New Strategy, New Brand: The ChildFund International Story

Posted on 30 September 2009

By Sherine Jayawickrama

When Anne Lynam Goddard started as CEO of the Christian Children’s Fund (now called ChildFund International) in January 2007, she was given two charges: to develop a new strategy and to change the organization’s name.  The former is a process familiar to NGOs.  The latter is rare: changes in brands are common, but changing an organization’s name and having to forge a new identity in a crowded NGO landscape is fairly uncharted territory.

On September 25, Anne spoke on the theme New Brand, New Strategy: Forging a New Identity as an NGO in the most recent installment in our NGO Leaders Seminar Series.  The seminar provided insight into the opportunities and dilemmas of a re-branding process, and underscored the complexity of the change management and leadership challenge posed.

The seminar was too rich in detail to provide a summary, so I will just capture the major points covered.

First, Anne emphasized that developing ChildFund International’s new strategy – and building understanding and ownership of that strategy among staff – gave the organization a “north star” to guide its future direction, including its name change.  A distinction was made between the strategy (which provides long-term direction) and the related plan (which covers the 2010-2015 period).  Allowing a clear, compelling strategy to shape the new brand made the re-branding flow more organically and logically.

Second, she discussed the driver of the name change and described the process of surveying donors to ascertain their potential response.  It is a positive sign of the times in the NGO world that priority was given to aligning the organization’s name with that of its international alliance in order to strengthen the alliance, increase its profile and raise additional support for its work.  Anne noted that a third of the organization’s income comes from international sources – and that support continues to grow.  Another factor was the organization’s evolution away from its faith-based origins.  Christian Children’s Fund had ceased religious education in its programs in the 1970s, but its name continued to create confusion about its work, some incorrectly believing the NGO only worked with Christian children.

Third, Anne underscored the importance of managing the many changes – to a new CEO, a new plan, a new name and a new look, among other things – that staff were experiencing.  Involving staff in the development of a new strategy prior to the name change and communicating with staff every step of the way were critical.  The organization also marked a week of “saying goodbye” to the old name and flag.

Fourth, she drew from her tenure at CARE (a largely grant-funded NGO), to draw some contrasts between grant-funded NGOs and NGOs that build their revenue base on child sponsorship models.  She noted that child sponsorship draws long-term flows of unrestricted revenue to the communities in which children are sponsored.  This enables these NGOs to invest in long-term programs that can be transformational in disrupting cycles of intergenerational poverty.  On the flip side, she noted that NGOs that rely mainly on tens of thousands of small donors (the majority of whom only want an annual progress report on their sponsored child) do not face much external pressure to measure their impact at a higher, more transformational level.  These NGOs must create this pressure internally; that is one of Anne’s major priorities.

Finally, Anne described the results of a study that is shaping ChildFund International’s understanding of poverty – through the eyes of children.  She told a story of a boy living in a favella (urban slum) in Brazil and his explanation of what being poor meant.  He saw it as other people perceiving him as a bad person because he lived in a favella.  His vision of overcoming poverty did not entail leaving the favella. Rather, it centered on staying and making it a better, more dignified place for people to live.

I found deep insight and inspiration in this boy’s vision.  “Looking through the eyes of the poor” should be much more than a catch phrase.  More NGOs and donors must incorporate these views not just into their assessments, but also into their program designs, implementation strategies and evaluations.  The ultimate accountability that NGOs, donors and governments have is to the communities and individuals with whom they work.