Samina’s academic focus has been on organization design as the study of how to get things done. This grew out of her background, and her understanding of control and coordination as central to accomplishing important outcomes. Both can be loaded! But the design of the organization – in terms of centralization and decentralization – and the allocation of resources through them is not often clear in organizations. It’s key to know what’s important and what tradeoffs you face, and then to prioritize. Organizations need to understand what they want to achieve and how they are going to succeed through effective marshalling and deployment of resources to get these done.

In reflecting on the ways in which the two organizations succeeded, Samina emphasized organization design principles that were aligned with deep unmet needs among the communities targeted for support. For example, in Belize, the organization prioritized keeping siblings together and took a sophisticated approach to meeting the needs of volunteers. By addressing the consequences of volunteer turnover for child development, the organization was much more effective at achieving its most important aims than might have occurred otherwise.

Working with the government carries its own particular challenges. Why is a donor from the UK able to do things that the government can’t do? The donor saw an unmet need. She saw something that was missing. There are a lot of things that we know can be improved. In this case, the donor saw that siblings were being separated after losing their parents. What she did was aggregating resources. She aggregated resources by crowdsourcing volunteers who were passionate about this using technology. The government has to trust everyone the same way, and doesn’t have the resources to deal with targeted problems in a specialized way that runs against the principles of equity.

Credibility was key to making this work. Belize’s Department of Social Services had several employees who appreciated that keeping siblings together was a major opportunity. Because the Director of the home and the Department of Social Services could work together to achieve the same goal, which is to support these vulnerable children, trust was built. The alignment of the goals for impact between the founder of the Home and someone in the Department of Social Services was the lynchpin for making progress. The Belize government is also contributing financially, which is important for their skin in the game. Showing commitment on each side is very important.