Many thanks for your typology. Interestingly, although we experience a “type 1″ situation most often in the U.S., the large national NGOs in the U.S. basically respond like int’l NGOs in your “type 2″ situation - they descend upon the area and set up their own services. Any “local partners” with whom they intersect are most often their own local chapters or affiliates. In my experience, what happens in the “type 2″ situations with significant displacement that we’ve seen in the U.S. - with Katrina being the prime example - is that the situation is too much for the national NGOs to handle, and requires the help of local partners outside their organizational constellation. I feel like we need a system to integrate those many local nonprofits and faith-based groups similar to how an int’l NGO adds value in your first example. Some of the most successful groups to respond to Katrina were int’l NGOs (many of whom were responding to a domestic disaster for the first time).

Type 1: An international NGO assesses the situation, and then funds local partners. The value added by the INGO is having/choosing local partners and doing and major international goods procurements. Often a response to a natural disaster - something bad happens very suddenly to people in one place. Burma and Lebanon are good examples.

Type 2: The international NGO sets up its own services such as food distribution for clinics. More often happens when there is a large displacement of population which means there are too many people in the new location for existing organzations to handle, even if they get outside funding.

In the US, we are far more likely to see type 1 situations.

You make a good point in saying that small grassroots organizations are often uniquely poised to address the needs of a community. Not only are they “on the ground,” but they are also typically staffed by people from the community itself. It’s unfortunate that organizations which could potentially have the greatest impact have the most difficult time leveraging funds.