My Nonprofit Reviews

Through almost 25 years of steadfast commitment, CRMF has helped a valiant and creative Malagasy nonprofit equip over 25,000 adults to overcome illiteracy and start to solve huge problems in the impoverished communities in and around the Malagasy port city of Tamatave.

Partnering with ONG St. Gabriel since 2000, CRMF has raised the funds needed for free neighborhood literacy classes, and community-led total sanitation through which thousands of people in four communities have learned how to use and maintain safe water and sanitation systems they never had before. CRMF also funded the launch of ONG St. Gabriel's new women's self-help groups, which have grown from 4 to almost 40 involving several hundred women who have leaped from illiteracy to successful entrepreneurship.

I've served on boards of many non-profits. CMRF stands out for its unwavering focus on coherent, integrated community development in a single urban area, guided by a team of people from that city who understand its culture, condition, and obstacles, and believe passionately in its potential. CRMF has not been distracted by funding fads or American assumptions about what should work in Madagascar. CRMF's Executive Director Ginny Wiltse listens to what Malagasy beneficiaries are working to achieve, and the strategies they see as most effective. She and ONG St. Gabriel have been able to respond with great agility to crises like cyclones, pandemics, and coups, never losing sight of the impact of better health, literacy, vocational skills, and encouragement in unlocking the potential of poor people that most of the rest of the world would like to write off.

CAIN is one of the most loving and effective nonprofits I’ve witnessed in over 25 years as a grant writer and/or foundation officer in Southern Ohio. CAIN welcomes neighbors as family and has always found new ways to help them build stability and health.