April 2024 Community Gathering with Geoff Revell of WaterSHED
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The Community of Practice was relaunched in earnest on 26 April 2024 as a small group of us gathered to listen to what our guest Geoff Revell of closed NGO WaterSHED had to share about his experience of crafting and executing a intentional organization sunset/exit to community. We used his excellent 2021 article, “Exit Strategies”, from Stanford Social Innovation Review as a starting point for our wide-ranging discussion.
Here are some of the major takeaways:
Begin With The End In Mind
Geoff talked about how “So, who is gonna do this after we are gone?” became a constant mantra amongst his team. Everyone that worked for WaterSHED was hired and onboarded with the understanding that they would end after the allotted time and he found that the project attracted people who liked the idea that there was a planned exit. He also took great pains to stress how having a planned sunset encouraged efficiency and economy in action. “Thinking with the end in mind is a great device to get people to focus on the things that matter.”
In addition, the company boldly promoted their exit to donors and partners years ahead of time. The Strategic Exit page was added to their website quite early on so their intention to exit was made plain.
“Thinking with the end in mind is a great device to get people to focus on the things that matter.”
Exiting To Community Can Happen Piece By Piece
Before making the decision to close, nonprofits will often look around for stakeholders to take over, this can frequently take the form of an exit to community process. However, too often the idea is that someone(s) else will take over the organization whole-cloth — keeping the name and activities relatively unaltered. In contrast, WaterSHED’s approach was to turn over different programmatic areas to interested and capable parties. Their ten-year time horizon for closure meant they had ample time to find people who were keen to take over the work, and WaterSHED could also be a partner to those interested parties in the cases where capacity-building was required.
Although funders often pay lip service to the idea of initiatives being locally-led (see, for example, USAID’s locally-led indicator agenda), global “development” projects often remain stubbornly foreign-run while creating a class of people in the global south who become quite used to the enticing per diems and other employment opportunities that the foreign NGOs offer. It was this type of regime, that caused WaterSHED to draw the ire of some local authorities. Unlike other groups, they refused to create local reliance on them continuing to funnel foreign money into Cambodia. They, instead, encouraged locals to take over the projects that they found valuable to the community.
Although, some potential partners struggled with the unorthodox manner in which WaterSHED carried out its activities, many of the locals that eventually stepped up to the challenge took it on as a source of pride in local, Cambodian self-determination.
Geoff shared with us how the local groups brought in true pomp with the handover ceremonies, with the events featuring awards, medals, and even confetti canons! The pageantry of the transitions helped draw more local people to the work.
People Often Assume Closure Is Chaotic and Painful
Despite WaterSHED’s continued insistence that the plan was always to close, the staff continually ran up against the assumption that something had gone wrong, most notably that they had run out of money. Hearing this, the community members at our gathering agreed that there was need to shed more light on closures — particularly well thought-out, intentional closures — so that funders, governments, communities, and even fellow-NGOs would have some points of reference. When more people understand that endings can be planned and a mark of success —- Geoff used the term “badge of honor” — there are more hands on deck to ensure the ending goes well.
Thanks again to Geoff for joining us for a rousing session! You can check out the calendar for upcoming CoP gatherings here.