NGO Soul + Strategy

Summary What are some structural things that are wrong in development aid and in civil society? Which mindsets most need to be decolonized when it comes to the relationship between global South civil society organizations (CSOs) and INGOs? Global North-founded INGOs need to be reimagined. How, in turn, do global South-founded NGOs have to change to take over many roles that INGOs currently still f...

Summary Leadership transitions are tricky -- and potentially risky -- moments in a nonprofit's life. What are the most common pitfalls or aspects that get overlooked when nonprofits -- and outgoing leaders themselves -- tackle such leadership transitions? What key strategies and tactics are essential to ensure a smooth leadership transition and maintain organizational stability? What are the...

Summary What should I imagine, practically, when a team coach starts to support my team? What does a well-known team coach find the most rewarding about working with nonprofit teams? Can a team coach detect any differences in team behaviors or tendencies between their for-profit and nonprofit clients?    In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Alexander Caillet , CEO and co-founder...

Summary What is the state of DEI in US-founded international development organisations (both for-profit and nonprofit), and how has this state changed since 2021?   What has been the action, as compared to the professed intentions for action?    In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Shiro Gnanaselvam , President and CEO at Social Impact , on DEI (Diversity, equity, and inclusion)...

Summary What is life after leadership like? What happens to you as a person when you leave a high-powered, highly visible role in civil society? What happens with your sense of identity? Does this also perhaps touch on ego as well? What offers new meaning and purpose, when we live our life-after-leadership? In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Sam Worthington , former President a...

Summary What is scaling? And how is it different from growing? What’s the role of partner strategies or multiplier strategies in scaling? What are the implications of scaling in an era of decolonizing aid, localizing development, and shifting roles of nonprofits and NGOs, shifting power, authority and decision rights? In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Amy Ragsdale , Director a...

Summary What are the vital steps a senior leader have to take as they step into a new leadership role? What to do and what to expect when you are transitioning into that new role? And, separately, to what extent are African leadership models and frameworks  different from global North ones?  Most importantly, what could global North imprinted leadership models learn from African ones?  In this NGO...

Summary What should we think of when we consider organization integrity issues? How do you distinguish between positive and negative forms of power? How do we nurture power for organizational integrity?  These are the fairly complex questions that we address in the podcast today. In this NGO Soul+Strategy   episode, I interview Bhavika Patel , Senior Adviser for Equalities and Inclusion at Oxfam G...

Summary How can the feelings of people who work in organizations both facilitate and suppress change? What makes people attach reputation and credibility to another person? And how does this relate to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and these may work out in practice? What's the problem with think tanks from the perspective of a decolonization goal, and what has been the problem his...

Summary How should we think about the  ‘collective journey to equitable development’ of Northern-founded NGOs, national NGOs and their funders? What obstacles stand in the way of continuing on that journey?  Why does Humentum argue that NGO operating models need to enable  ERA (Equitable, Resilient, and Accountable) development, and how does that need to come about? In this NGO Soul+Strategy podca...

Summary How does a climate change activist movement such as Extinction Rebellion (XR) chose among strategies and tactics on the spectrum between more 'radical' actions such as civic agitation, (nonviolent) disobedience, high-profile stunts that may lead to arrests and more 'mainstream' actions that may (or may not?) help them build a more broad public base? How does Extinction...

Summary Environmental activism, environmental justice and equity concerns: what, if anything, is challenging about holding all of these three concerns at the same time? Can a better integration or balance be achieved between these 3 concerns? To what extent is radical activism cyclical in nature because it is hard to keep activists motivated for peak public mobilization moments? In this NGO Soul+S...

Summary What are the strengths of a confederated nonprofit organizational structure and what are its inherent weaknesses and limitations? What is a ‘diversified network’ type of organizational structure? To what extent does having a confederated organizational structure, as well as the aspiration to be a diversified network, Impact the nature, legitimacy, adaptability, and quality of decision-maki...

Summary What is the difference between forecasting and foresight, as a skill and an area of work? What are the pitfalls when international civil society organizations (ICSOs) apply crisis frameworks to trends that are actually longer-term, intersecting, and systemic? Decolonization and diversity: how are these big current discussions and areas for taking action intersecting with what sometimes is...

Summary What is ‘transscalar activism’ in a nutshell? And how is it different from what academics call the 'Boomerang' model of international advocacy NGO networks? When did international NGO advocacy begin attracting the attention of academics, and why? What had shifted at that point, what had changed? What was the dominant narrative in academia for a long time? And what was wrong with...

Summary What’s problematic about philanthropy in the ways the sector has practiced it for many decades? Are there limits to trust-based philanthropy? How do boards of grant-making philanthropies such as the Global Fund for Children have to change their composition, mindset, and oversight practices to lessen a compliance and upward accountability lens and to make themselves more responsive to actua...

Summary What are the characteristics of 'digitally native' campaigning organizations? How do digital NGO campaigning organizations compare and contrast with traditional, 'brick and mortar' NGOs? Do digitally native civil society organizations and traditional NGOs sufficiently seek to complement each other, in order to maximize impact? I don't think they do. In this NGO Sou...

Summary INGOs have been rocked by scandals and allegations of abuse of power, discrimination etc. in the last 5-10 years.  What kind of different types of scandals can we distinguish in our sector? Which factors that affect nonprofit scandals remain understudied? What's the distinction between integrity violations and competency violations? And should we be getting more concerned as a sector...

Summary A number of NGOs have aimed to strengthen their global legitimacy by adding more global South members/affiliates. Is this truly a valuable strategy? Does it help with legitimacy to be more 'globally balanced'? What are the hard lessons learned about how to manage this process? And how do local civil society as well as government respond?  Hazem Fahmy, the CEO of the CARE Egypt Fo...

Summary What is most difficult or challenging about operating as a leader in a place like Oxfam? What does it take to lead from a political frame in NGOs? Rational persuasion: is it overrated?   In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview John Samuel , Oxfam Asia Regional Director on influence and power in complex NGOs. John is an expert on Organizational Development. He is also the fou...

Charity Navigator is a free online resource for US-based donors, an intermediary rating agency with 11 million unique users per year. It currently rates just about 200.000 US-registered nonprofits, both domestic and internationally operating ones, and is quite influential in driving the behavior of donors and, indirectly, of nonprofits that are rated on the platform. Charity Navigator has changed...

Summary Welcome to our 50th podcast episode! In this episode, we continue to zero in on what it takes to adopt and shepherd innovation through social change organizations. I interview Emma Proud , head of Learning and Adapting at Brink , an agency that coaches and consults on behavioral innovation approaches.   Emma’s Bio: Head of Learning and Adapting at Brink Former Director of Organizational Ag...

Summary What are the strengths of faith-based organizations that secular NGOs may have reason to covet? On the other hand, what weaknesses or potential blind spots  may faith-based organizations face? And is there anything specific, or ‘typical’ about being a woman top leader in a faith-based NGO? In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Martha Holley Newsome , President & CEO of...

Summary Do you work in a large NGO or UN agency, and wonder how the heck you are supposed to stimulate innovations in such a sizable, potentially quite bureaucratic organization? Do you assume that organization size and structure matter when it comes to creating a good climate for innovation? And is lack of innovation funds as big an issue as we make it out to be? In this podcast episode, I interv...

Summary Leadership in crisis contexts. Many NGOs regularly work in contexts of crisis, or war. The war in Ukraine was one of those contexts, and it led quite a few NGOs to reallocate programming resources toward the Ukrainian population. PACT is a US-founded NGO which has worked in Ukraine for many years. In this podcast episode, I took the opportunity to ask Alyona Gerasimova, its Country Directo...