Achieving Sustainable Organizations for On-going Impact
Please find the video recording of this session at this link: http://cprf.blip.tv/posts?view=archive&nsfw=dc
The Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum and Partners for Democratic Change highlighted the importance of building a sustainable funding-base and organizational capacity for local NGOs to have an on-going impact and address conflict in their country. For those of us who are mission-driven as opposed to money-driven, cultivating sustainable sources of funding for our work can seem a distracting chore. And yet, we all know money matters. This 2nd forum in a series on Investing in Peace looked at how development and peacebuilding NGOs can develop sustainable sources of funding and the organizational capacity to have on-going and significant impact on the societies in which they work. Case studies ranging from the Caucuses and Eastern Europe to Latin America highlighted long-term, civil society projects that have thrived as a result of strong partnerships with the private sector. How can more market-focused strategies and flexible business plans contribute to the success of NGOs on the ground? How can NGOs adapt to achieve their financial goals without undercutting their mission or values?
Panelists:
Dušan Ondrušek, Director, Partners for Democratic Change-Slovakia
Dr. Dušan Ondrušek, PhD. is the Executive Director of Partners for Democratic Change Slovakia (Partners-Slovakia). As Executive Director, Dr. Ondrušek manages a staff of 13 trainers and program managers, and designs and implements training programs for government and civil society leaders in mediation, conflict management, and facilitation skills. He also works as a training consultant for various global organizations, including the U.N., the World Bank, and the International Research and Exchange Board, and organizes seminars on organizational development, conflict management, and alternative dispute resolution, among other topics. Dr. Ondrušek also lectures at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia on cross-cultural communication, negotiation, and conflict resolution and is a widely published author. Previously he worked for the Comenius University Counseling Center and as an external consultant for the Slovak Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, and Family.
Cate Johnson, Deputy Director of the Office of Democracy and Governance, USAID
Cate Johnson joined USAID in 1994 and currently serves as Deputy Director of the Office of Democracy and Governance, where she assists the Director in all aspects of senior management. She served in both USAID/Caucasus and USAID/Romania as Office Director for democracy programs, and in this capacity worked in all four sub-sectors of DG promotion. Cate has a strong background in health and nutrition, has academic expertise in conflict resolution, and oversaw the child welfare and family health portfolios in Romania. She has worked in all four geographic regions and speaks Spanish, Romanian, and German. From 1995-2000, Cate served as Program Officer for USAID’s Women’s Legal Rights initiative, where she helped launch USAID’s first efforts to curtail human trafficking and gender-based violence. Prior to joining USAID, Cate lived and worked in low-income community settings in both Latin America and Africa, where she conducted research in food security and maternal child health for UNICEF, Cornell University, the University of Malawi, and Tufts University. Cate holds a PhD from Tufts University in international nutrition, and will soon complete a graduate certificate in world religions, diplomacy, and conflict resolution from George Mason University. She has served on the faculty at Cornell University, Tulane University, and George Washington University.
Lisa Coll, Director of Programs, Eurasia Foundation
Lisa Coll is the Director of Programs at the Eurasia Foundation (EF). She joined EF in 1999 as a Regional Director of Central Asia, where she was based in Tashkent and managed the Foundation’s operations in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. She returned to EF’s DC office in 2001. Prior to joining the foundation, Lisa lived and worked in Russia for four years where she ran an NGO development program before joining the International Finance Corporation, where she worked on electricity sector reform for a year. She holds a B.A. in Russian Language and Literature from the University of Michigan and an M.A. in International Relations from American University.
Judith Gillespie – Director of Strategic Philanthropy, Search for Common Ground
Judith has several decades of experience in both international development and private sector fund raising. During 2007-2009 she worked with teams to raise more than $100,000,000 USD for both US and international projects in the areas of world justice, democratic governance, youth and children, women’s empowerment and disaster relief. Fortune 100 Corporations, top US foundations, and major gift individual donors all contributed to these worthy causes; some for the first time. Judith’s professional history includes: leadership roles as the founding dean of two colleges; launching, funding and developing the FemiNet women’s network in Asia; successfully pursuing democratic development project work and fund raising in rising Asian, South Asian and North African economies; leading the Fortune 100 Corporate Giving Team at the American Red Cross.
Moderator:
Raymond Shonholtz, J.D., President, Partners for Democratic Change
Mr. Shonholtz founded Partners for Democratic Change in 1989, establishing the first of Partners national Centers for Change and Conflict Management. In Fall 2008, Mr. Shonholtz served as a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C., working on foreign assistance recommendations for the incoming Obama administration. In 1976, Mr. Shonholtz established and served as President of the Community Boards Program, one of the first community and school mediation initiatives that brought conflict resolution skills and processes into neighborhoods and schools throughout the U.S. and internationally. Mr. Shonholtz is educated as a lawyer and has an extensive background in legal practice, education, and policy. He serves on several boards of directors and editorial boards, and has written and lectured extensively on the subject of mediating systems, conflict resolution models, and the positive function of conflict in democratic society.
