Campfire Innovation: A Passionate Partner
No campfire can be successful without the right resources. Campfire Innovation, which sheds light on the best and brightest grassroots teams in Greece, knows this very well.
Campfire Innovation acts a NeedsList vetting partner, identifying and verifying high-impact projects in the field. A few weeks ago we worked with the Athens-based team to host a joint event, “Innovation for Smarter Aid.” We had a chance to sit down with Campfire founder, Joanna Theodorou.
Theodorou founded Campfire Innovation in September 2016. After doing refugee volunteer work in Lesvos, she realized that there was a need for sustainable support systems throughout Greece to help integrate the massive amount of existing and incoming refugees. From there, the idea of Campfire Innovation was born. The organization now has over 15 diversely skilled volunteers from 6 countries, all of whom have had prior experience providing humanitarian aid to refugees.
The mission of Campfire Innovation is to identify grassroots teams that are providing humanitarian aid to refugees and help them overcome the common roadblocks that similar organizations face. They are currently active in Greece, where their work has benefited around 5,000 individuals so far.
“Our team is made up of experienced volunteers, who have all worked with groups that we believe are the unsung heroes of the refugee crisis: teams that find intelligent, scalable solutions that directly respond to real needs. We’ve been researching this humanitarian response community, connecting projects with one another and with the resources they need. We’re excited by the responses we’re getting from projects that want to work together and develop smarter aid.” — Joanna Theodorou
Who are these grassroots teams exactly? Campfire Innovation firmly believes in the idea of Smart Aid and looks for groups who put Smart Aid values at the forefront of their mission as well. This involves moving away from emergency relief towards more sustainable solutions for integrating refugees into their host countries. Theodorou identifies 5 key aspects of Smart Aid: effectiveness, dignity, collaboration, technology, and scalability.
Campfire Innovation has three main objectives for supporting their selected organizations:
- Increase collaboration between different projects in the region that are working towards similar goals. Campfire Innovation hosts Smart Aid Gatherings, where different grassroots teams come together to share their challenges, ideas, resources, and other valuable information. Each event features two innovative organizations, which share the challenges and obstacles they are facing with all the other groups at the gathering. The other organizations then propose solutions, which also serves as an opportunity to collaborate and get ideas for new projects and resources.
2. Bring access to resources, which involves reaching out to partners who wish to support grassroots innovation. These partners provide needed resources such as legal advice or expertise on organizational growth and fundraising. Campfire Innovation is determined to increase access to such vital resources, knowing the fact that continuous funding and support for the refugee crisis can often be an obstacle.
3. Mapping grassroots response. This is the research aspect of Campfire Innovation, in which they seek out the best methods and practices being used by current organizations. This collection of information is put in their manual called REFCAMP, which is intended to be used as guidance for future projects and organizations. Some of the common issues they address involve volunteer engagement, communications, including refugees in their teams, and making internal organization more efficient.
Sam Birnbaum, a founding member of NativeNet (winner of Hack the Camp — a hackathon on refugee and integration challenges) says that, “Campfire Innovation was instrumental in the development of the NativeNet concept, which won first place. They provided constructive feedback based on field experience to help us create a solution grounded in reality and with a clear implementation plan.”
At NeedsList, we scope out productive organizations using Smart Aid as part of their strategy for addressing the refugee crisis. That’s why we are so grateful to be partners with Campfire Innovation, who has connected us with some amazing teams that now use NeedsList as a resource to achieve their goals. Combined with the other tools and tips Campfire Innovation has given them, we know these teams’ missions will be successful and their innovative spark will stay lit!
