Unless you're the rare social entrepreneur who receives substantial financial backing out of the gate, it's unrealistic to expect that you'll be able to pay staff early on.  It wasn't until October of 2007, four years into FORGE's existence, that we took our first paid employee – Development Director Annelisa Pedersen, who worked for two years as an unpaid volunteer.  And it wasn't until March of 2008 that I began taking a small salary.  Nick has yet to receive any financial compensation.  Operating for 4 years with no paid staff meant not only that we had to take on debt to support ourselves, but more importantly that we had to learn to manage a large corps of volunteer labor.

FORGE was bootstrapped by volunteers.  For the first four years, we provided an opportunity that most American college students never thought possible: to work on the ground in an African refugee camp.  In return for facilitating this opportunity to do meaningful and sustainable work, FORGE set and maintained strict standards and expectations.  All volunteers were required to train intensively for 7 months before departing and were required to fundraise at least $5000 for their own expenses and their project expenses.

I realized early on that if FORGE was going to rely on volunteers to such important and responsibility-laden work, a strong incentive structure had to be put in place.  Thus, FORGE's volunteer staffing structure was carefully designed in a way that aligned the interests of FORGE, the volunteers, and refugee community itself.  In this way, we were able to build a strong semblance of accountability into a labor segment (volunteers) that are notoriously tough to make accountable.

It was through such volunteer labor that FORGE built its foundation.  Over 125 volunteer Project Facilitators and Project Managers drove the planning, funding, and implementation behind over 60 individual community development projects.  Our refugee staff manages these projects, but the projects would simply not exist were it not for a large volunteer work base.

While volunteers were invaluable to our growth, I think it is important to recognize that volunteer labor can come with significant shortcomings.  Unpaid staff are inherently less accountable.  They can only volunteer for such a role because their situation allows it (they work another job or they're students).  In FORGE, few volunteers had significant international development experience when they started.  Because of this, a large amount of guidance, direction, and management was necessary to ensure that our volunteers were intellectually and philosophically prepared, that they behaved responsibly, and that they developed and implemented projects in a manner that aligned with FORGE's philosophies and goals.  This kind of international volunteer model also required a large amount of time spent on logistics: arranging plane tickets, accommodation, transportation, managing health and safety concerns, etc.  This stretched thin our already-small managing staff and decreased the time that we could spend fundraising or promoting our work.

In late 2007, after four year-long cycles of recruiting, training, and managing large teams of Western volunteers, FORGE chose to end the college-student staffing model and move to our current, Collaborative Project Planning Model.  This new model allows our managers to focus on organizational development and to raise the funds necessary to grow.  It would not have been possible, however, without the results built by a tireless volunteer staff.

If you are building an organization that relies on volunteers for any of its essential functions, I highly recommend that you take the time to do so very carefully.  In the early stages of an organization, there are often a good number of people who are interested in being a part of building something new.  These people can be extremely important to the success of the endeavor, but we have seen all too many times how contradicting ideas about the direction of the organization and people's roles within it can start to get in the way of the organization's work and mission.  Before building a volunteer team, I urge you to think long and hard about the incentives and personal motives of each person involved, and how each of these can be effectively aligned with the organization's mission in an accountable manner.
 

This is another exciting week.  On Thursday, FORGE is holding a fundraising event in San Francisco that will feature selections from "Far From Gone" - a documentary that we were fortunate enough to capture this past summer in Meheba Refugee Settlement, Zambia.  The footage is phenomenal, and Barney Broomfield, the cinematographer and documentarian who shot and is editing the film, is a world-class talent.  The story is one that we could never have dreamed of stumbling upon. 

The film follows the lives of two refugees - best friends - as they prepare for their lives to take very different paths.  Stephen, a Congolese refugee in his mid-20s, is one of the top staff-members FORGE has ever had.  His passion and intelligence were driving forces behind the success of our FORGE Microfinance Institute.  After a series of interviews, Stephen was granted the incredible opportunity of being resettled to Norway.  Meanwhile, Boniface, Stephen's best friend and colleague at FMI, is the same type of leader.  As a pair, they command significant respect in Meheba's large community.  Boniface, however, has not been afforded resettlement and must watch while Stephen prepares to move to leave the camp forever for resettlement in Norway.

The emotions that the film captures are rich and you can see and feel every character being internally torn between joy and grief.  We're convinced it will make for an entertaining, inspiring, and enlightening final product.  We're proud to be part of a project that doesn't directly promote FORGE, but rather focuses on the capabilities and talents of some amazing refugees.  The filmaker Mr. Broomfield keeps remarking on how so many refugee films focus on pain and sorrow, while "that's only one side of the story."

One major cause of concern at the moment, however, is whether or not the film captures the difficulty of the circumstances into which refugees are thrown.  At it's most fundamental level, FORGE exists because refugees have such few opportunities for self-advancement.  We focus on opportunities and the future, but the fact remains that the present-day circumstances for over 10 million refugees in Africa are not pretty.  While we certainly want to focus on how far Stephen and Boniface have carried themselves and their community, we don't want to make their struggles seem simple or their successes appear commonplace, nor do we want to fail to show that it is NGOs like FORGE that are helping to make such pursuit of opportunity possible.

It's a tough balance to strike...

- Kjerstin

(If you are going to be in San Francisco on Thursday and would like to attend, send me an email at kjerstin [at] forgenow.org)

It's been a long process, but we're almost ready to release a major change in our online public presence.  Rather than a simple, online brochure about what we do, FORGE has implemented a dynamic, participatory website that will bring the stories, sites, and even sounds of refugee communities into our homes and offices.  The site will allow users to actually engage in FORGE projects by learning about the specific area of need, the project plan, the project leaders (all refugees), the project budget, and more.  You can subscribe to running project blogs in order to stay updated on successes each project has or whatever obstacles it may face.  You can even ask questions of project leaders and project managers.  You might have to wait a few days for a response though - many answers will come straight from the field.

Of course, we're incredibly excited.  Not only has this taken us a lot longer than we had initially planned, but it completely changes the face of FORGE and opens the door to participation from the public.  Along with that excitement, however, there's a strong sense of anxiety... what if this doesn't work?  A long period of research into successful online ventures has made us confident that this model is best for FORGE, but there's always that risk.  At this point, we're dealing with that anxiety be extensively testing the user interface and flow of the site.  Does this button show up well?  Does this page clearly say what we want it to say?  Does the tone of this section properly represent the project?  It's a lot of work, but it's pretty fascinating.

The internet is an amazing tool that can generate a lot of success.  But, with well over 100 million websites out there, it's not an easy game to play.  More than ever, proper execution is key.  Everything has to work.  Content has to be frequently updated.  All answers must be available.  It's daunting.  I'm going back to work.