What is your responsibility within Mercy Corps?
NH: I just recently joined the Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness team at Mercy Corps. Before joining the LOE team, I was part of the Program Operations team in the American Headquarters in Portland, Oregon. Both American and European Headquarters have Program Operation teams to support our staff in the field, where there is an operations desk for each region, such as South Asia, Middle East, Balkans, Latin America. Over the past seven years, I’ve served on various desks.

MM: I am the Executive Counselor and leader of the Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness team in Mercy Corps. LOE includes Recruitment and Retention, Leadership Development, University Partnerships, Organization Development, and Human Resources (benefits, compensation, and policy).

How did you first find out Mercy Corps? How did you initially get involved with it?
MM: I knew nothing about it initially. I was in graduate school with Neal Keny-Guyer, our CEO, and when my family and I moved to Portland, and Mercy Corps was undergoing dramatic change, Neal asked me to help by doing some pro bono Organization Development (OD) work from the Portland Headquarters.

NH: I had come from Pakistan, that’s where I’m from, to the University of Oregon to undertake an International Studies Program.  And when you’re doing international studies in Oregon, Mercy Corps is one of the biggest global international development agencies based there – and so there’s no way you’re not going to hear about them. So, I first connected with them as an intern in 2000. I was sent out to the Mercy Corps Pakistan-Afghanistan program on an internship.  I came back and finished my thesis and – the day I was handing in my thesis I got a call from Mercy Corps asking if I’d be available to help with some stuff.

MM: I joined Mercy Corps in 2001. After finishing a couple of the pro bono assignments for Neal, he asked if I would join the team and help with the challenges of growth. Initially, because we wanted to “try it out”, I joined halftime; in three months I came on as a full time employee.

Did you do that in 2001?
MM: I did that in 2000-2001.  There were a couple of assignments he asked me to do.  And I accepted his offer to join the team in 2001. I remember the first meeting with the team – Mark asked: “Well what are you going to change?” And I said, “Whatever you think needs to be changed.” And everybody walked away scratching their heads like “What?” That makes no sense. There was a very small Human Resources Department and had never been an OD person in Mercy Corps before. The team had no idea what to expect! Neither had I, in fact, since my professional experience was primarily in the private sector. I was learning a whole new industry.

So, can you tell me a bit more about Mercy Corps: what your missions are and how you accomplish them?  You talked about desks; how does that work?
MM: Mercy Corps is a global international development agency. Our mission is to alleviate suffering; poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities.

NH: We work in over 35 countries around the world. In each country the focus is based on the needs on the ground.  Wherever we work, we work with local partners. These could be local non-governmental organizations, the government, or the communities with whom we are working.  Our work is community-based. It’s based on the needs in those communities.  In a lot of countries where we work we entered those countries as a result of a calamity, either nature made or man made.  For instance, we started working in the Caucasus and Central Asian countries after the breakdown of the Soviet Union.  And in a lot of the other countries we entered as a result of an earthquake, a tsunami, or another disaster.

MM: Or conflict. Now, we are supporting the people stricken by the violence that broke out in Georgia at the start of August.

Can you tell me more about the crisis in Georgia?
NH: We have been in Georgia since 2000 and our programming is focused on civil society development. This is about bringing all segments of the civil society together – the government, communities, and businesses – and helping them work together to achieve local priorities. We enable communities to come together to identify their common needs and pool their resources to address these needs. 

How do you identify those needs? Do you set a particular project? And then, how do you address those needs?
NH: We visit target communities, explain why we are there and let the community decide whether they are interested in partnering with us to address their common needs. 

What if they were interested?
NH: If they were, we would come and work with them, but our requirements were that they provide a match towards the project that we were doing.  That is share the cost of implementing a project.  For instance, if Mercy Corps is spending $10,000 / £5,000 towards a community development project, such as rehabilitation of a school or health unit, we ask that the community provide 25% of the cost of that project– this engenders community ownership of the project. 

So if they say, “Yes, we want to cooperate with you”, would they actually contribute to the project and come work with you?
NH: Exactly. That’s how it works.  The community either provides direct labor towards the project, or raises funds by going around to the local businesses and collecting money towards buying some of the materials for the project – or they may ask the local government to contribute to the project. Communities are quite ingenious about identifying ways to contribute to local development projects. For instance one community in Georgia convinced the local government to let them use cement blocks from the rubble of a building that had fallen down to help build a new school.

It sounds as if you are not at all intruding, but actually re-enforcing them. 
NH: Yes, and a key focus is to empower community members to identify the issue as well as to then help them identify the solution.  We take this approach so that once we leave there, the community members are able to effect positive change by using their shared resources.  When we went back to some of these communities in central Asia 2-3 years after we’ve left them and we found that a lot of them are still utilizing the tools and methodologies Mercy Corps introduced and are working together towards their common needs [Sustainability Field Study, Georgia Field Study].

Our current programs in Georgia are funded by the EU and managed from our European Headquarters in Scotland. They are focused on the development of agricultural livelihoods. We are enabling rural subsistence farmers to benefit from becoming a part of the agricultural value chains, such as dairy, meat, beekeeping.  For instance, it may be too expensive for a farmer to bring her or his milk X miles to the market – the cost of the bus ticket may be more than the profit he would make. However, if that same farmer was to take milk from several farmers to the market, they could split the cost of the bus fare and make a profit.  We also educate farmers so that their products meet market demands. These are examples of the type of programming we’re doing in Georgia. 

So, what have you been doing in Georgia more recently?
NH: Most recently we were starting a program that would help South Ossetians and Georgian youth to come together. We had just received funding for it from the U.S. government and it started in July of 2008. We had to suspend the program as a result of the ongoing conflict in Georgia. The program will now need to be re-designed.

What sort of action are you taking at the moment?
NH: The conflict started on August 6-7.  We sent folks from headquarters to help our Georgia team respond to the emergency.  Mercy Corps has a Global Emergency Operations Team – GEO whose primary function is to go out and help with emergency situations.  A member of that team, Carol Ward, went out from the UK and is now in Gori together with the Georgian team that we already have on the ground.  Our Regional Program Director for this region, Michael Bowers, is also on the ground. We have thus far distributed food to about 4,000 people displaced by the conflict.  We are starting distribution of non-food items such as hygiene kits, bedding, and other items of immediate needs for people who have lost pretty much everything.  We’ve got an assessment team on the ground designing programs to respond to immediate and longer-term needs of the population affected by the conflict. Even when responding to emergencies, Mercy Corps’ tries to design programs that quickly transition from relief to development. For instance, instead of giving handouts, the idea is to involve people in their own recovery. It’s one of the most terrible things to have lost everything, to have lost your home and now be sitting in a strange shelter, maybe in some school building, with bedding on the floor.  It is therapeutic to get involved in doing something about your situation.  Our cash for work program puts cash in the hands of these displaced families by paying them for tasks related to their own recovery, such as clearing debris; minor rehabilitation of communal water sources, etc.

MM: Najia, can you use the context of Georgia to describe the relationship between our US Headquarters and operations and our European Headquarters?

NH: Right.  So the agricultural development program for instance that I was describing earlier is funded through the European Union.  Mercy Corps’ European headquarters is based in Scotland, where there is a program operations teams working directly with the field in every region where Mercy Corps is based. This team works closely with the field to securing and maintain funding from European institutions, companies and trusts for Mercy Corps’ programs.

This reminds me of some pictures of the aftermath of the tsunami I once saw next to the River Thames, in London. I remember a picture of a little kid, who must have been five years old, and whose school was destroyed. So the picture showed him painting bright blue a chair that was burnt, but still good for use, in a school classroom. The contrast of colors was startling: how can you find the courage to transform destruction into a new life? And maybe somebody, like this organization, has gone to these children and gave them some little reward of food or a vaccination. It’s amazing!
NH: Exactly.  By putting cash in the hands of people who have lost everything we are not only helping them but also the local economy. It allows these displaced families to prioritize their needs and buy those things that they are not receiving through agencies trying to help them. Also, the communities that are hosting the displaced families are often poor themselves and the influx of IDPs can be a burden on these host communities. When these IDPs have money that they can infuse into the local markets, they help the local economy. We also build in some psychosocial programming when responding to emergencies, which could be things like connecting people with their family members that they cannot find—not knowing where the rest of your family is, whether they are dead or alive can be quite stressful – or provide a secure place for kids to play or read in these IDP camps, keeping them safe, and bringing some sense of normality back into their lives. 

Shall we move on to the next question?  I had a question for you, Mignon.  What is the Mercy Enterprises Corporation and what do you do?
MM: The Mercy Enterprise Corporation is Mercy Corps’ microfinance program based in the States. In the United States there’s something called the CDFI, which stands for Community Development Financial Institution. If you set yourself up as a CDFI, then you can qualify for certain kinds of funding.  Mercy Enterprise Corporation is the legal name of the microcredit part of Mercy Corps Northwest. Mercy Corps Northwest does economic development program for refugees, immigrants, and people who fall below the poverty line in Portland and rural Oregon.  Its mission is basically the same mission as the economic development programming in Mercy Corps globally, which is to enable economic self-reliance.  And we do that in a variety of ways, one of them is microcredit lending – (1) which is making small loans to people who want to start small businesses – (2) providing them education and training - how you write a business plan, how you do marketing, set up a business, identify a market, identify suppliers and vendors, set up supply chains, and anything else related to the rudiments of running a small business.  The third piece of Mercy Corps Northwest is something called an IDA – which is an Individual Development Account, which is designed to help poor people build as asset base. While encouraging and rewarding the discipline required saving money. Donors allow us to match the savings accounts by a two or three to one ratio, depending on funding source. For example, if a low-income entrepreneur in the program saves $50.00 a month for 12 months in order to buy an asset required for his or her business, we match it so that at the end of a certain pre-designated period of time, usually a year, the total can be withdrawn and used to develop their business.

Excellent.  That’s very good.
MM: It is very good.  So for instance, if you’re a farmer who doesn’t have the money for tools Mercy Corps Northwest helps you save the money to purchase the tools. Or, it may lend you the money – where you pay interest – to buy the feed, the tools, to buy whatever else is required to set-up the basic business.  Once things are going well, you may decide you need a tractor and you’ve decided you want to buy it with these 10 other farmers who are over here. Then you can set up an IDA and use the money from the savings to buy the tractor.  Or borrow the money with a micro-credit loan. 
Mercy Corps Northwest also works with the Coffee Creek prison that houses incarcerated women.  They teach a class of about 30 women about business, about managing money, about doing a business plan – so that when they go out, they’re better able to support themselves. One of the objectives of the program is to reduce the recidivism rate.

How is the assessment as to who to teach made?
MM: If you are interested in opening a business, there is an opportunity for you to come talk to the Mercy Corps team about your interests. Mercy Corps Northwest uses an application process to ensure a higher probability of sustained involvement. When the women are released from prison, Mercy Corps Northwest continues to provide some additional support.  So it’s a really a wonderful program. 

Another question, what was the most challenging moment of your work in Mercy Corps?
NH: It’s all challenging. You deal with all sorts of things happening from emergencies to development challenges to personnel challenges – but is it a personal challenge for me?  I can’t say which one was the most challenging thing ever.  My new job is a challenge.  I just became a part of Mignon’s team in leadership development and to develop something that would be of value to the organization in leadership development is the latest challenge facing me.

MM: Challenges happen fairly regularly.  But one of them was mobilizing Mercy Corps to respond to the tsunami because it was so huge and we weren’t ready for it.  The emergency was so massive that every organization that was responding to it – it was hugely challenging to find the right people, get them there on time, and figure out how to get the provisions and the help to the people who needed it the most quickly.  Particularly, it was the magnitude of it.  And also to build an internal infrastructure; to be able to handle the money that was coming in, to be able to handle the numbers of donors that were getting involved. That whole thing was a gigantic challenge. 

Sustaining the tone and the spirit of the Mercy Corps as we grow is an ongoing challenge.  When Mercy Corps was pretty small and young organization, like most small start-ups, we were able to make it up as we went along. And the team was small enough that it felt like an intimate family. With the increased numbers of offices in different locations, increases in the variety of donors contributing to our just cause, and with the visibility that comes with successful responses to major disasters like the tsunami comes increased visibility globally.  We are required to rise to a level of excellence and transparency that is beyond scrutiny, so that if anybody looks, what they find is an organization of integrity and pristine principles and practices.

That’s how I found out about Mercy Corps actually.  The Willamette Week ranked it as the best non-profit organization. The main reason for that is the transparency of the way it works and how it allocates its funds.
MM: Yes. And it’s very important. We are visible to the world and need to be transparent about how we operate internally.  A challenge that is also ongoing is related to our commitment to our mission and the people we serve. We pride ourselves on giving nearly 90% of all funding directly to the program, so it’s directly service-oriented. What that means, though, is that we are leanly resourced administratively.

Do you have a lot of volunteers?  How do you manage with such a small proportion of funds?
MM: That’s a great question.  We have people doing multiple jobs.  Our people work long hours, and with great intensity. One of the wonderful things about Mercy Corps is that people feel responsible for the organization.  They feel commitment and ownership for the outcomes of the organization and so we work really hard doing whatever is necessary independent of our position description. So you will see people whose jobs are in HR supporting the team in Resource Development or the folks in the Program department helping out with fundraising. We use volunteers whenever we can.  We use a lot of interns both in our domestic HQ offices and posted overseas in our program offices.  We are not a volunteer organization per se and managing volunteers is not a small thing. We are 100% paid people and use volunteers to supplement and amplify.  And we bring in volunteers to do special projects. 

Perhaps because of our intense commitment to frugality and using resources to serve, the important things usually get done through creative use of scarce resources.  For instance, you know, Najia’s job is 60%.  We are an organization of 3500 people.  475 of us are either in headquarters in Edinburgh or in the United States or expatriots based in our 38 country offices. The rest of our team is comprised of local staff spread around 38 different countries.  Mercy Corps has one person, 60% time who is responsible for leading and coordinating leadership development

We believe leadership development and career paths and coaching are very very important to the future success of Mercy Corps.  How do you do that with a 60% person? Well, one of the ways is to figure out how to share the duties.  Najia is going to design a variety of programs that aren’t dependent on her.  So you build the capacity in the countries.  You share the capacity with local partners.  You find partners in the field.  You figure out how to do it on their resources.  The value in that over the long haul for the agency is that you build the capacity more broadly, rather than centralizing it in a headquarters.  There is a method to the madness and there are lots of advantages to the way we are structured and how flat we are and how lean we are because it forces us to be creative and entrepreneurial.  It forces us to figure out how to get really important things done with very few resources.  But sometimes it does put some strain on people.  So, we have people who live in airports, or who work non-stop to meet our ambitious objectives to alleviate poverty from the face of the earth. 

Do you find the people you recruit are committed?  There might be people who want to lead this kind of life.
MM: They’re committed, they’re smart, they’re good problem solvers and they’re resourceful.

This brings me to my final question. What pieces of advice do you have for students looking to enter the field of human rights?
MM: We are looking for people who have demonstrated interest in international affairs.  And they may have demonstrated interest by studying it, by living overseas, by traveling overseas, some way that indicated it is not just a passing interest, by an enduring commitment that they have made.  It is also helpful to have been in the Peace Corps or another voluntary program overseas– because that’s a measure of your commitment – and it’s also an indicator that you can function in a different environment, that you are reasonably adaptable.  You don’t need to have a master’s degree, but, because the market is pretty competitive, it’s helpful to have a master’s degree in international affairs or something like that.  A technical expertise, whether it’s in economics or in health, or civil society – having some sort of niche where you can say: “I know about this”.  If you come out of agriculture school and you know about foods and you know about sort of non-invasive techniques for increasing crop yields; If you know something about water or have training in generating solutions to the world’s environmental challenges, that is helpful.  It’s helpful if you can position yourself – even if you don’t have advanced degrees – but if there’s something in your life that says: “not only am I interested in international affairs, but hey, I know about agriculture”.  Even if all you did every summer was work on a farm. 

So, we are looking for people who look at the world in a creative and innovative way.  We want people who are sociable and problem solvers and who don’t come into an organization expecting to be taken care of.  And not expecting for there to be great clarity on what’s expected or on their scope of work because everything changes so quickly in our world.  You need to be able to adapt to those changes.  And so if there’s any indication that you are rigid or inflexible or you need a bureaucratic organization that very specifically spells out policies and procedures and practices, this is not the place.  You’ve got to be able to figure things out quickly and not have to ask 12 people:  “Oh, what should I do now?”

To be able to stand on one’s own feet.
MM: Yes.  You also need to be mature and interpersonally skilled and curious about life and curious about other human beings and have some penchant for something.  You must have the ability to feel passionately and to be able to translate passion into action.  So I would tell them students to get internships with international organizations in the field.  Field experience matters.  Also, the ability to finish a project and to manage a project from beginning to end is important.  The ability to communicate effectively and clearly is also important.  Do volunteer work, do internships, get as much experience as possible.

NH: I would agree.  I would say get out there, get into the field, and prove that you can work effectively there.  As Mignon was pointing out, the majority of our staff are national team members and when we deploy expatriats out to the field, it’s based on what they can bring that’s not already there. An expatriat is somebody who is not working in their own country, and our expatriat team members are from a variety of different countries around the world.  For instance, somebody from Afghanistan is working in Indonesia.  The question is what is the added value of deploying a person to a foreign country – it could be for cross-fertilization of ideas, bringing different views and perspectives – bringing new expertise, and management styles.  I mean you have to have something to bring if you’re looking for deployment to another country with Mercy Corps. 

MM: The other advice I would give someone is that humility goes a long way.  Confidence with humility.  Just because you have a master’s degree in business from an elite school or university, it is inadvisable to come in here expecting that we’re going to pay you $125,000 / £62,500 . When you come here you‘re part of the team. So therefore, one of my pieces of advice would be live frugally.  From the moment that you start earning money, figure out a way to save some of it so that you have the latitude to do this kind of work. We don’t pay very much in cash; your rewards for working for Mercy Corps include opportunities to change the planet.

I was reading this article in the Times in England and the concluding phrase was “Frugality is a harsh discipline.”
MM: But it can really make a difference.
NH: It helps our planet, Mother Earth.
MM: Oh, yes that’s true. 

That’s about it.  I have no more questions. Thank you.