August, 2022
In my last post, I described my serious disappointment with a recent Leadership Survey Report that details what leaders of 50 major international NGOs think about the challenges they face, and about the future of the aid and development sector.
The report portrays a set of leaders who describe themselves as being “stuck,” unable to navigate today’s reality. For me, it’s clear from the report that these “leaders” are falling back on old, tired thinking, blind to the exciting challenges, and equally exciting possibilities of our time. If you read that post, as I hope you have, you’ll know that I was very critical of what these INGO “leaders” are saying.
“Appalled” would be a better word.
These leaders have the great fortune to head up fifty of our most important, necessary institutions, needed today as never before. Our social and environmental circumstances are dire, so the real tragedy here is that their lack of positive vision will make it much much less likely that people facing poverty, oppression, and displacement will find the support they might have gained.
Last time I ended my post with a question that might come from readers, a fair challenge: since I’m not the CEO of any INGO, much less a major one, who do I think I am criticizing people who are carrying that responsibility? They are “in the arena,” and I’m not.
Those who have followed my “4000-footer” blog know that I’ve worked in the sector for decades, in the field and with leadership responsibilities at country, region, and global levels. I’ve served as Executive Director, and served in lengthy “interim” capacities as COO and CEO.
But, fair point, it’s not the same. So in response to that very reasonable push-back, in this post I want to share what I would have said to the interviewers for the “Leadership Survey Report” had I been interviewed. After sharing my overall sense of INGO leadership, I’ll address the same seven questions that seem to have been used in the interviews.
Over three years ago, I finished climbing all 48 of New Hampshire’s 4000-foot mountains. Now I’m climbing some of them again, in a second season. But, also, I’ve started working through another great list: New Hampshire’s “52 With A View.” As readers may have noticed, while the 4000-footers are all interesting climbs, and usually quite challenging, some of their summits can be a bit disappointing. Many have obstructed views at the top.
So I’m tackling this second group, with the hopes that their summits will all be interesting. The two lists don’t overlap, so the 52 will be new here, and none will be over 4000 feet high. That doesn’t mean they will be easy…
In each of my 4000-footer posts, I combined a description of the climb with a discussion of some part of my (so-called) career in international development and social justice. In this series, I will take a similar approach, though the posts will be briefer: sharing a couple of photos and a brief description of each climb (as time passes, of each of multiple climbs), and a few paragraphs on some aspect of current events.
Getting up and down Welch-Dickey, which together count as one of the “52-With-A-View” peaks, takes around a half day. It’s a loop over the two peaks, and is popular for two reasons: it’s not too hard, partly because it’s relatively accessible in Waterville Valley, towards the southern end of the White Mountains, and partly because the climb itself is moderate. But it also has fantastic views from the tops of both peaks, which have extensive areas of ledge that opens up the vistas. Climbers are rewarded when they get to the top! Highly recommended, in all seasons.
Details and images of this climb follow my response to that disappointing “Leadership Survey” report…
Many useful frameworks for leadership exist. Today I will start with one that I like that comes from a person who I admire: leaders must “know their business, top to bottom… (be) expert at the job“; everybody in the organization has to feel that the leader is “honest, dependable, reliable, trustworthy”; and they must communicate, clearly, across their organizations, how each member of the team contributes to a meaningful human endeavor.
For me, that framework rings true, it’s compelling and necessary, but I would add two more requirements for the truly great INGO leader:
– First, underlying it all, the foundation of a truly great INGO leader is unique: in my experience, they have a deep humanity that manifests sometimes as compassion, sometimes as kindness, sometimes as equanimity. Good INGO leaders are often conflict-averse, in part because of how our people over-personalize their jobs; the truly great INGO leader is not reluctant to speak the direct truth, but speaks that truth with compassion. Good INGO leaders make decisions based on an understanding of the balance of forces inside the agency and key stakeholders such as the board and donors; the truly great INGO leader rallies stakeholders to support risky choices needed to advance the organization’s mission, always with an equanimous view of the tradeoffs. Good INGO leaders make personnel decisions based on risk, which often leads them towards short-term-ism; the truly great INGO leader takes disciplinary action when required, without hesitation after considering alternatives that advances the organization’s mission, carrying it out in a way that minimizes suffering.
Of course, this profile is virtually super-human, but I know INGO CEOs who approach it.
– Second, the truly great INGO leader knows that all of our mission-related activities must flow from an agile, responsive understanding of the opinions and priorities of people facing poverty, injustice, and displacement. They understand that our own opinions, standards, and processes only blur our ability to respond authentically to the voices and choices of those people, our “customers”.
Most of our people, including our CEOs, pay lip service to this notion, under the rubric of “empowerment” or “participation.” But here I’m going far beyond our rhetoric, bringing in lessons learned from the private sector.
In summary: for me, the truly great INGO leader is one who knows our business, is trustworthy and trusted, and who communicates effectively to rally his or her team to a righteous purpose. And they are also authentically human, with egos that are under control, who acts decisively without rancor. He or she great leader puts the mission first, and knows that it is the opinions and priorities of people facing poverty, injustice and displacement who define that mission.
Come to think of that, maybe that applies to great leaders, not only great INGO leaders?
That coherent view of leadership underpins my responses to what appear to be the seven questions asked of those 50 INGO leaders: so, what if I had been interviewed for the report?
- WHAT WILL SHAPE THE INGO ECOSYSTEM BY 2030?
From the report: The CEOs interviewed for the report anticipate that the INGO ecosystem in 2030 will be shaped by money, donors, geopolitics, and localization / national governments.
My view is that the INGO ecosystem is ripe, even overdue, for fundamental disruption. The truth is that we are not providing human-worthy services, and we should be ashamed of that; that sense of failure should motivate fundamental change.
Where should that change come from? To survive, and to recover our ability to achieve impact, our organizations will need to be disrupted by our “customers” or they will continue to wither because our “customers” will desert us. And rightfully so, because today they have choices.
In the future, our sector will no longer be shaped by the governments of the so-called “Global North,” by standards set by experts, by our “codes of conduct” produced by “peak bodies” that are even less-accountable than we are, or by our own agendas. What’s coming is that organizations whose actions are formed by their own institutional agendas, or by the priorities of experts or donors and funding governments will decline into irrelevance as they are abandoned by their “customers.”
As has happened with so many other sectors of the economy – airlines, telecommunications, retail – our agencies will be transformed by the voices and choices of the human beings that we seek to help. Fundamentally, people facing poverty and oppression, injustice and displacement will no longer tolerate being treated as objects of charity that is motivated by the agendas of international NGOs. They will vote with their feet, seeking human dignity and human-worthy services, even in their poverty, in their desperation. To think otherwise is to miss the lessons of the late 20th century.
(By the way, this is not a new vision. It’s contained in the Grand Bargain and in many other commitments that use jargon like “Accountability to Affected Populations.” But my strong sense of the sector is that well-meaning efforts like the Grand Bargain have had little real impact on the basic approach of the sector, which remains donor- and standards-driven, fundamentally responding to institutional concerns rather than the preferences of the human beings we purport to serve. An exploration of the causes and manifestations of why this is the case is beyond the scope of this post.)
The “Leadership Survey” report contains a “word cloud” of responses to this question on page 10. If I had been interviewed, my response would have put much more emphasis on the words “voice of local people” in that illustration:
Look at that image again. Isn’t it astonishing that the vision of fifty INGO leaders is that the INGO ecosystem will be defined by money and donors? And to be clear, when I talk about INGOs being driven by our “customers,” I’m not talking about “localization” or “decolonization” or “national civil society.” That is old, outdated, inward-looking thinking that, ironically, represents “our” agenda, “our” worldview, “our” voice, “our” ego.
No, here I am talking about the voice of the people we serve, themselves. The INGO ecosystem will be transformed beyond all recognition, because we will have to reorient our whole world to respond to the preferences of the human beings we seek to support. Even if this shift is not entirely complete by 2030, the trend will be unmistakable and many INGOs will be casualties of that changing reality.
- WHAT VISIONS DO YOU HAVE FOR THE AID AND DEVELOPMENT SECTOR
BY 2030? AND ARE YOU ABLE TO COMMUNICATE THOSE VISIONS WITHIN YOUR ORGANISATIONS, AND TO THE WIDER PUBLIC?
From the report: The report describes CEOs seeing a vision for the future in which power dynamics shift to local organizations, so that INGOs become less dominant, and actors more diverse. They foresee relationships being networked rather than hierarchical, with INGOs being more connected with their stated purposes (which begs the question: have long have they been disconnected from their missions?), and the sector being more proactive in meeting the needs of affected communities. Honestly, as I said in my initial review of the study, this is think that is so old that it’s eligible for a public pension! Haven’t we learned about local partnership, and internal empowerment for three decades, at least? How can such old thinking be a “vision for the future”?
I see a future in which INGOs are responding in agile ways to the voices and choices of people they serve. In turn, people facing poverty and injustice, displacement and violence will be responding, choosing to engage with those INGOs that listen to them and act accordingly, and disengaging from those that don’t.
Operationally, our organizations will work with whoever can help make that happen – local partners, social enterprises, private sector, governments – in a range of constellations of pragmatic relationships based on shared missions, with “stated purposes” being at the center.
Interviewees see direct tension between their vision and fundraising that connects with the “donating public.” (Is this perhaps why they have disconnected with their stated purposes?)
For me, INGOs that prosper will be those that do not view supporters as an amorphous, passive “donating public” but, rather, as part of movements that enhance the meaning and purpose in their own individual, unique and priceless lives, and that is responding to the voices and choices of other unique and priceless human beings.
Let’s communicate that.
- WHERE DO INGOS DRAW THEIR LEGITIMACY FROM? ARE LOCAL ACTORS THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN ENJOY LEGITIMACY? AND WHO DEFINES WHICH ACTORS ARE LEGITIMATE, NOW AND INTO THE FUTURE?
From the report: Our 50 INGO “leaders” seem deeply “stuck” here, frozen into inaction by external and internal critiques, by contradictory views from communities and donors, etc. Instead of seeing these critiques as signals of a broken system, an indication of the need for fundamental rethinking and disruption, they seem paralyzed into inaction by not wanting to upset the proverbial apple cart. With attacks seemingly coming from all sides, no direction seems safe.
On a positive note (at least from my point of view), they do report viewing “capacity to deliver” as creating a “perception of legitimacy.” I fully agree with that: legitimacy comes from results. But these CEOs are stuck in their outdated mindsets, and equate “capacity to deliver” with “local NGOs.”
And isn’t it astonishing to read that these “leaders” are “frozen into inaction by external and internal critiques…”! So now it’s our staff who are telling these “leaders” what to do! We need to take inspiration from organizations like Basecamp and focus the enthusiasm of our teams on our missions, not on inward-looking, performative social-justice initiatives. With great leadership, I’ve seen again and again that that’s enough to motivate the tremendous energy of our people.
My answer would be: our legitimacy comes entirely from the satisfaction of the human beings we seek to serve, and from human engagement with our supporters. Let’s view all of these people as human beings with dignity and nobility, and find ways to listen to them, take action on their preferences, and inspire and mobilize them. In 2030, that’s where our “legitimacy” will come from.
- LOCALIZATION: WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS KEEPING US FROM LOCALIZING?
Honestly, this section of the report is stupefying: CEOs report a contradictory set of understandings of the concept of “localization,” pressures from donors to move in a direction that seems unclear, with boards that resist movement due to risk aversion and a paucity of capable “local” organizations to “localize to.” And if they do “localize,” whatever that means, what about our organizations – we might become irrelevant!
Oh dear: they aren’t sure what it is, but they want to do it. They want to do it, whatever it is, but their boards resist… what to do now?
For me, “localization” is a boring topic, reflecting old, outdated thinking. For decades we’ve learned how to work with local organizations, we know what works and what doesn’t work, and it’s clear what the advantages and disadvantages are. If INGO leaders don’t know enough about this topic to know what to do, they shouldn’t be in their roles. All this talk about “localization” today is just another indication that our leaders aren’t serious.
Let’s not spend time on “localization” now. Time is too short, and the reality of poverty and displacement is way too serious, to waste time on more of this kind of uninformed, timid navel-gazing. We are called to start with the voices and choices of the human beings we work for, and design the best ways to satisfy them using what we have learned in our sector: sometimes that will mean using what we’ve learned about “localization”, and other conceptual approaches.
Put aside old thinking for a moment – no more referring to expert standards, or concepts like “sustainability” and “localization” – and start again, from the beginning, with the preferences of people facing poverty and oppression, injustice and displacement. Then, and only then, think about standards and expertise. Build human-worthy services that those people want, that work – in that heirarchy.
- WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL BE THE MAIN SOURCES OF FUNDING IN THE AID AND DEVELOPMENT SECTOR BY 2030, AND HOW WILL INGOS BE FUNDED?
From the report: The CEOs interviewed for this report feel that “the funding landscape will not change significantly over the next ten years” and that their organizations will continue to rely on traditional donor funding. In fact, they name a range of non-traditional funding sources, only to dismiss them.
Yes, 2030 is only 7 1/2 years from now, and funding sources don’t evolve quickly. But I don’t see many indications of innovation on this topic in the report (other than some interest in income-generating commercial activity), just handwringing about how official development assistance will likely shrink, but that ODA will still, somehow, dominate the “INGO ecosystem.”
My response: Yes, ODA will remain very important through 2030, but INGOs need to pivot quickly, moving to base themselves in a constituency, a formal or informal membership. Their constituency could be, but doesn’t need to be, narrow (a particular group) or wide (the public at large). But whatever it is, INGOs need to communicate and excite their membership about their purpose. And, crucially, they need to connect their constituency with the human beings being supported and served, to create a human community for change. Funding will flow from that, as will an enhanced sense of legitimacy (which, of course, mostly comes from delivering what people affected by poverty, injustice, and displacement want.)
If we don’t find a constituency, and work towards providing human-worthy services that our customers want, we will fade away. As it should be.
- WHAT WILL LEADERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE LOOK LIKE IN GLOBALLY-NETWORKED ORGANIZATIONS? WHAT IS THE ROLE OF BOARDS OF DIRECTORS IN SETTING STRATEGY? ARE GOVERNANCE STRUCTURES CONTRIBUTING TO “STUCKNESS”?
From the report: INGO leaders in global “families” report being constrained by the reality of these federated structures, averse to doing the hard work of gaining consensus in such diverse and complex contexts.
As if being part of INGOs with such globe-spanning reach is somehow a burden because it’s a challenging governance environment. Did these CEOs land in their jobs by accident? Isn’t that capability an enormous gift? Yes, global INGO federations are complicated, but I can tell you from personal experience that it’s possible to get lots done. And when you do, the payoff is enormous!
They report a lack of diversity in leadership, but with some progress being made.
And INGO leaders seem to view their boards as burdensome albatrosses, without clear roles and obstructing progress.
If I were asked to reply to this question, I would have to take full responsibility for making things work because that’s the job of a CEO. I would put in the time and energy needed to gain influence inside the decision-making forums of globally-federated INGOs, because that’s the job. It will take time and political nous, but (again) the payoff will be enormous.
Yes, the issue of leadership diversity is challenging, but building a strong leadership team is the job of a CEO anywhere, and building a representative leadership cadre, and pipeline, is part of that task. People do need to see themselves represented in leadership. Again, we know this and we’ve learned how to make it happen (or, if we haven’t, why are we in that role?), and we must set stretch goals and be accountable for steady progress.
- WHAT ABOUT “DISRUPTORS” – COVID-19, BLACK LIVES MATTER, CLIMATE CHANGE, DIGITAL DIGITALIZATION / DISINTERMEDIATION?
From the report: Some INGO “leaders” here feel that the pandemic will “significantly affect their operations…” while others think business-as-usual will resume. They think that it’s critical that their organizations “deepen their understanding” of racial justice. Climate change will be a “significant disruptor.” And the impact of digital tools will be very large.
Well, yes. And blindingly obvious.
Let’s look a bit deeper. If they asked me…
COVID: Even if this particular pandemic fades, there are lessons learned here about vulnerability and resilience that we (should have) learned. And we know that our CLIMATE has changed and will continue to warm, probably more rapidly than we expect. It is our duty immediately to understand the causes of these shifts as best we can, understand their impact on vulnerable people, and develop interventions and partnerships that build on those understandings.
BLACK LIVES MATTER: If we don’t, or didn’t, have “deep understanding” of racial (in)justice, then what have we been doing? Interviewed as the CEO of any INGO, major or minor, I would have reported having advanced that kind of understanding, and others such as the science of human development and the sociology of gender, throughout my organization. These are basic foundations for our work in virtually any sector. Not ensuring that foundation is basic work of the CEO and, when I use the word “basic,” I am referring to a minimum requirement for being a CEO. Boards need to pay attention and separate CEOs who haven’t done this.
One thing I know for sure: if I were CEO of a major INGO, I would ensure that the focus of my organization remained on its mission in the world, and the preferences of the people we serve in the world, not on the agendas of our staff. I have learned that the use of words like “decolonization” reflect, rather, the priorities of our well-meaning, educated, elite staff. We must turn our faces towards human beings facing poverty and dislocation, listen to them, and respond to them in ways that they prefer, putting aside our own agendas. If that means decentralizing or centralizing; working with local NGOs or with multinational corporations; using exclusively local leadership, or from the region, or from our home countries; whatever it means, pragmatically to satisfy our customers, we should do it, and not be motivated by “our” views and agendas.
DIGITAL TOOLS AND DISINTERMEDIATION: really it’s quite amazing that this is seen, in 2022, as a problem to be addressed, that we feel our organizations don’t have the capacity to use digital tools to advance our missions. How can we feel “stuck” in this area in 2022? Have we been entirely asleep?
And I would mention two more, important disruptors. As a result of decades of globalization, population displacement, climate change and neoliberalism, conflict has increased in the great majority of societies where we work. We need to understand this major disruptive reality, its causes, and approaches through which we can help build peace in human communities. And because our organizations are not separate from society, conflict is growing inside our agencies also, for similar reasons. Managing conflict and using it as a generative source of productive change, instead of avoiding it, has become a key disruptive issue for us.
And I can’t imagine why these 50 INGO “leaders” only mention social enterprise in the internal context of their own organizations, as fundraising tools. People living with poverty and dislocation are very entrepreneurial, because they have to be. Opportunities abound across the world today, everywhere, and we need to learn to respond to the desire of the people we work with to be economically autonomous, helping harness that social drive towards making a better, more-just world.
The report’s concluding section begins with this summary:
“This, then, is what we heard. Fifty leaders of the world’s leading international NGOs speaking freely and frankly about their current challenges and hopes for the future. It has been a rare privilege to have such access to fifty leaders of INGOs, and to have heard what they have to say about their own organisations and about the wider sector.”
And then key points are outlined:
- “The ability of leaders of INGOs to enact change is often dramatically overestimated”;
- “At a personal level, INGO leaders are grappling with calls for change alongside a very human hesitation to buck the trend of traditional growth KPIs, and face the consequences of more drastic cuts to operating budgets and jobs. There may also be little appetite for radical change at the board level. The dominant culture of boards and senior executive teams, led by Chairs and CEOs, has been based for so long on expansion that to some leaders it would seem to be ‘career-ending’ to suggest a reversal of financial growth”;
- Funding from traditional donors come with restrictions and it’s expensive to build alternatives;
- There are big disruptors out in the world that make life challenging.
If this is a fair summary of what the interviewers heard from 50 INGO CEOs, then these are not “leaders” in a real sense of the word.
Let’s hope that, somehow, there are hundreds of “real” INGO leaders out there who listen to the human beings they serve and mobilize their organizations to respond authentically, using lessons we have learned over the last few decades. Who are not dabblers whose end goal was to be a CEO. Whose egos are not so fragile that they are afraid to change – themselves and their organizations – when change is required.
And who deserve the great opportunities they have earned, or been given, to help create a better world.
Near the end of my last post, I reflected on the importance of stories and vision, and on the uninspiring stories and vision that the report contains. So: what is my alternative?
By 2030, my vision is of an INGO sector that is agile and adaptive, focused first and foremost on the expressed satisfaction and priorities of people facing poverty, oppression, and displacement. A sector that is less dependent on government funding, based instead much more on constituencies that share a common aspiration in the world.
Probably this vision does not allow for as many INGOs as today. Maybe there will be fewer, and surely the range of structures through which human beings seek to build human flourishing will be more diverse.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle that blocks us from moving decisively is organizational and personal ego: is the persistence of our organizations, and our careers, more important than the mission of supporting human dignity?
The change is coming, as it has come to virtually every other sector of the economy. The more firmly we grasp onto our organizational and personal egos, the more painful the transformation will be.
Because with a positive vision, the people flourish.
The 18th of the 52-With-A-View mountains that I tackled was Welch-Dickey (2650ft / 808m, and 2734ft / 833m) respectively), on 25 June, 2020. That was in summer: I went up both mountains again on 20 December 2022, a winter hike; I’m updating this post to cover both.
Located in Waterville Valley, Welch-Dickey is a great, easy hike, a nice loop up to some very interesting ledges. Many of them! It’s a simple loop, normally done counter-clockwise, first to Welch Mountain, then up to Dickey, then down:
(Note: you can see my earlier climb of Mt Jennings and Sandwich Dome to the right on the map.). To vary things, in 2022 I climbed these two mountains in the winter season, doing the loop clockwise this time.
Here’s the top of Dickey, in summer. The wood is placed to keep people from damaging delicate growth on the ledge:
And here’s a similar view in winter:
Jennings and Sandwich Dome are in the distance, across Waterville Valley:
This time, in winter from almost the same spot, but looking farther north, up Waterville Valley towards the Tripyramids, which were dusted with snow on that fine day in December:
A nice cairn between Dickey and Welch:
This is Welch Mountain, from the top of Dickey, in the summer:
A similar winter view, with Dickey a bit to the right:
Lots of ledge on these mountains! This image is looking south, descending Welch:
Here I filmed an icy area partway up Mt Dickey, in December, 2022:
Which way to go?
Descending from Mt Dickey, a great panorama. You can see Mt Tecumseh, the Tripyramids, Mt Jennings, and Sandwich Dome:
Two quite different, but both glorious days in the White Mountains, amazing views and great climbing! Welch-Dickey is a very popular, crowded climb in the summer, and also fun in the winter, with plenty of views on offer.
Here are links to the other posts in the “52-With-A-View” series:
- Mt Shaw (1) – Which Wolf To Feed?;
- Mt Roberts (2) – We Are Feeding The Wrong Wolf;
- Mt Jennings (3) – Pandemic Fever Dream;
- Sandwich Dome (4) – Justice in America;
- South Moat (5) – The World We Create When We Feed The Wrong Wolf;
- North Moat Mountain (6) – Social Inequality in the United States;
- Mt Crawford (7) – “National Disgrace“;
- Stairs Mountain (8) – Two Quiet Interludes”;
- Mt Resolution (9) – Abundance;
- Mt Willard (10) – The Two Wolves Face A Tax Bill!;
- Mt Avalon (11) – Standards? Or Expectations?;
- South Baldface (12) – “Feed It With Love”;
- North Baldface (13) – Inspiring Words from Albert Einstein;
- South Paugus (14) – A Political Home For Good Wolves;
- Hedgehog Mountain (15) – A Very Good Wolf;
- Mt Potash (16) – Love;
- Mt Cube (17) – “Without a Vision, the People Perish”;
- Welch-Dickey (18) – “With a Vision, the People Flourish”;
- Smarts Mountain (19) – Between Stimulus and Response;
- Mt Webster (35) – A Hopeful Sign?
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All posts in this “52 With A View” series will be collected here.
Check out my “Everest Base Camp” series: four friends and I hiked from Lukla to the Everest Base Camp in November, 2019. It was incredible, spectacular, and very challenging.
And don’t forget to visit my “New Hampshire 4000-Footer” series, for reflections on a career in international development and social justice, along with descriptions of climbing the 48 highest peaks in our state!
Mark McPeak 