My Nonprofit Reviews
jilseponie13
Review for Foundation for Sustainable Development, Oakland, CA, USA
I am in complete agreement with the mission of FSD, looking for sustainable solutions to community issues based on involved and indepth local needs assesments. This however is a very hard mission to accomplish in the small time frame that FSD allows for its volunteers. You cannot sucessfully create and carry though a sucessful needs assesment and sustainable project in two months (when you enter as an untrained intern). Also the organization, while supporting projects that are locally based and based on the COMMUNITIES needs, is very centralized as an organization not allowing flexability in the local chapters, not acknowledging that like local communities, different countries are different and you can´t stick to the same formula for all of them. The local teams need to have more flexability, or the organization itself does not adhere to its own mission. Over all however, I find the work that FSD VERY important and it does have a strong impact in the areas it works in. The mission and the goal are incredible, there are just a few minor flaws in the exectution which could be improved.
More Feedback
I've personally experienced the results of this organization in...
It has improved the lives of many community members in La Plata, where I worked with the organization. In my personal experience I have seen children on the edge of repeating school years not repeat and gain an enthusiasm to continue studying or even go back to school. I was also involved in a project that brought more doctors to a local neighborhood and improved local medical knowledge and community mobilization.
If I had to make changes to this organization, I would...
Give more flexability to the local site teams, allowing them to access the needs of the local community/program and allowing them to respond to those needs. Less hierarchical rigidity.
What I've enjoyed the most about my experience with this nonprofit is...
The community network that it has created which provides local NGO´s the oppurtunity to network, interlink, and work together. The personel at the local FSD site in Argentina where a charm to work with, provided EXCELENT support both with the internship, in learning about sustainable developement and in adjusting to a new culture.
The kinds of staff and volunteers that I met were...
The personel at the local FSD site in Argentina where a charm to work with, provided EXCELENT support both with the internship, in learning about sustainable developement and in adjusting to a new culture. The volunteers have all been well selected and motivated people, giving alot to the communities that host them.
If this organization had 10 million bucks, it could...
Expand into more sites, in more third world communities.
Ways to make it better...
The organization had been more flexable with parts of my internship.
In my opinion, the biggest challenges facing this organization are...
The specificity of their mission and the dificulty in maintaining and developing programs in the local communities. The job position unfortunately are very specific and when personel turn over it is very hard to replace them, which is very valuable because they value there personal, but is also very difficult because they can´t find people that specifically qualified.
One thing I'd also say is that...
I would also like to see them pay their local host families better, since it is a hard job and a big and very important sacrifice and service that the host families do for the interns. More and better quality host families could be found if the job paid what it was worth.
When was your last experience with this nonprofit?
2009
