Reference:Action Research Approach To Poverty Reduction/From Academic Idea to Working NGO

Section 3 - Universities as Incubators of Action Research

The Marriott School at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, U.S.A. has emerged as one of the first pro-poor business schools in the United States. The University has a number of competitive advantages because of its institutional connection to its sponsoring church. Some 72 percent of students speak a second language, most of them learning to do so by living abroad for two years as Mormon missionaries. They become fluent in the language, understand and appreciate other cultures, and love the people. BYU teaches over 60 different languages on campus, more than twice those of the second most diverse language offerings being the 25 languages taught at Yale University. The school also has the largest study abroad program of any American university. Finally, students attend BYU from over 130 countries.

Drawing on these student strengths in the early 1990s, the authors began to organize a group of individuals to center our research on Microcredit. A commitment to using one’s academic work to better the world by empowering students as global change agents was agreed upon. New courses and action research, action learning, and service learning methods were established. The initial area of emphasis was to send students out into the field to study the impact of Microcredit. As the training of individuals has broadened to include teaching non-profit management and humanitarian skills the scope of the fieldwork has broadened. Partnerships were sought with external consultants, business leaders, entrepreneurs, and socially responsible corporations.

Some of the results of these efforts include 17 years in which over 700 students were mobilized, trained, and sent them off to combat poverty and create greater economic justice among marginalized communities. For 13 years new courses or classroom modules have been initiated in social entrepreneurship, Microcredit systems, Third World development and NGO management. Over the past nine years, an annual conference on Microenterprise development has occurred at BYU and the Journal of Microfinance began being published, the first of its kind in this emerging field. PBS also did an impressive documentary film, “Small Fortunes: Microcredit and the Future of Poverty” (2005), on the programs of our NGO partners.

One of this paper’s authors formed a number of NGOs, which started as classroom student projects, and eventually were formally incorporated as 501 (C) 3 non-profit social enterprises. For this paper, HELP International is analyzed as a case of action research and service learning, an illustration of what may be accomplished.

Section 4 - HELP International Origin and History

An instance of Marriott School initiative in humanitarian work and microfinance is that of HELP International (HELP). It is an innovative example of utilizing student volunteers, local entrepreneurs, alumni, and faculty in mobilizing collective efforts to serve the poor in Latin America. It began in response to the terrible destruction of Hurricane Mitch in Central America at the end of 1998. Facing the question of whether or not a business school has anything of relevance to offer in a natural disaster, which devastated a huge region, a new, not-for-credit course was established in January 1999 called “How to Change the World.” Eventually some 70-plus students signed up for the experience and formed self-organizing teams to plan how they might assist the victims of the hurricane. In spite of cynics at the university, who claimed students could not address such major catastrophes, 46 volunteers were prepared, who each spent two months or more in Honduras that summer. About $116,000 was raised for establishing 47 communal banks, as well as recapitalizing an additional 50 bank groups of FINCA International, the MFI partner, whose client resources had been destroyed by the flooding.

MBA students served as on-the-ground team leaders over specific projects in country. In addition to microfinance and economic development, approximately 20,000 hours of community service was rendered by HELP volunteers: Shoveling mud out of schools, rebuilding houses, mentoring street children, teaching computer skills, and delivering babies in rural health clinics. Over 800 jobs were created by these new microenterprise start-ups, which benefited some 4,000 family members.

So much for the cynics and naysayer!

That first experience of helping Honduras led to increased motivation for doing similar work elsewhere in subsequent years. As students, donors, and faculty began to feel empowered in their ability to make a difference, new crises inspired new strategies. Thus, in winter semester 2000, some 88 volunteers were organized and trained to serve during the following summer. Over $250,000 was donated and teams were sent to continue the efforts in Honduras, as well as to expand to Venezuela, Peru, and El Salvador. More partnerships were made with more NGOs in these countries, starting more village banks in Honduras and El Salvador, as well as providing microenterprise training programs in Peru and Venezuela.

In the subsequent years, HELP has enlarged the scope of its efforts by going to Guatemala, Brazil, Bolivia, and Uganda, as well as continued its work in El Salvador. From the hundred-plus village banks started early on, today it has NGO partners that offer various other services to the poor: Microenterprise education, square foot gardening, literacy, women’s empowerment, home construction, agricultural and other appropriate technologies, as well as training in computer skills and English as a Second Language (ESL), serving in rural health clinics, teaching in schools, and volunteering in orphanages. HELP has worked to build partnerships with a number of businesses, which range from small firms like Marketing Alley in Utah and Smog ‘n Go in California, to large companies like Starbucks, Novell, the Marriott Foundation, Wal-Mart, Unitus, and Intel. They have collectively led to huge impacts among the poorest of the poor. Not only has HELP drawn on students from BYU over these years, but also from a dozen other schools like Stanford, Colorado State, Virginia Tech, and Washington University.

Section 5 - Key Characteristics of HELP Organization & Working Environment

HELP’s vision began to shift several years ago, aided by the assistance of several BYU alumni, who have had superb careers as organizational change consultants, one of them being the co-author of this paper, Peter Sorenson. During a 10-day board of directors site visit trip to El Salvador they led the HELP board through a strategic retreat lasting several days. The key task of the retreat and follow up work was assessing, clarifying, and reformulating the organization’s mission. From that experience, HELP shifted its vision statement from a sole focus on fighting poverty to a new mantra: “To provide our volunteers with a life-changing experience.” The group had finally realized that they were not making much of a dent in the burgeoning growth of Third World poverty, so much as HELP was having a significant impact in the individual lives of its volunteers. What had been learned over time was that these young social entrepreneurs, who had spent several months in Latin America, were returning to finish their college educations with a new realization of their ability to change the world. They realized that none of them could do everything, but that each could do something. As reported later in this paper, many of them have launched Third World projects of their own as they graduated from school and went off to begin their careers. In sum, through their HELP experience, they became empowered and many of them committed to designing further poverty-fighting strategies on their own.

HELP’s capacity for having these kinds of impacts arises from its “intangible assets.” These are factors that have made HELP not only survive in the growing world of humanitarian outreach, but thrive. They are not easily ascertained by reading reports, talking to staff, or by going to its website; but rather these dimensions operate below the surface.

Some of the important assets include the following: Intellectual Capital — Well-trained young people, who not only learn about development from the University, but are bright and talented individuals simply because they were admitted to a leading college with rigorous admission requirements; Practical Know-How — Derived from HELP’s internal training and preparation for volunteers that occurs before departure; Partner Relationships – HELP’s ability to find and establish effective connections between its cadre of volunteers and in-country NGOs, which can maintain and expand the work started by HELP after the volunteers leave; Donor Relationships – Established through informal and formal connections with a few major corporate donors, but more importantly, with students who do their own fundraising through family and personal connections; In-the-Trenches Experience – Sweating through one’s labor with rural villagers in the Third World during a summer deepens one’s appreciation for blessings back home, and raises the consciousness of volunteers, who see the suffering of the poor, both of which generate unique and powerful experiences for these volunteers; Reputation – Through the media, informal word-of-mouth, community presentations, and other networks, HELP International’s recognition and credibility is considerable.

Shifting to the current time frame, in 2007 HELP trained and sent out about 75 of its own volunteers. In addition to that number, HELP’s partner organization The Carolina Microfinance Initiative (CMI), based at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, send a 15-person team to Peru. The latter group will be briefly discussed later. HELP’s core countries in 2007 consisted of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Uganda.

For these three countries HELP first recruited and selected student country directors. Those individuals went through an extensive management preparation training process, which focused on such topics as team building, problem solving, leadership skills, conflict resolution, and managing time, leading people, policy, practice, and procedure, communications, and financial management. Ultimately co-directors were chosen for each of the three countries. They spent the full summer of four months in-country, managing the teams of volunteers, working with partner NGOs, distributing expenditures, and communicating with the HELP office in the U.S. (telephone calls, email questions, and weekly reports). There were between 20 and 30 volunteers per country.

With respect to the larger teams of volunteers, they too went through several days of intense training and preparation. The top priority for these sessions was that of in-country safety (awareness of dangers, being inside at night, always traveling at least in pairs, and so forth). Other training they engaged in included an overview of Third World development, group processes and effective roles, social entrepreneurship skills, how to maintain one’s health, rudimentary Spanish for those who were not fluent, etc.

In addition, the groups were each trained in a variety of humanitarian services so that they could maximize their impacts while in country. HELP offers several core services to clients and villagers of our in-country partners. The three most important are 1) Training on how to start a small business, 2) Teaching English as a second language, and 3) Square foot garden methodology. After completing these days of training, volunteers depart for their respective destinations in small groups. Usually there are 8 to 14 volunteers in each country at a time, where they volunteer from 4 to 12 weeks. Over the summer, these departing groups leave the U.S. in 3 waves, spread out over the summer months. In other words, there is a May 1st departure group for each country, a June 1st group, and a July 1st group. Co-directors in country had already established systems for picking up the new arrivals, having their residential places arranged for, and worked out the tasks and assignments with the local NGOs. Thus, there is a smooth transition from the U.S. team to the Third World nation.

With respect to the types of services performed by HELP’s volunteers, the options are many over a 4-month period. As social entrepreneurs, individuals are encouraged to become aware of problems beyond the basic HELP training. They are invited to use their own initiative in analyzing such problems, exploring solutions, and requesting supplemental funding from HELP to implement their own projects. But this is above and beyond the traditional services offered by HELP as an organization.

What are some additional services that are typically offered by HELP volunteers? They include the following: Support work consisting of training and consultation for the clients of microfinance partners; workshops on how to start a microenterprise; teaching about nutrition and personal health; volunteer in health and dental clinics, as well as hospitals; teaching how to build adobe stoves; building homes with partners such as Habitat for Humanity; volunteering in orphanages; teaching English in various settings; consulting on program design with NGO partners; teaching computer skills, and so forth.

Section 6 - Carolina Microfinance Initiative

This year HELP began to collaborate more formally with university groups at other campuses. Although students from different schools have joined HELP as individual volunteers, the first formal partnership occurred in 2007 with the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Students and their Faculty Advisor, Lisa Jones Christensen of the Kenan-Flagler Business School, have established the Carolina Microfinance Initiative (CMI) to bring together students, corporate donors, microfinance institutions, Carolina community members, and entrepreneurs of the developing world. In this emerging experiment, students have been trained by UNC campus faculty, as well as the executive director of HELP International, based in Utah. The group supported an existing Microcredit NGO in Peru in order to help it serve more clients with additional loans and training. During this summer students conducted impact assessments on their work and that of their Peruvian partners. They plan to hold several events on campus to mobilize support for microfinance, and have committed to provide ample donor feedback. To do this, they will document activities and outcomes for each donor, as well as for future volunteers.