What happens when nonprofits leave?
Why Simbi Foundation commits to a five-year self-sustainability policy
Only rarely do NGOs and nonprofits have the financial or structural reach to offer a permanent presence in a region. Even rarer are those charities who can declare mission accomplished on a particular issue, and close their doors for good.
While many nonprofit interventions result in the formation of lifelong personal relationships and connections between communities, at some point, an organization’s work will end.
So what happens when nonprofits finish their work in a community? How do they ensure the greatest possible chance of longevity and project versatility?
How not to end a project
Too often, exits are decided by funding streams drying up or timelines simply fading away, rather than an objective-based result. Actually, it’s disturbingly common. According to a 2012 review of the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector, for example, half of projects were judged to have failed to have a legitimate impact due to ineffective exit strategies.
Here’s a particularly terrible example of the fallout that can occur from a poorly thought-through program:
If you keep up to date with popular stories in the nonprofit sector, you’ve probably already heard of PlayPumps; the notorious intervention that aimed (for reasons unclear) to co-opt children’s playtime to power water pumps and other vital water production infrastructure.
(It’s also our lead grant writer, Daniel Morton’s favourite intervention horror story.)
Beyond the ethical question of what happens to ‘play’ when it becomes a necessity for clean drinking water, PlayPumps shows what happens when nonprofits ignore the gold standard for designing a good development program — having an exit vision in mind, even before initial planning begins.
Choosing to make their project concept-driven rather than context or outcome-focused resulted in a number of unforeseen and ill-thought-out consequences.
For example, PlayPumps ended up costing as much as four times the price of a regular water pump — raising questions about why and how communities will fund the costs of replacement parts in the long-term. Worse, the unusual construction of the PlayPumps made local maintenance and upkeep almost impossible.
When the pumps were installed, they only proved fully effective in areas with deep and plentiful supplies of well water. While perhaps not an issue for communities with the right kind of water access, this signals an issue with the long-term sustainability of the project itself.
And — perhaps worst of all — children needed to run the merry-go-rounds for inordinate amounts of time (up to 27 hours!) to meet water-production targets.
Alongside these infrastructure nightmares, it’s also worth pointing out that members of a nonprofit may have been invested in a target community for years, meaning that leadership transitions and handovers can be a highly emotional, as well as logistical, issue.
How to exit the right way (succession planning)
Exiting an intervention is no easy task, particularly for nonprofits working in sectors that require the installation and upkeep of equipment. At Simbi Foundation, we endeavour to achieve seamless exits with a five-year sustainability plan.
Here’s a (brief) overview of five-year succession plan:
1. All of our BrightBox projects are designed using a community ownership model, which ensures the building blocks for eventual full ownership are in place, right from the first day.
2. Even though the BrightBox program is geared towards self-sustainability, communities are never left to develop ownership protocols alone. Across the five year-period, Simbi Foundation installs ongoing education, training, and support programs — all with the goal of promoting the necessary skills and knowledge to integrate, maintain, and manage the technology.
3. As BrightBox solar device charging stations produce revenue, any excess funds can be reinvested into the program, subsidizing some of the ongoing community costs, such as technical maintenance and cleaning.
4. With every new BrightBox implementation, community leaders are encouraged to make their own decisions about the future place of Simbi Foundation technologies. Digital resources are optimized to fit with local and national curricula, and any education training takes place within the context of existing school policies.
(Plus — we are working to develop a set of best practices to ensure the collection and return of no-longer functional electronic devices to Canada, where they will be recycled or refurbished through standard means.)
Take a look at some other tips for building an exit strategy:
- Create and stick to one umbrella goal for exit, which is optimistic yet attainable. For example, Water For People, which promotes the development of water and sanitation service delivery systems, commits to an ‘Everyone Forever’ policy. This states that “we will work in a district until local water authorities have the infrastructure, funding, and oversight in place to ensure that everyone will have access to clean water for generations to come. Once we achieve that, it’s time for us to go.”
- Create a shareable exit checklist/timeline, to encourage clear understanding and communication over the specifics of a leadership change. While the elements of your checklist will change depending on your particular needs and objectives, the general stages of a transition are broadly transferable, as this timeline shows.
- Have contingencies in place, because anyone in the nonprofit sector knows that plans are only as reliable as the context in which they’re implemented. Sometimes, for reasons beyond a nonprofit’s control, it’s necessary to bring forward exit plans. In these cases, look to community leaders, expert partners with prior related experience, and exit toolkits, such as this succession planning guide.
However you configure your succession plan, it’s ultimately the community members who will form the next generation of leadership that are the key element in a project’s long term success.
Whether it’s keeping those vital lines of communication open, managing the successful implementation of your carefully honed transition plan, or driving their own innovation schemes, the first (at least semi) autonomous leaders of your community intervention are likely to be one of the biggest determinants of a projects’ long-term success.
For Simbi Foundation, it’s our stunningly dedicated education partners and experts who continue to work with and improve our interventions.
Take Akenna Baptiste Lotara, for example — Akenna is the deputy director of Twajiji Primary School, one of the first schools in Uganda’s Bidibidi settlement to receive a Simbi Foundation BrightBox.
Over the coming years, Akenna will be absolutely integral in leading Twajiji to self-sustainability, and we’re happy to transfer the BrightBox into his safe hands! Read more about Simbi Foundation’s trip to install resources at Twajiji school Here.
Here’s Akenna’s story, in his own words:
‘I was born in South Sudan and grew up during wartime, which meant that my education suffered greatly. Because of the threat from guerilla forces, when classes did happen, they would take place under the trees, where we could escape into the bush if there was an attack.
When the war broke, I had the chance to come to Uganda. At fourteen-years-old, I was happy to complete Primary Seven, but I struggled with moving on to senior school. With no one to sponsor my school fees, and four nephews from my deceased brother to care for, I had to move back to South Sudan and take a ten-year hiatus from learning.
I became a tutor, training other teachers for six years until war broke out again.
At the age of 26, I returned to Uganda and joined Primary Seven for the second time. I graduated with an aggregate six (1st grade), which allowed me to enter secondary school with the help of a bursary for gifted scholars. I was then offered partial funding from the UNHCR to pay for my final exams, but as a refugee, I had no way of completing the payment. Because of this, I was forced to end my senior school education early.
In 1999, I began teaching. After taking several posts where my salary didn’t meet basic living costs, I completed two financially-supported teacher training courses and officially qualified as a grade three teacher. In 2007, I saw an advert for the national teacher’s college, offering training to become a grade five teacher — I applied straight away and was selected for a place through the Church of Uganda’s refugee program. In 2010, I passed the university exams with an upper 2:1 and became a grade five teacher.
That same year, I was repatriated to South Sudan, where I became a tutor, training other teachers for six years until war broke out again. When my life was threatened, I settled in Uganda’s Bidibidi camp, and since 2018, I have been the deputy head at Twajiji Primary School. Alongside my responsibilities as deputy director, I am still looking for opportunities to improve as a teacher and leader. I have enrolled at Uganda Christian University, but finding the money to continue training is still difficult. With support, I hope one day to complete my bachelor’s degree in education.’
Are you interested in working with committed educators like Akenna? Take a look at our current opportunities to get involved!
