Why we should create international organisations that embrace generosity

I don’t know about you but when I first felt inspired to look for work with international NGOs I think I imagined it would be a pretty different environment to the one that I now find familiar.

I think I thought everyone would be lovely and a little bit hippy and there would probably be a lot of soup and alternative ideas.

But I’m asking what it is like in the NGO (not-for-profit) sector is like right now. And this is what am I hearing?

I’m hearing of staff (mostly women) talk of being busy, tired and overwhelmed.

I’m hearing about dysfunctional organisations that demand blood sweat and tears from a largely female work force

I’m hearing that hard working people, wanting to make the difference they believe in, get swept in to this whirlwind of busyness.

I notice that what we often do in the NGO (not-for-profit) sector is a bit like providing services to drug users to support them to quit while spending our weekends doing coke in night clubs (and yes, probably, there are plenty of NGO workers out there who do precisely that!)

But the point is this. If you want to work towards a world in which poverty ends and there is genuine social justice you have to really think about what it means to practice what you preach.

And that means creating organisations that commit to putting their values at the core not just of what they do, but also of how they do it.

Instead of wearing women out as they work towards the change they want to see in the world, I think about us creating organisations that embrace generosity to ourselves and others.

Generosity because we completely reject that poverty is inevitable and because we know that when we can act out of generosity for ourselves we can also practice it towards others, in all of the work that we do.

I don’t think so many women would feel so burnt out and exhausted in these kinds of organisations.

Embracing generosity would demand of us a different working culture where our own replenishment, and that of everyone we work alongside, was simply a critical part of how we equip ourselves for the work that we do.

It would mean that the blueprint for generosity would need to be set by the leaders of organisations. They would need to know how to look after themselves and promote a culture of doing that throughout their organisations.

It might sound a bit hippy-dippy but given the context of our work it is critical I think that we figure out that we need to treat the people we work with well.

And treating people well is a lot further than many projects and organisations actually go. In many projects ‘beneficiaries’ are treated as slightly ignorant and misguided. That isn’t treating people well.

Treating people well means trusting and valuing them and we can only do that with integrity if we trust and value ourselves.

We so often get caught up in a work, work, work mentality. It’s engrained in the culture of many of our organisations and exacerbated by the fact that it often feels like there is so much at stake in the work that we do.

But busyness isn’t the way to change the world. Rather it is a way to get exhausted and act in ways that don’t honour our values.

We need new models and approaches that take our share humanity and needs super seriously. That allow us to act from a place of generosity towards others and ourselves.

Perhaps in that context we might not even call our work ‘International Development’ at all but instead give it a new name which describes it as practicing, sharing and honouring generosity as an antidote to a world system in which on the poverty of many is built the riches of the few.