One of Bright Hope World's core values is being 'field-driven'.
This means that, where we can, we will avoid anything happening that will be detrimental to our partners. All of our decisions and processes are focused on what will be best for our partners in the field. That sounds simple enough, but it sometimes conflicts with what donors would - quite reasonably - like to do.
In practice, this means we very strictly control donor visits to our partners. These are undertaken rarely, because they can cause real problems for our partners in their communities. We expect our donor partners to not visit field partners without our knowledge, and to only visit with a Bright Hope World team member accompanying them.
We also place tight restrictions on our donors communicating with partners.
If a donor begins to communicate with the field partner, a number of issues start to emerge and, in our observation and experience, the partnership comes under pressure. Where the donor is an organisation and the members of the organisation (such as church attendees) communicate with the field partner, the leadership of the donor organisation and Bright Hope World begin to be cut out of the loop. These issues are even more pronounced when members of a donor organisation communicate with members of a field partner organisation.
Our restrictions on contact and communication are not about control, or even about trust, but rather we are simply trying to protect the work our partners are doing. Cross-cultural relationships can be very complicated and our focus and priority must be the work of our partners amongst the poor.
Therefore, we ask that all communications are 'above the line':
Please do understand, though, that we will do everything we can to provide updated information about what our partners are doing, stories from the field and other information to enable a genuine sense of connection with the work being done amongst the poorest of the poor. We greatly value our donors and we couldn't do what we do without your commitment and generosity!
To understand our thinking on the role of the church in addressing poverty, check out the episode of our podcast 'It Ain't That Simple Mate!' below:
If you want to know something, or you need something we haven't provided, please drop us a line - we want to help as much as we possibly can.
Click here to view or download our Organisation Profile.
