From Fundraising To Implementation
This World Vision staff working paper examines a persistent organizational development tension: when fundraising logic drives program design, implementation realities and community participation often get squeezed. Using the Louga region program in Senegal as a case study, Voorhies shows that U.S.-based fundraising shaped field operations far more than field learning shaped fundraising. Marketing preferences for concrete, “sellable” outputs (for example, boreholes) created distortions: accelerated timelines, uneven staffing, and mixed signals about local ownership (including donor-name plaques that conflicted with community-led maintenance and long-term sustainability).
At the same time, the research finds Louga’s participation practices were broadly aligned with World Vision’s development policy, even as many fundraisers were largely unaware of that policy or its relevance. The paper closes with practical recommendations that map cleanly to OD priorities: shared strategic planning across functions, better feedback loops, evaluation of fundraising for sustainability, improved reporting systems, and structural adjustments as organizations scale from small community programs to large capital-intensive initiatives.
