I have been spending time with my friends at the Start Network over the last few weeks. More of their new project I hope in a few months time. But it’s reminded me of how remarkable the organisation is, and how much I have learned from watching their progress and evolution.
Like so many good ideas, the Start Network was born in a London pub. The Humanitarian Directors of the leading agencies were wont to get together over a drink, to talk about their frustrations with the system they had dedicated their lives to, and kick around ideas on how it needed to change.
Individually the big humanitarian charities are extraordinary and inspiring organisations brimming with talent and commitment to their cause. While change is coming, collectively the system is deeply flawed, with overweight and duplicative legacy structures in the global north calling the shots, and a lack of funding and experience for local organisations on the ground in the global south. Competition for funding is fierce and inevitably the practicalities of fundraising drive priorities. Money flows through sclerotic systems at an agonisingly slow pace – often taking several months to reach those in need; a long time in a tent.
What if they could cut out the competition and the noise, work together, agree who was best placed on the ground to have the most immediate impact? What if they could set themselves a target of getting the money to where it was needed not in three months, but in three days from getting the call from the local team?
The first step was to pick a field as far as possible from the big well-funded medium-term disaster responses that the agencies relied on for their life blood. Easier to collaborate with your peers where the pressure to compete is lower. Sadly there is plenty of choice. Around half of disaster-related deaths occur in crises that never make the news cycle. That makes them desperately difficult to fundraise for. They plumped for funding for the first forty five or so of response to events under the radar screen.
The big state donors, as alive as anyone to the challenges and flaws of the status quo, loved the idea and the UK and Irish governments agreed to fund a pot to make it happen. All that was left was to build the plumbing for a collaborative ecosystem to bust silos and create the agility needed to bring the project to life.
They agreed they had to throw away the book and run a single peer system. When a call came in, a small panel drawn from a roster across the member agencies would meet, and make a decision there and then on whether the funding criteria were met. If they were, they would decide which member agency had the best network of partners in the country, and which local organisation in their network was best placed to provide the support. Then they would press the button.
There is a lot of money involved, and the central machine needs strong well-established processes to manage fiduciary risk and underwrite standards. Save the Children stepped up and hosted the initiative, providing the contractual connecting rods between the system and the government donors. And so in 2014, the Start Fund came into the world.
So far it has reached 13.5 million people in need in 63 countries, responding to about 350 emergencies, with an average response time of 67 hours. It has disbursed about £50 million of funding – small packets of funding for the stitch in time that saves nine, and lays the ground for the larger scale funding that rolls in weeks or even months later.
For Start, that has been just the beginning, and as the organisation has continued to evolve, they are now looking at an ambitious range of projects. All are focused around the common theme of finding ways to get the tools into the hand of strong local NGOs to respond fast and effectively to crises in their communities.
I have reflected much over the last few years on what the conditions were that allowed this extraordinarily complex messy and extended set of networks to come together with remarkably little friction or opposition into a coherent and effective ecosystem to service this niche in the global humanitarian system collectively. Deep common values and a collective sense of mission were certainly central, as was the enthusiastic support of leading donors. I think the savvy choices on the focus and boundaries of the initiative were also critical.
Whatever made it work, it’s difficult to think of a more inspiring example of how collaborative working, and a new approach to organisation can make a transformational difference to things that really matter.