Author: Nicolas Moyer, Executive Director, Humanitarian Coalition.
The humanitarian system is in a constant state of flux as it evolves towards objectives of greater quality, professionalism, coordination and preparedness. For the most part, efforts in this direction are focused on programs and country-level responses. What has perhaps been considered far too little is the potential of international humanitarian agencies to work together in higher income countries to improve humanitarian outcomes. Joint Appeals offer important opportunities in this regard and are worth a closer look. The objective of this article is to present the case for collective approaches to humanitarian fundraising and share the experience of Canada’s Humanitarian Coalition.
Coordination is vital to successful humanitarian interventions
The number of humanitarian actors seems to expand with each year that passes. With this multiplication of actors, inter-agency coordination has become complex, but vital to successful humanitarian responses. UN agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society groups have poured increasing efforts and resources into coordinating with each other and national governments during emergency responses.
Coordination during disasters has significantly improved with the UN Cluster Approach instituted as part of the 2005 Humanitarian Reform. The Clusters, while far from perfect, allow for important information sharing and coordination of sector responses. Humanitarian Country Teams have also been formed by leading humanitarian actors in manydisaster-prone countries, allowing for the increased complementarity of disaster preparedness plans, opportunities for sharing of resources and often the establishment of a sector dialogue with national authorities on disaster-related planning.
Coordination is also highly apparent at international levels, where International NGOs have embarked on numerous inter-agency efforts to improve the quality of their own operations or to influence policy changeswith the objective of promoting better humanitarian outcomes. Notable examples of this include the Sphere standards, Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP) and the Emergency Capacity Building (ECB) Project.
Experts in humanitarian program management know the importance of coordination at the field level and are getting better at it. But in higher income countries, competition between humanitarian actors is still the norm. How much have humanitarians looked at the implications of competition “at home” on their ability to help disaster survivors?
A history of competition
The history of today’s humanitarian NGOs is steeped in traditions of charity, heroism, self-sacrifice and principled determination to help the world’s most vulnerable. These are proud histories full of achievements. But it should come as no surprise that this history is also one of funding. Humanitarian operations have waxed and waned on the on the ability of each organisation to raise money.
Today’s large humanitarian agencies have become household names. They have achieved this through increasingly effective marketing and communications efforts, aimed at securing funding for their activities. Where no NGOs had any significant size or profile before the Second World War, today’s NGO brands reach priceless heights of incalculable reputational value. The strategic plans of today’s large NGOs include environmental scans that assess their competitors and approaches designed to surpass them in fundraising, stature and brand recognition.
While such positioning is generally hard to see for the public at large, humanitarian disasters often put this competition on centre stage. Disasters are the only scenario where media readily support NGOs and donors flock to support them. In these periods, lasting rarely more than a few weeks, humanitarian agencies are everywhere: TV, radio, newspapers, billboards, internet ads and wherever else you might look. These are perfect opportunities to ‘capture’ new donors; and NGOs know it.
So while the same agencies are finding ways of working together in disaster response, they are also fiercely competing with each other to build their brands and raise funds in higher income countries. All things being equal, perhaps this wouldn’t matter. After all, the result is funding for essential life-saving programs. However, globally this competition actually limits the sector’s ability to assist those affected by disasters. It does not serve the best interests of disaster survivors.
The Problem with Competition in times of humanitarian disaster
At least theoretically, competition in the private sector serves to balance supply and demand, resulting in prices that reflect the availability of goods. But competition among NGOs cannot be interpreted the same way. Those benefiting from the ‘product’ (aid) are not the consumers being marketed to (donors). Examined from the perspective of maximising humanitarian outcomes, competition is a major obstacle to improving sector impact. Intense inter-NGO competition for donor dollars and public profile during emergencies has a number of unfortunate side effects. Some of the most important are presented below.
Duplication of fundraising costs – There is no question that advertising is needed to solicit donations, because the public must be informed about why and where to give. But consider that the cost of a full page ad in one ofCanada’s major newspapers can easily cost over $70,000 (approx. 60,000 Euros), even at discounted rates for charities. With that figure, imagine the duplicated costs represented by a dozen or more competing advertising campaigns seeking donations for humanitarian responses. While advertising is needed, looked at from the angle of the humanitarian imperative instead of individual agency objectives, competing campaigns serve to drive up sector-wide spending on fundraising at the expense of programs.
It is hard to say whether Canadians are more likely to give if there are 10 competing ads in a newspaper than if there is one. It is however evident that media corporations benefit directly from this competition and that duplicated fundraising costs amount to sizeable sums which do not reachdisaster survivors.
Confusion and simplistic messages – Despite millions spent over decades on communications in emergencies, NGOs still face the same widespread misinformation they always have about such issues as the management of aid, the role of NGOs, the importance of transition to recovery efforts, the place of local authorities in the response and so on.Despite the unique attention accorded to humanitarian actors in times of crisis, the educational opportunity that this provides to inform the public about the complexity of humanitarian responses is almost always missed, replaced with a race for donations. From the perspective of the public at large, NGOs can all look the same. The nuances between agency priorities are lost on all but the most informed. The torrent of information coming from NGOs during emergencies further confuses things in two important ways: (1) messages are simplified to capture the interest of potential donors, and (2) a cacophony of un-coordinated communication campaigns makes it difficult for any but the most basic message to stick in donors’ minds. It is a spiral to the bottom in terms of the quality of public messaging.
Debilitating Choice – Much evidence points to the fact that too much choice is debilitating to consumers, and by inference to donors as well. As demonstrated by Sheena Iyengar of Columbia University, more options (ie. more choice) can very often make itharder for consumers to choose, or lead to no choice being made at all [1]. Research into consumer behaviour indicates it is likely that many potential donors do not give simply because they face too much choice.
The analysis of charitable giving done by Statistics Canada with data gathered through the national census indicates that one of the main reasons cited by respondents for why they do not give, or give more, is that they do not know where to give. While this may be hard to explain in the information age, it is revealing of the donor perspective on our sector.
Potential donors that are driven by an immediate impulse to give when seeing images of suffering on the news must make a choice about which agency to donate to and must then turn that decision into action. And so by imposing a debilitating choice on donors who do not have sufficient information to make a decision about who to give to, our sector limits its own fundraising potential.
Dependence on Media Coverage – As a divided sector, humanitarian agencies are unable to sway media coverage in any significant manner. While big disasters do get the media’s attention, over the years considerable efforts by humanitarian agencies to raise the profile of looming or low profile crises have had a very limited impact. This has meant that fundraising continues to be driven by the unpredictability of media coverage and its bias towards larger and more visually impactful disasters. As long as the humanitarian sector cannot better coordinate its communications efforts, no evident solutions can exist for influencing increased coverage of lower profile disasters.
The absence of a collective voice also limits any opportunity to influence media coverage away from small ‘homegrown’ humanitarian NGOs which may be more locally and visually appealing to news coverage but do not have the capacity to respond on the scale of more established humanitarian agencies.
Accountability and Waning Public Trust – The multiplication of actors, shortened news cycles and public attention spans, along withsimplistic messaging from humanitarian agencies have all contributed to worrying trends of declining public confidence in humanitarian actors and NGOs. While these are not the only factors to consider, the long term threat of cynicism and donor apathy to the humanitarian sector is very real. Even if every agency provided quality accounting and reporting – and many don’t – the lack of information about collective impact and transparency regarding the humanitarian system continue to undermine the trust accorded to the sector. Nowhere can one find out the collective impact of the generosity of Canadians to alleviating the suffering of Haitians after the 2010 earthquake. As our sector does not provide the information, so donors may be justified to question why they should give again.
An alternative model – Joint Appeals
A logical conclusion then is to consider a collective approach to communications and fundraising in times of disaster; an approach where humanitarian agencies could set aside their branding priorities to support improved sector impact and humanitarian outcomes. Far from being an unrealistic goal, it’s an approach applied with considerable success in a number of countries.
Joint Appeals exist today in nine countries and are being considered in others. The oldest of these models is theUK’s Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), founded in 1963. And while similar mechanisms now exist in Belgium, Canada, Germany, Holland,Italy, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland, in many ways the DEC remains the archetypal model for the Joint Appeal.
The exact structure of the Joint Appeals differs in each country, but all leverage variations of the following elements: (1) inter-agency agreements to launch a collective campaign in times of disaster, (2) memberships composed of leading humanitarian agencies, (3) partnerships with broadcasters and the private sector, (4)monitoring and evaluation of member projects, and (5) a pre-established process for deciding how funds will be divided. Each in their own national contexts, Joint Appeals have repeatedly demonstrated the value of a collective approach in terms of generating revenues, reducing administrative costs, improving accountability, liaising with the private sector and offering one coordinated voice in times of crisis.
It is important to note that in addition to addressing some of the problems of competition noted above, a collective approach opens doors to opportunities not available to individual agencies. The most important of these is the possibility of partnering with the media. While no media agency will partner with a single humanitarian agency in the long term for reasons of journalistic independence, they are willing to engage with a sector acting collectively. The relationships that each Joint Appeal has built with the media outlets in their countries are critical to their success on other fronts.
Canada’s Joint Appeal: the Humanitarian Coalition
Canadahas one of the youngest Joint Appeal mechanisms. The obstacles to its creation were significant; not least because of the historic backdrop of successful brand development and market positioning by international humanitarian agencies inCanada. Long running discussions between heads of agencies about the possibility of collaboration for disaster fundraising only turned into action following the Asian Tsunami of 2004. The criticism levelled at the sector for lack of coordination was one of the motivating factors, as well as a shared sense among some agencies that a collective approach was ethically the right thing to do.
After broader discussions in the sector, four Canadian NGOs decided to forge ahead to develop a collective fundraising mechanism. These founding members (CARE Canada, OxfamCanada, Oxfam-Québec and Save the Children Canada) took a significant risk in their search for changing the humanitarian fundraising landscape inCanada, gambling their brands, reputation and potentially the support of their donors would be improved by working together.
Together the founding members launched two pilot appeals for the Pakistan Earthquake of 2005 and the Lebanon Crisis of 2006, which served to confirm the feasibility of the approach and an interest in formalizing a process for a standing Joint Appeal mechanism. That formalization began in late 2007 and the Humanitarian Coalition (HC) was formed using theUK’s DEC model as its principal reference point. The HC was incorporated as a separate legal entityin 2010, governed by its members, and welcomed Plan International Canada within its ranks in 2011.
To limit costs and overhead within the new mechanism, growth has been modest and incremental. Its sustainability and business model are defined by entirely different parameters to those of its members, predicated entirely on the frequency of appeals. The HC must be able to launch national scale appeals within hours, while fading to the background between appeals and striking a strategic positioning balance that serves its members interests.
Donations and Donors
The HC’s first major appeal was for the Haiti Earthquake, when it raised approximately $15.5 million for member programs. It has launched a total of 9 appeals raising $39 million. And while global fundraising numbers are significant, they are only one measure of success. Perhaps most important is what has been learned in the process.
Donors to the HC are new to the members. Between 75% of donors to the HC do not exist on members’ donor lists. Member donors are not being cannibalized and new donors are coming in large numbers to the “one-stop-shop” option. Member donors are not leaving them to give to the HC (never more than 2.9% of any members’ donors have given to the HC), but new ones are arriving.
This confirms that the mechanism works to draw donors that do not want to make a choice about where to give. In essence, we are increasing the number of gifts to the sector, not redistributing them.
Partnerships and Cost Savings
By coming together, the HC members have been able to make a strong case for partnership with the private sector, and particularly with the media. Partnerships have now been established with TV, radio, newspaper and internet platforms where these had not been possible for individual agencies. Free placements for advertising have valued in the millions of dollars, providing strong evidence of the monetary gain to be had in working together – funds that instead are directed to member programs.
While work is still needed to unlock some critical media partnerships inCanada(notably public broadcasters), the evidence of dividends is clear for a collective approach to engaging with the private sector.
Influencing media coverage
Progress here has been real, but is not easy to measure. The collective voice of the HC members has given them much credibility and increased media interest in their messages. The demonstration of collaboration between HC members has not been lost on the media, who have been passed from one agency to another in a spirit of trust and collective interest in quality coverage.
In 2011-2012, the HC launched two appeals for slow-onset drought-related crises in Africa (Horn andWest Sahel). In both cases it was an uphill struggle to solicit media interest, but the HC was also successful in gathering momentum serving to influence donations, media coverage and government response.
Accountability, Joint Monitoring and Evaluation
HC members have developed robust program guidelines and an M&E framework. The main features of this framework are Real-Time Evaluations and Final Evaluations, all of which are carried out jointly by the members. In addition to improving cross-agency learning, these serve objectives of accountability among peers and to the public. All experiences to date have been received very positively, with evaluation results shared widely within the sector and published by the HC. Member agencies are particularly satisfied with an approach that provides more assessment of their humanitarian programs while reducing costs for evaluations and improving cross-agency sharing. As funding for humanitarian evaluations is particularly scarce inCanada, the HC’s work in this area is a major added-value for its members.
The intangibles
For all the measurable benefits of the Canadian Joint Appeal model, there are many more which cannot easily be quantified. The governance structure of the HC isdesigned for maximum input of member agencies, meaning that regular interactions have been created at heads of agency level and among fundraisers, communicators, programs and finance departments. Trust levels are high after going through appeals together and members often extol the spin-off benefits of increased collaboration in terms of peer learning, information sharing, project planning, policy engagement, government relations and much more.
In a few short years, the HC has had a major impact on the humanitarian landscape inCanada, changing the way we communicate with Canadians about humanitarian crises, how we fundraise and serving to raise the bar in humanitarian response. Perhaps the most important evidence that the HC has been successful is that its members are proud of their joint effort and remain strongly committed to the pursuit of their collective opportunities.
The Challenges of a collective fundraising approach
While the HC has succeeded against high odds to demonstrate the value and impact of a collective fundraising model for emergencies inCanada, this has not been without challenges. The majority of these relate in some way to inter-agency coordination, from overcoming low trust levels among members in early years and concerns about donor relations, to the visibility of member brands in appeals and the development of a robust program accountability structure. While diverging views among member agencies are to be expected, these have each been overcome in turn as practice and data from appeals has served to drive consensus on key issues.
Yet the single largest challenge facing the creation of a collective fundraising mechanism for humanitarian disasters in a competitive market relates to non-member agencies. To date,Canada’s largest humanitarian organisations have chosen not to join the HC. The result is that the full potential of the collective model remains out of reach. Donors continue to be faced with multiple organisations to chose from and some key private sector partnerships cannot be unlocked until one or more of the larger organisations gets on board. While a critical mass ofCanada’s humanitarian agencies is already part of the HC, convincing other large actors to join is key to the future success of the model.
Final Words
Humanitarian agencies in a number of countries have held discussions in recent years examining the possibility of launching Joint Appeal mechanisms. These have taken place inAustralia,France,Ireland,New Zealand, Spainand perhaps elsewhere. But it is a long and difficult process to switch gears from heated competition to a collective approach, and it takes leaders with vision to break with the status quo.
Increasingly the Joint Appeals are also talking to each other as they grapple with some of the global challenges that affect them. And while the global families of humanitarian agencies are working together to improve programs and policies, they should also consider the opportunities available in consolidating some communications and fundraising efforts if these may produce cost savings and better results. After all, our work is intended to serve the most vulnerable and in that mission every option for improvement must be on the table.
One of the best ways to improve humanitarian outcomes is through collaboration. Program experts already know and do this. Their success should spread to the managers, fundraisers and communicators of the same organisation that are based in higher income countries. As the growing evidence shows, there is little cause to resist a change with so many benefits.
[1]Sheena Iyengar, The Art of Choosing, 2010
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