The Philanthropic Family

It’s after midnight  here in Uganda, where I’m co-leading the first International Family Philanthropy Institute for clients of Foundation Source. It must be the jet lag because I’m feeling wide awake, although I declined to stay out at the night club that we were taken to by a group of locals to enjoy a well-known local band. The band was wonderful, as advertised, but we are getting up in the morning to go visit Jane Goodall’s chimp sanctuary and I am trying to pace myself as we’ll be here for about two weeks.

After arriving in Entebbe and driving to Kampala late last night, we’ve had one day of site visits with local organizations. The first is called “Dwelling Place” and it’s run by a newly minted Ashoka fellow named Rita who rescues “street kids,” educates them until they can transition into the school system, gives them a place to live, rehabilitates them (if they came from a traumatic situation) and then places them in permanent homes as they age out of the system. She’s grown the program organically over the fourteen years and is hoping to expand the program nationally. The kids were gorgeous and welcoming.

Our other site visit today was with a relatively new organization called Living Goods that is incredibly impressive for their business acumen and strategic approach. The organization was started by the founder of TravelSmith, Chuck Slaughter, so it’s no wonder they’re so savvy. Living Goods is essentially using an “Avon lady” distribution model for critical health products that protect women and children from some of the “diseases of poverty.” This group of afflictions–diarrhea, malaria, worms, for example–kill millions every year although they are easily preventable and treatable. By supplying and training a network of local “community health providers” (CHPs) to recognize the symptoms and correctly dispense the appropriate medications, they are attempting to improve the health of these communities and reduce these preventable deaths.

Unlike most government programs that use community health workers but expect them to spread information as a volunteer effort, Living Goods actually expects its CHPs to run their enterprise as a small business. Living Goods partners with highly respected microfinance institution BRAC to finance the women to purchase the medications (along with some everyday goods like sanitary napkins, condoms and even sugar fortified with Vitamin A) and then sell them at a small profit. With support and training from Living Goods, the women should become self-sustaining franchisees working their own territories. As such, one measure of their success will be the financial success of their CHPs.

The other major measure of their success will be improved health for the communities served by their CHPs. Living Goods isn’t just hoping that the health outcomes for these communities will improve: last year they completed a major baseline study of 3000 households and will go back to these folks in two years to see if their health has improved.

If this model proves effective–and their use of best practices all around suggests to me that it will, although mid-course adjustments are to be expected–they have the potential to scale the model internationally and even globally. I look forward to following their trajectory.

This entry was posted on July 18, 2009 at 4:22 pm and is filed under Great Nonprofits, Social Enterprise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.