I am reading Greg Robertson's next book Stones into Schools. It is a more detailed account of his CAI activities of opening schools in the toughest terrain of Pakistan and Afghanistan. For me, it was taking lessons of running a non profit organisation ! Here are the four big lessons i have learnt from Greg Robertson's experience:
Lesson 1: If you want to change anything, 'include' the people whom you want to impact right from the start. Greg Robertson does not not build a school and invite the kids to attend them. Instead Robertson opens a school only after the village offers him three promises: Land for the school, labour for building the school and 50% of girls enrollment in three years of time. This ensures that the school is not imposed by CAI, but becomes part of local community. Until Greg gets this promise, he waits. In one village, Chunda, it took him 8 years to convince the Mullah to permit a single girl in a school. Now it has over 300 girls in the school.
Lesson 2: Find a toughest terrain that needs a school very 'badly'. Greg calls this principle 'Last place first'. ( By the way, this is against the normal principle of a non-profit who like to start their activities at the easiest possible location!) He therefore finds a location which is most difficult to access & survive.
In change management, it is known that people who change are the ones who have largest number of 'pain points'. Where there is largest pain, the chance of making change is always the highest. Because when people have pain, they are willing to make many changes: changes in their schedules, have lesser reservations, and are willing to go an extra mile to make it work. Robertson's implicitly seems to follow this basic lesson of change management.
Lesson 3: Narrow the focus of activities but cover all the elements impacting the central element. This is against the practice of non-profits, as they typically focus only on their chosen area, whether it is providing education, or building roads, or offering medical aid. But Greg Robertson provides money even for providing water to the village, or building bridges. In change management, this is called 'wholistic coverage of all the impacting elements'. All the elements surrounding the core element must be addressed to have an impact!
Lesson 4: Use local champions to impact the local schools. Greg Robertson manages his entire school-building organisation through his local Pakistani and Afghanistan leaders. They know the local language and culture, they know what can or cannot be done, and they bring credibility to the entire activity. When one remembers that Trust and Credibility are the only currency in the hands of non profits, one realises that one cannot sacrifice this principle at any cost.
Summary: These lessons are important because so much money is riding today on non profits. Donor foundations are huge and executing foundations are even bigger. But what is shocking is the lack of fundamental principles they follow in achieving their results. It is not money that makes the largest impact on the results of these institutions, conversely it is the least. What is needed is application of holistic thinking and rigor to ensure credibility , i guess. But both need time, and donor foundations, like most of the organisations, will rather sacrifice 'results' instead of sacrificing 'time'. Isn't that paradoxical?
