing a global platform to enhance the work of civil society organisations and open up new opportunities for greater impact and influence.
Launch of a new international alliance
When we launch it in 2014, EveryChild will be one of the 15 or so founding members of a growing international alliance governed and owned by the members. We will continue to advocate in the UK for children around the world without parental care and will raise funds for the programmes delivered by other alliance members. But we won’t have our “own” programmes, we won’t have branch offices and we will no longer be making decisions in London on interventions and policies for working with children across the other side of the world.
This hasn’t been an easy decision. We spent around 18 months thoroughly researching different models and learning from others’ experience, and we’re finding the transition just as challenging as we predicted.
But of all the changes I’ve been involved with in EveryChild and other organisations this one feels like the most radical and the most exciting. In November 2011, I will be taking my seat around the table with peers from Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Guyana, India, Russia, Indonesia and Egypt to work out what kind of global governance structure we want, how we will work together and what to jointly campaign on. I can’t wait.
Anna Feuchtwang is Chief Executive at EveryChild.
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