When I started FORGE, I was very skeptical of policies and strict structures.  Through time and experience, however, I've learned that policy is important to maintain consistency and to set clear expectations.  Through our policies, FORGE now creates structure.  Expectations are clear to all staff.  But we try to stay open to change and modification.  It's not an absolute world we work in and our policies could never be perfect.  In this, we strive to remain fluid and flexible at level.  We encourage our staff to recognize when our current structures may not fit a particular situation and how they might be modified for improvement.

FORGE Education Fund – University (FEF-U) runs on a tight budget.  Each selected scholar is granted tuition as well as a very basic living stipend.  From the beginning, FEF-U scholars are required to manage their stipend for food, basic health care, daily transport, extra clothes, etc.  It's not a lavish life… just enough to be happy and healthy while studying.

We often receive requests for more support on the financial level from FEF-U Scholars, but it's something we philosophically choose not to do.  The program exists to provide opportunities to education, and not to create a luxurious lifestyle.  Our budget is spread as thin as it can responsibly be spread.  We frequently and heart-breakingly must simply say 'no' when it comes to FEF-U requests.

The other day, however, we just couldn't.  Thom, one of the FEF-U scholars, had just taken a very expensive bus trip from Lusaka, the capital city, to Kala Camp.  Thom's journey was to accompany his sister back to the camp after a medical trip to the city.  Thom's sister was dying of incurable lung cancer and Thom would not let her travel alone.  The voyage wiped out Thom's reserve moneys.

Only hours after he returned to Lusaka, Thom got word from Kala that his sister had died.  Needless to say, he needed money to get back to Kala for his sister's funeral and her familial arrangements.  Ordinarily, this would be against FEF-U policy… we don't supplement the monthly living stipend.  However, how can we deny this request?  Explaining that we cannot bolster funds for the purchase of clothes is one thing, but looking at a friend and an integral part of FEF-U and telling him that we cannot support his trip to his sister's funeral is unthinkable.

It may seem simple, but I think it's important that fixation on the grease and gears of the organization isn't counterproductive to its fuel.  Some of the best advice I've either received or spread has been on remaining firm in our adherence to policy.  But some of the most important little decisions I've made have been when policy was re-worked to better serve a critical situation.

There are two types of tough times in life: those that are part of the natural ebb and flow of life, and those that represent something deeper that needs to be fixed.  In enterprise, as in life, there are inevitably good times and bad.  I've never met a leader who hasn't had his or her share of ups and downs.  Being prepared for tough times and knowing how to stay upbeat and keep them in perspective is an important trait of any entrepreneur.  But equally important is knowing when a tough time is more than just a downturn in the inevitable roller coaster, and actually is symptomatic of some greater opportunity that is being missed. 

 

FORGE's new People-Powered Development Model is a good example of a tough time leading us to spawn a new development.  Over the summer of 2007, it became clear that FORGE was outgrowing its old staffing model.  Both Nick (Nicholas Talarico, FORGE Operations Director) and I were frustrated by the time and energy that we put into managing our 45 American volunteers, especially in comparison to the minimal management needed by our 150 refugee staff members.  It was becoming more and more clear to both Nick and I that FORGE needed to rely less on Western volunteers. 

 
Watching our 25 established projects blossom under refugee direction, we knew that it was time to fully turn over project implementation to the refugee communities.  There was a clear gap in funding, however.  Whereas Western Project Facilitators raised the funds necessary to implement projects, refugees had no such opportunity.  The question remained: how could we fund multiple refugee-led projects moving forward?
 
Realizing that without the burden of managing dozens of non-refugee staff, we could more properly fundraise for and promote FORGE, we saw an opportunity.  We decided to sharply scale down the size of our Western staff.  We hired an experienced grant writer in Ms. Annelisa Pedersen.  We played on some experience building web-based businesses, as well as ideas from other, similar fundraising models.  When the brainstorming was done, we had a plan to bring the stories, sights, and sounds of refugee life to the global public.  We would promote refugee-conceived projects on a state-of-the-art website and raise funds in small increments from many donors.  We would drive traffic to the website through grassroots promotion.
 
This process is far from done, but it all began with a time of realtive struggle - a time when it felt that our energies were not producing the most efficient results.  Hardships and downturns are an unavoidable part of nonprofit life, and a key function of a leader is to keep the team focused through the tough times.  But sometimes those tough times are signs of opportunity.  I'm happy that I've started to develop an intuition to discrimate between the inevitable ups and downs and the times when there is an opportunity for us to do things a better way. 

 

- Kjerstin Erickson

www.FORGEnow.org