These former USAID staff are working to match donors to urgent, lifesaving aid projects that had their funding slashed
In a warehouse in northeast Nigeria, a nonprofit's stocks of food to treat malnourished children and pregnant women are running low.
The organization, Action Against Hunger (ACF), is running a project to combat malnutrition that had been relying on funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to procure much-needed therapeutic food sachets. But the project was intermittently suspended, leaving ACF unable to procure enough of the nutrient-rich food during the peak season of malnutrition.
It's one of the many urgent, lifesaving aid projects left in limbo and in need of additional resources following the Trump administration's dismantling of USAID.
But now, a group of former USAID staff has come together to connect big donors with cost-effective projects like this, which desperately need cash to carry out operations already in the pipeline.
The primary goal is 'to save as many lives as possible,' said Robert Rosenbaum, a former USAID portfolio manager and one of the people spearheading the initiative, which they are calling Project Resource Optimization (PRO). 'At this point, there really are people who are dying as a result of these (budget) decisions and this halting of the work.'
Rosenbaum said that thinking about cuts to American programs tackling things like malnutrition, extreme poverty and disease prevention was keeping him up at night after he lost his job earlier this year.
So, he and other laid-off USAID workers decided to do something. They began vetting projects being carried out by USAID partner organizations, which had abruptly lost their funding earlier this year.
They gradually built a spreadsheet – dubbed the Urgent & Vetted Projects list – and started matchmaking, setting up meetings between the most critical and cost-effective programs and donors who wanted to help, but didn't know where to start.
The spreadsheet was first inspired by reach-outs from a few small family foundations seeking expert guidance on where to best put their dollars, amid the initial uncertainty surrounding US government aid cuts. But it quickly grew into something bigger.
It became clear to Rosenbaum that there was an opportunity to 'expand the overall pool of private philanthropy' and bring in donations from people who might not have considered giving to international aid projects until this year.
'There have been a handful of folks who have come out of the woodwork and literally written us an email that's like, 'I set aside $100,000, $200,000, a million dollars… And this is exactly how I want to think about giving… So, help us figure out how to do this,'' he said.
Earlier this week, the PRO team also launched a tool for smaller donors to contribute online, crowdfunding for some of the most critical aid projects.
Now, anyone can give a one-time or monthly contribution to the team's 'Rapid Response Fund' to support vetted projects in Sudan, Haiti, Nigeria and more.
'For most of the humanitarian projects that we've talked to… sometime this summer, if the funding doesn't come through, the lights will go off and it will be very hard to stand back up,' Rosenbaum said.
'Part of what we're offering for funders is that the fixed cost of standing these projects up has already been taken on by the US government. The staff has already been hired, they're trained, they're in place. The commodities, in many cases, have been procured and are sitting in a warehouse,' Rosenbaum said. 'There's all these efficiencies.
'But the flip side is that the cost of shutting them down is extraordinarily high,' he added, noting that typically it takes years for local organizations to build trust with authorities, leaders and communities.
In Mali, an organization called the Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA) was at risk of shutting down a project that delivers medical care to children under five, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers, as well as providing mobile health clinics to internally displaced people.
'We were forced to suspend activities and reduce activities at different points,' said Carlota Ruiz, the organization's head of grant management, adding that more than half ALIMA's operating budget in Mali had come from USAID. 'One of our main concerns in terms of navigating suspensions or project closures was the risk to our credibility and our relationships with the Ministry of Health and the communities that we work with.'
Weeks ago, the organization was facing the prospect of shutting down vital services, but now a new grant will allow ALIMA to provide 70,000 medical consultations to people in need and treat more than 5,000 children with severe acute malnutrition.
'We had a foundation reach out to us, saying that they were interested in funding our project in Mali, and that they had based this decision in large part on the analysis that the PRO had done,' Ruiz told CNN. 'That was just a huge relief and a breath of fresh air for all of us.'
Meanwhile, in Nigeria, ACF says it is close to securing funding to keep one of its malnutrition projects going, after coordinating with the PRO team.
The funding will go towards procuring more ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF). The timing was 'extremely critical,' according to an ACF staff member on the ground.
'June, July, and August, including part (of) September, are the highest months in Nigeria in terms of malnutrition and food insecurity,' the staff member, who asked not to be named, told CNN. 'So having these supplies in a situation where the (other) funding mechanisms are stalled… will make a big difference in terms of continuity of lifesaving activities.'
But the funding will only go towards that one project. ACF also supports programs in northern Nigeria that provide food assistance, clean water and sanitation, and support hundreds of health clinics.
'It will be very meaningful, and it will be really very useful to ensure continuity of activity and save the lives of thousands of children,' the ACF worker said of the grant about to be finalized. 'But this project cannot address all the other aspects of our work.'
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