Nonprofit Performance 360 Magazine Vol 5 No 1

First, Rise Against Hunger would always be operated at the highest professional standards. We would be open and transparent. We would operate as a business, as opposed to a ministry. We would always be accountable. That meant, for example, being independently audited every year and fulfilling the promises and pledges made to our partners and donors. Second, we would always seek to partner with other reputable relief organizations wherever, whenever, and however possible. We were not out to establish a Rise Against Hunger kingdom and to have offices in all the countries where we provided aid. We didn’t need to reinvent the wheel in every country where we helped feed the hungry. We would use the power of partnering to have the greatest possible impact on hunger. A third founding principle for us was that Rise Against Hunger would be a fast responder in times of crisis. I wanted us to respond immediately in crisis situations. And from our first days, we have continued to have the freedom and the flexibility to do just that. This, again, was a direct product of my time in the Marines and my personal philosophy of ready…FIRE!...aim. I have always been a strong proponent that action first is normally the best response in most crisis situations. The time for planning is before the crisis. And finally, I believed from the very start that we needed to have first-hand knowledge of the situations and people with which we were working. We needed to know and respond to the true needs of those we were attempting to help around the world. That meant staff should be in the field as much as possible. First, it was the best way to ensure that we were providing the required help our partners requested. And just as importantly, it was also the only way we could give honest and accurate reports to our supporters and donors. Partnership is the Key The first international trip I took for Rise Against Hunger became a model for the growth and expansion of our global hunger efforts. Every trip I took outside the United States was to find the areas of greatest need, locate and identify potential partner organizations, and begin establishing reliable networks to effectively get food and other necessary resources to those most in need. The results of our early efforts provided an important lesson for us. Our partnership model had benefits we had never even considered. We learned the critical importance of having solid, well established partnerships in place before attempting to

respond to disasters, and that also became integrated into our standard operating procedures. From the start, partnering has been part of the Rise Against Hunger DNA and I wouldn’t have it any other way. This philosophy has been a cornerstone in the success of our organization. There was never any difficulty in locating organizations desiring to partner with Rise Against Hunger. In every country I visited, there were far more opportunities to do good work and to make a real difference than there were time and resources to take advantage of them. The real question has always focused on selecting the right partners. Which of the myriad of opportunities before us would give us the best chance to feed the greatest number of hungry people? Which organization seeking to partner with us would be able to leverage our aid to have the largest impact? Which groups would prove to be the most reliable? Who would be the most trustworthy and most accountable? I have often been asked how Rise Against Hunger selects its partners. This has evolved across the years as we have continued to grow and expand, and our programs have changed, but I can still say that the real foundation of all of our partnerships is relational. We work with people we know. We have a relationship with our partner organizations that helps us know that the people we are working with are doing what they claim to do. We trust the reliability of our partners because we know them. They aren’t just names to us. They are friends and colleagues with whom we have eaten meals and spent time and have seen at their best, and often at their worst.

We make it a point to visit the programs with which we work. Rise Against Hunger staff, board members, and volunteers all spend time on the ground with our partners.We do regular site visits to monitor and assess the work of our partners. In fact, monitoring and evaluation, or M&E as we call it, is an area of responsibility at Rise Against Hunger that receives more attention with each passing year. It’s a continuous process that we never stop trying to improve. Creating a Global Movement During the 40 years I have walked with the hungry, I have had the unique privilege of helping start three different hunger organizations. Each of them, The Society of St. Andrew, The Foods Resource Bank, and Stop Hunger Now (now Rise Against Hunger), all continue to demonstrate that working together is the key to ending hunger. Each of these organizations is playing a vital role at eradicating hunger, and each has a part of my heart. Rise Against Hunger, however, remains the clearest demonstration of the power of creating a global movement to end hunger in our lifetime. We really can achieve a just world where not one single child must suffer from the unnecessary evil of hunger. Since we began, we have fed millions of children, empowering them to get an education that will help break the chains of poverty. We have responded with life-saving food and aid to dozens of global emergencies and crisis situations. We have gone beyond relief services to help move communities toward being more self-reliant and self-sufficient. With offices now in 20 cities around the United States and affiliates in South Africa, Malaysia, the Philippines, Italy, and India, we are truly part of a global movement to end

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