My Nonprofit Reviews

As a Board member of IFED, one of the things I most admire about Pat Sullivan, IFED’s President and CEO, is the due diligence process she uses before committing any IFED funds. Pat is a former forensic CPA whose professional career, pre-IFED, included inspecting the financial health of corporate entities. She brings those skills to her analysis of any local non-profit IFED works with. This is critical, because IFED can only succeed in its mission by working with local organizations on the ground who can provide day to day supervision of the use of IFED contributions. In Paraguay, we work with Para La Tierra, in Morocco with Friends of Nomads, in Thailand with Grandma Cares, etc. By using this approach and only working with honest and reliable partners, IFED assures that its donor’s funds are well spent. Also, at her own—and not IFED’s—expense, she visits each major project IFED funds to insure accountability. Anyone who contributes to IFED can be assured that his or her contribution will be used for its stated purpose, and not for overhead or unintended purposes.

I have been fortunate to have been able to work with IFED for more than ten years. In addition to donating, I have traveled to several foreign countries with its President and seen it in action. Nothing can compare with seeing the joy in a child’s face—not from the school supplies or stuffed animal, but just from seeing that someone really cares about them. All of my travel, as well as that of other volunteers, is paid personally and not from IFED funds. Every penny donated to IFED goes to buy supplies and other material. All expenditures made by IFED are researched, documented and verified. IFED, although small, gets more “bang from a buck” than any other organization that I know of.

I have been a supporter of IFED for about 13 years and an active volunteer (since I retired) for the last three. I love two main things about the organization. First, the niche it fills. Larger non-profits or governmental entities provide the physical structures--a school, library or orphanage--and then leave. IFED makes those structures useful, by providing the books, posters, solar panels and batteries to provide electricity and other supplies to make them useful. Second, IFED operates with little overhead and minimum waste by providing materials, rather than money and only working through vetted NGOs on the ground who administer and safeguard the supplies IFED provides. By carefully targeting its projects, keeping its own costs to a minimum (under 5%) and carefully vetting the on the ground managers of its projects, IFED maximized the impact it achieves for every dollar spent.