**UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT**

**CFBCI PARTNERSHIP CONFERENCE:**

**BREAKOUT: ENGAGING THE PRIVATE SECTOR**

**WELCOME AND MODERATOR:**

STEPHEN JORDAN,

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

BUSINESS CIVIC LEADERSHIP CENTER,

U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

**SPEAKERS:**

BEN KAUFFELD,

SENIOR ADVISOR,

GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE,

USAID

MARI SNYDER,

VICE PRESIDENT,

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT,

MARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL

KEVIN SABA,

REGIONAL DIRECTOR,

GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP CENTER,

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

PATRICK MADDEN

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

SISTER CITIES INTERNATIONAL

**FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2008**

*Transcript by*

*Federal News Service*

*Washington, D.C.*

STEPHEN JORDAN: (In progress) -- and that is actually one of the
signature public-private partnerships that we share with American
chambers all over the world. And just for our records -- for those of
you who aren't familiar with how an American chamber gets set up --
basically, once you get Delta, Marriott and UPS and Citigroup and
McDonald's and Coca-Cola and a bunch of -- and enough of American
companies investing in a country, so that you get about 40 or 50 of
American businesses in a country, they start to want to come together to
create a chamber to deal with whatever the business and political issues
might be related to that country.

So there are about a hundred or so American chambers around the world,
and you can actually tell -- it's almost like an index -- you can tell
what stage folks are in terms of integrating into the global economy
with how many companies are actually a member of an American chamber.
And of course, what happens is that you can also tell how less developed
or how little engagement there is by U.S. business in a country by when
they don't have an American chamber.

And in this case, for example, there are only three American chambers in
all of sub-Saharan Africa. So for someone who believes in wealth
creation and poverty reduction and the development of closer ties
between peoples of one country and peoples of another, my best interest
would be to promote more American chambers in the poorest countries of
the world, because then that would mean that we're creating more growth,
more economic opportunity and contributing to more sustainable relations
and greater interrelationships between our country and the respective
country overseas.

So with that, we have a really excellent group of folks here to talk
about public-private partnerships, but before we get started, I though
that I would kind of turn the tables and ask for four or five volunteers
to share with us why they're here for this session and what you would
like to get out of this session -- before we get started. And I was
wondering if you wouldn't mind -- why are you here in this session and
what would you like to hear? Any volunteers? Go ahead.

Q: I'm representing a couple of technology groups in the aspect of --
(inaudible). We're working on a couple projects in Africa and in the
Caribbean around the aspects of medical -- (inaudible). So one of the
things that we do is help work with hospitals and universities in the
respective countries to build the necessary -- we use the term
technology and medical -- (inaudible) -- to support an overview.

MR. JORDAN: So what would be helpful for you? What would you --

Q: What would be helpful me? We believe in the aspect of developing a
public-private partnership. When working in different countries, we feel
that that's the best way to maintain sustainability of a project and
keep that project going long past a government -- say a government four
years and then gone and maybe another government in. You want to have
the relationship with the government, but you also want to build a
public-private partnership where the community and the corporations to
be involved in the sustainability of a project.

MR. JORDAN: Okay, great. Thank you. What would be helpful for you? Yeah.

Q: The focus of our foundation is humanitarian assistance, and one of
the things -- what actually caused us to be here on today -- is that we
want to find out more information on how to bring in major corporations.
Our focus right now is Ghana/West Africa, so we want to know how we can
partnership with major businesses like the one that I work for, W. L.
Gore, DuPont, different businesses to bring it to those particular
countries that are developing countries, and how to go about doing that
and just find out all the ins and outs and, you know, just different
information. And that's why we're here.

MR. JORDAN: So how to bring in a company that isn't in the country to
that country.

Q: Yes.

MR. JORDAN: Okay, very interesting question. Here and there.

Q: So I'm with Renew LLC. We're coming at it a bit from the other side.
We connect investors in the United States -- working with small or
medium-sized enterprises in developing markets -- that need capital and
expertise to grow. So our model is that we need more leverage, local
relationships, people who know the business community and the
civil-society community on the ground to do sourcing to help with our
due diligence because those are critical to do and there's a lot of the
market-based mechanisms that you would use to do those things in the
States or in developed markets are absent.

So I think that -- (inaudible) -- and NGOs can help us with that, and
then just to build relationships out. We realize that a lot of those
crucial relationships when you do business in Africa -- we're mostly
focused on East Africa right now -- when you do business in East Africa
and places like that you need strong relationships -- local
relationships. So that means engaging not just the private sector.

MR. JORDAN: Excellent.

Q: I'm James Evans, representing the Ann Evans Foundation and the thing
that -- kind of echoing -- (inaudible) -- because we do a lot of
projects over in Africa, and also in the Caribbean islands and what I
would really like to be able to take away from this is how do we garner
information in order to, you know, gain some capital to bring to the
organizations and -- (inaudible) -- to decentralize the establishments
there in the community that will want to bring about socio-economic
stimulation, agriculture and also entrepreneurship right in those
communities. So that's where -- (inaudible) -- in trying to help those
communities there in -- (inaudible) -- and the Caribbean islands, and
not only that but also in our community in California as well.

MR. JORDAN: Okay, great. Is there a particular topic that hasn't been
addressed yet that somebody feels like a burning need to be sure it's on
-- putting that on the table? All right, good. We'll go with that.

All right. With this what I'd like to do is introduce our first
panelist, Ben Kauffeld. And Ben is a good friend of mine and has been
tasked with working with the office of Political Development Alliance at
USAID and they have these wonderful acronyms: Office of Development
Partners for Private-Sector Alliances -- ODP/PSA. (Laughter.) And one of
the tricks is to be able to say that five times fast, right? Before
that, he served as humanitarian assistance program manager and he knows
-- very thoughtful about how to respond to humanitarian crises -- really
worth picking his brains outside of this session about some of his
experiences, in terms of thinking through how to address humanitarian
crises. And besides that he is extremely well-educated, but I think
everyone has his bio so we'll skip that part.

Ben, if you could kind of walk through from GDA's perspective -- kind of
partnerships 101? Would that -- would that be okay? Kind of set the
table for everybody about what do we mean -- I mean besides the fact
that my interpretation of a partnership is you give me money and I do
what I want to do and you go away, right?

BEN KAUFFELD: (Chuckles.)

MR. JORDAN: No?

MR. KAUFFELD: We'll touch on that.

MR. JORDAN: No, but seriously. The way that I understand partnerships,
it really is an idea of folks with complimentary skills going towards a
common goal, but we'd love to kind of get your perspective on what's the
state of play and how are you addressing some of the things that have
been flagged here -- being able to bring resources that aren't currently
in a domestic environment to that environment and connecting that
domestic environment to resources from outside of it.

MR. KAUFFELD: Thanks very much, Stephen. How do you like to run this? Do
we all want to go up to the podium or can I make comments from here?

MR. JORDAN: It'd be -- my hope would be that we could be conversational
and that I could take this off.

MR. KAUFFELD: Great.

MR. JORDAN: And just -- but maybe I can't, so maybe I have to just --
(inaudible).

MR. KAUFFELD: Okay. I'll go ahead or we can pass this mike. Thanks very
much for that introduction. I've been with USAID for about six years;
one year now in Washington but then three in Sri Lanka, two in Kenya
before that. Before I was with AID I worked with the American Red Cross
and the U.N. before that. I worked at a number of disaster-recovery
contexts, conflict environments -- I've worked alongside many different
members of the nongovernmental organization, the faith-based community
and, you know, have a lot of good friends and contacts. So I hope that I
have at least some -- have had some engagement in the environments and
the type of organizations that are represented here. And it's a pleasure
to speak with you.

Let me talk a little bit about why USAID developed a particular focus
and an infrastructure -- an office focused on partnership, and I'll talk
a little bit about what we do and how that works and how organizations
can plug in and learn more about what we're doing. And then I'd like to
just highlight a couple -- I think maybe topical -- topical issues that
I think can be relevant toward the discussion today.

Our office at USAID goes back to 2001, was started under Andrew Natsios
when he was administrator. Some of the -- the founding principle of why
it was thought to start this office I think had to do with some research
and also some self-reflection about engagement from the developed --
let's say from the developed world to the developing world, but
particular from the United States to developing nations, and looking at
-- not only interaction but resource flows, investments and other
activities. And there was an early realization on our part that, while
20 or 30 years ago, USAID and the U.S. government, in terms of official
government assistance, foreign aid -- was really the dominant player --
the dominant actor in providing resources to the developing world.

So there -- you know, a significant amount of foreign aid back then and
less engagement from other partners. But you -- doing an analysis of how
things have developed over the last decade, we came to realize that
there are a great number of diverse actors who are investing and
engaging in the developing world. And we did, you know, we did some
calculations about resource flows and that and we came out that there --
you know, the most significant engagement in the developing world is
from the private sector -- the corporate sector through foreign direct
investment and through other corporate business initiatives.

MR. JORDAN: Ben, excuse me one second. How do you define private-sector?
Which I think is kind of a key --

MR. KAUFFELD: That's a difficult question --

MR. JORDAN: -- but that is including NGOs, right?

MR. KAUFFELD: Yeah, I think the term broadly -- the term broadly
represents the nongovernmental world, but that's a -- I mean, for an
operational use that's too broad. So I think in sort of daily parlance
we distinguish that from let's say the nongovernmental private voluntary
organization, nonprofit world and we utilize private-sector focusing
primarily on the corporate world, but also foundations -- so
philanthropic activity of foundations. But there's also some -- it also
touches on other elements and institutions, including universities,
church groups, as well as the actions of diaspora immigrant communities
that are organized together to send resources to their home, you know,
to their home country.

Anyway, in -- back to what I was saying, I mean the realization of these
different streams of resources, these different engagements, you know,
significant corporate-, private-sector engagement -- we were surprised
to learn that -- we looked at 2005, and of all the resources going from
the United States to the developing world, 25 percent of those resources
were coming from these diaspora immigrant communities in the form of
sending remittances home. Also, significant developments of -- in
engagement from the foundation world -- and you look at the -- like the
gift that Warren Buffet made to the Gates Foundation -- and such a
significant amount of resources.

So -- (inaudible) -- less influential and our resources are somewhat
smaller in comparison to the significant actions of others. We thought
at that point we need to develop a methodology approach to engage with
these different actors. Hence, our office was created to help start
building a stronger understanding about what are the interests and
objectives of the corporate world, the foundation world and some of
these others and specifically to develop mechanisms whereby the U.S.
government can work with those partners, we can leverage our resources
together with their resources, skills and abilities and it can support
the larger developmental goods and activities that we're seeking to do.

Since that time, we have helped to facilitate over 700 partnerships --
distinct partnership over 1700 different partners. So obviously, each
partnership has usually had more than one partner. Often there will be
an international or a regional private-sector company, as well as local
partners. And out of -- this is an estimation, and it's difficult to get
very fine points on some of the figures here -- but kind of rough
figures about a U.S. government contribution of around \$3 billion over
those eight years. We have helped to achieve a leveraging of over \$9
billion from the private-sector to support developmental activities. So
that's about a three-to-one average and that's, as you can see, I mean
that's quite a significant bringing in of other resources to development
challenges.

In the early days, partnering for us was all about engaging with
philanthropy and we were focused on corporate philanthropy, corporate
giving; many people thought that's really the only way that we could
engage. Many good ideas -- a diversity of partnerships came up through
that approach, but we did -- we learned a lesson also that, for good or
for bad, sometimes some of the commitments and engagements around
philanthropy were not sustainable. Perhaps they -- because in some
senses within the corporate world, even within the individual donors --
your giving may vary, you know, based on your priorities this year or
next year or your financial resources this year or next year.

I think the whole -- the non-government charitable world is very
concerned right now about how giving will be reflected from the, you
know, from the global financial crisis. So in the long term, and as we
sought to extend partnerships or replicate partnerships from one country
to another, we realized that we were seeing challenges or perhaps it was
not the most effective a way to just focus on philanthropy. At the same
time, we also started to realize the tremendous development impact that
was coming out when we were working in tandem with the business world
around issues that represented their core business interests and
objectives.

And let me just give one illustration of that. We have a number of
partnerships with Coca-Cola, you know, one of the world's biggest brands
-- if not the number one recognizable brand in the world -- they require
tremendous amounts of water to produce their product. I think it
requires about three liters of water to produce a liter of Coca-Cola.
They've told us in discussions over time that, in about 30 percent of
the countries where they produce Coca-Cola, within the next 20 years
they won't have -- there will not be adequate supplies of clean water to
produce their product. Now, as you can imagine, Coca-Cola has a
corporate and strategic interest in maintaining that business and even
growing that business over time, and they're not going to easily allow
30 percent of their development or sales to just drop off.

So it's clear, I mean it's understandable from our side that they picked
up supporting clean water initiatives as an activity -- as a development
activity that not only serves a public good, but represents a core
business objective for them. And we have in fact done -- developed a
number of partnerships in many different companies together working on
water issues. You're standing up -- am I out of time?

MR. JORDAN: Yes, you are.

MR. KAUFFELD: Okay.

MR. JORDAN: But go, no -- you know, get to --

MR. KAUFFELD: Okay, just very quick -- one minute -- just a couple
points maybe, and things will come back around. I wanted to stress that
engaging in partnership for you at the areas that you work -- it can be
a -- it's not perhaps an activity that -- don't think of it as an
activity but think of it as a possible methodology that may help you
achieve greater success, efficiencies, effectiveness. Look to who are
the potential private-sector actors that care about the issues that
you're involved in, not necessarily because they're good humanitarians
or good people, but because it's in some way impacting their business
practices, and that's where you're going to really get them to engage
and stay engaged.

And then the last comment perhaps I would say is don't always think that
the only thing you could get from a relationship or partnership with the
private sector is cash, because businesses have tremendous capabilities,
skills, technologies, resources, corporate volunteer interests -- so
think about some of the other types of leveraging that a private-sector
company could bring other than just, you know, a cash contribution.
Thanks.

MR. JORDAN: Okay, thanks, Ben. Now I'd like to introduce Mari Snyder.
Mari is the vice president of Social Responsibility and Community
Engagement at Marriott International. And I've known Mari for a long
time as well and, again, as someone who's very competent about these
issues and definitely, I think, over the course of our conversations --
(inaudible) -- about it going from a philanthropic orientation towards
more of a how do you see the social and economic benefits together,
right?

Well, let me just say this. She has a wide-ranging portfolio and a lot
of responsibilities, both foreign and domestic. She joined Marriott in
1999 as director of -- (inaudible) -- public relations and before that
she worked for M&M Mars for nine years and she's a graduate of St.
Bonaventure University. Please welcome Mari Snyder.

(Applause.)

MARI SNYDER: Thanks, Steve, and thanks everyone for being here. I'm
thrilled to be amongst you this afternoon. Steve actually brought up a
good point in that we're evolving, and our conversations have evolved
and I think companies are evolving and a couple of the initiatives that
I'm going to share with you today kind of show, I think, that we as
corporate entities are all probably in our process of evolving to where
Ben just said, where we might have grown up with philanthropy over the
last two, three decades. But we're now into sustainability and how we
can work with different sectors to really achieve both our business
objectives as well as address community needs, so that these are ongoing
and ever-repeating cycles and all working towards the improvement of
communities over all.

I thought it might be helpful to give you an overview of Marriott, but
I'm going to try and give this presentation in terms of the corporate
community overall. Marriott is a company, started in the '20s, with
revenues of over \$13 billion a year, which has 3,000 hotels in about 70
countries around the world. I heard a lot of you say that you do a lot
of work in Africa; we are interested and anxious to be in Africa
someday, but at 70 countries it always is surprising to me that we
aren't quite there yet. But I think that there's a lot of learning that
I can share in the particular way of maybe going into a country.

We, as a company, work on the business model that we are a hospitality
management company, which means when you are in a Marriott hotel, it is
owned by someone other than Marriott and it is managed either by us or
by a franchisee that is operating it under Marriott's quality and brand
standards. So know that sometimes when you're approaching our hotels or
our corporate entity, we are looking at a very complex group of partners
that we are bringing to the table. And if you are approaching a Marriott
hotel there's a 50-50 chance that you're going to be approaching a
franchisee -- another operating company that might have different
objectives in the community.

But for the most part we're in the hospitality industry and we're
working toward sustainable issues. We're fairly aligned, and I think one
of the things that I think our company is most proud of is that we
brought our franchisees into the community of sustainability, so many of
them have not only adopted our issues but our partners as well. So
something to keep in mind if you're approaching companies that franchise
operations.

Like Steve said and Ben mentioned, we've started from philanthropy --
the family were great philanthropists and continue to this day. We, as a
company, are very much like the pharmaceutical industry in that what we
have to share with the community is often in-kind, so sometimes space or
discounts, you know, meetings or galas are sometimes asked for and,
depending on occupancy and availability, we are often able to give that.
We also have 300,000 associates around the world. One hundred and fifty
thousand of those are on our payroll and 150,000 of those are franchise
associates who work for our owners.

But to Ben's point -- we're working more and more towards sustainable
issues. One of the things that we do to kind of pull through our social
responsibility issues is we work on a lot of different levels. People
are often asking are you a centralized company or a decentralized
company, and I always say both, which is probably the answer that you're
going here from most major Fortune 500 companies. We -- and I have a
very small but very mighty team on the global front -- there are seven
of us and half of us are part-time. We set the corporate strategy based
upon the corporate's key business objectives and the issues that we feel
we are best in the position to be able to address. What are the
strengths, the assets, the talents of our people that can address issues
that are inherent to our business? Where is our expertise and how are we
able to share that with our communities?

Given that we have 3,000 locations, though, we really rely on those
general managers, who are the leaders in their communities. They're
basically mayors of little cities 24 hours, seven days, 365 days a year,
round-the-clock, working with lots of different cultures; our associates
speak about 50 different languages. So we work for them to pull through
our programs and oftentimes it is the general manager and staff that
either have the skill set or the passion to really work their community
partners, and they do it quite well. As a matter of fact I was in Kauai,
Hawaii, last week -- not a bad destination to visit right now -- and
please do so, because Hawaii could really use your business -- I was
there and they do a phenomenal job working within the hotels, within
that market -- about five or six of them on the island of Hawaii alone,
working collaboratively to really impact the issues that we try and
address.

We also, though, have a mid-tier level, and I think most companies have
to. Ours is what we call business councils, and so it's our business
managers in 74 key markets that work together on major issues affecting
government, community -- actually one of the things that we work on are
major customer events that can benefit the whole market, as well as our
own culture of our company, which is very significant for Marriott to be
carried through.

So let me go down to the CSR agenda. We actually, a couple of years ago,
you know -- Marriott has a spirit to serve culture and if you are in
your next Marriott, Renaissance or one of the other 18 brands that we
operate, including Ritz-Carlton, if you open the drawer next to your bed
you'll see Mr. Marriott's book called "Spirit to Serve." We use that to
kind of address the fact that we're a great employer and want to
continue to be a great one -- so a spirit to serve our associates. We
want your business, so spirit to serve our guests -- that kind of
addresses our customer-service culture.

And we branded ours, spirit to serve our communities. We use the word
"serve" because it's so inherent to our business because we want to
provide focus, as we evolve from philanthropy to more sustainable
issues, to our general managers and to all of our associates. Even
though it might be translated into different languages, everyone gets
"Spirit to Serve." You can hear it said in lots of different languages,
and even if they don't speak English, they will say spirit to serve.

So we look at the word "serve" and we address what we feel we can bring
to the community through meeting business objectives and community
needs. Serve stands for shelter and food, E stands for environment, R is
readiness for work -- readiness for work -- you know, when you have
300,000 people either working for you on your payroll or under your
payroll, you need a labor pool around the world. And right now we all
know that a skilled, talented and prepared labor pool is a very big
challenge. And now we've got a financial crisis, so we've got more and
more people kind of looking for work and needing more and more hours and
more and more opportunities.

Vitality of children -- we've got long-term partnerships on providing
aid to children in different ways around the world. And the last is
embracing diversity and people with disabilities. As an employer in
particular we have an industry that can really benefit from people with
disabilities working in our hotel. And around the world, actually -- I
see my little cue -- around the world, actually, we I think as a company
helped address the cultural aspects of people with disabilities and I
think it brought value and understanding to some cultures who might not
embrace people with disabilities, who see what they can bring and how
fulfilling a self-sustainable lifestyle where people go to work and can
be employed and provide -- build their own independent ties.

So -- (inaudible, chuckles) -- a couple of things -- I'm sure it'll come
back around. I think the things that I'll say -- it's an important point
-- and then I'll reinforce over questions. Doing a little bit of
research about the company that you're approaching or the industry that
they're in to know what are the issues that are important to them that
can help them build their business over time in the collaborations that
they're building today and those that they're looking to build tomorrow
is really, really important.

And, quite frankly, when we get so many calls from so many different
organizations -- either big ones, small ones, some operating only in one
country or some operating around the world -- it really does matter.
It's a helpful breakthrough, because it shows that you're really serious
and it shows that you know a little about being -- to know that you've
self-qualified yourself, because I think we probably get at least 15
calls -- and that's only in the corporate office, that's not in the
hotels obviously -- and that's per day.

Simple and scalable. Our hotel general managers have so much going on --
the simpler the program, the better off. And we look for scalable
programs, so not just one hotel, but can you work with other hotels, can
you work with other regions so that we can build and address an issue in
a holistic manner. And we're doing that in Brazil through our
carbon-offsetting program and our work in preserving the rainforest.
We're doing that in terms of -- (inaudible) -- franchise for vulnerable
youth who need employment opportunities and -- I'll leave the rest for
question and answer. Thanks so much for your time.

MR. JORDAN: Yeah, Mari, I mean how many proposals from private volunteer
organizations and nonprofit organizations would you estimate you get in
a year?

MS. SNYDER: Well -- (chuckles) -- really hard to address. I would say on
a corporate level -- like I said, I think we're getting about 15 phone
calls and probably about on average, maybe 20 letters a day. And it can
be that someone who might have sent -- might be looking for something
for, you know, Omaha, Nebraska, and obviously they sent something in to
corporate, and that's really something we would see more going towards
the hotel or group of hotels in a particular city. You know, and really
to be honest with you the hotels are getting multiple requests -- they
actually get the larger volume of -- because they're asked -- they're
being requested to give in-kind services, and you can kind of see why
that's probably the case.

MR. JORDAN: Yeah, I mean just so you know, one of the difficulties for
an individual company is that it is an individual company. Even the
largest companies out there have relatively few -- small levels of
resources when you consider it -- divide it by 365 days a year, divided
across all of the locations where they are. And the average number of
requests that the average company gets that -- as we see it's about five
or 6,000 requests a year for assistance. So there's an awful lot of
competition for her scarce resources. So one of the things that Mari is
saying about doing the research and pre-qualifying ahead of time -- I
think that if you fit within that serve framework that she laid out,
your chances are probably a lot higher than like a cold call or
something outside of that framework.

But also, kind of making the connection between the social service that
you have and the company is very important. For example, skills
development. When Mari was talking about having people speak 50
different languages, that could be in one hotel. I mean, what she said
about -- a very good friend of mine named Dennis Quigley (ph) was the
head of the hotel -- the Marriott hotel in Guatemala City, and said it
really was like being a mayor because you've got all kinds of different
social and personal issues coming at you all the time with something
like this. So a culinary institute -- here in D.C., Robert Egger's got
the Central Kitchen where they talk folks and teach them valuable skills
and then place them with the hotels -- things that create a skill and a
create a business benefit -- those are kind of in that sweet spot of
making that social and economic connection very closely. So anyway,
sorry to editorialize off of your --

MS. SNYDER: Oh, no.

MR. JORDAN: Anything else you wanted to add on that?

MS. SNYDER: No, actually we work with DC Central Kitchen under the
shelter and food idea because it helps provide food for the immediate
need of the hungry today but it is also building skills that -- for
culinary training that we could potentially hire or that others in the
community could, because we depend so much on other suppliers, business
partners, et cetera, for the overall sustainability of our business and
what we do.

MR. JORDAN: (Inaudible) -- about what you do to get Marriott interested
in a place that they aren't already. Okay? But I want to turn to Patrick
Madden. Patrick is the executive director of Sister Cities
International, and Sister Cities is a powerful citizen diplomacy network
with 700 U.S. members and more than 2500 partnering communities in 134
countries, and I think this is such a powerful model. One of the things
that we've started thinking about is how do we take a chamber in the
United States and partner with a chamber overseas, and creating kind of
those dual relationships, I think would work for a lot of different
organizations as well.

Before assuming the executive position at Sister Cities, Kevin was the
vice president of external affairs and the publisher of Inside Arts
magazine at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. He's also an
adjunct faculty member at George Mason University and -- where he
teaches a graduate seminar on fundraising. And he also teaches a
quarterly workshop on fundraising to corporate executives preparing to
join nonprofit boards. We're going to have to talk after this --
(laughter). You know, with that, please welcome Kevin -- I'm sorry,
Patrick.

(Applause.)

I'm sorry I called you Kevin. One of the -- (inaudible) -- sorry about
that.

PATRICK MADDEN: I've been called worse.

MR. JORDAN: Yeah -- (inaudible).

MR. MADDEN: Well, I'm back -- for those of you who didn't catch me in
the morning session. This is -- I love the analogy of the mayor, because
that's the life that we live at Sister Cities. And as I said this
morning, we're really an organization that lives and breathes
partnerships, and partnerships -- as you'll see in a second -- we don't
necessarily align with money, but it's the connecting factor. And you
can sort of figure out which dot you are here on this slide, but in our
model we see bringing different groups of people, different resources
together and that becomes a very powerful tool for us.

So again, this was mentioned -- I think it's important to reiterate:
Partnership is not code for money, you know, there are lots of different
things that people and organizations can bring to the table beyond
money. And what I'm going to focus on in terms of navigating
partnerships is what we see at Sister Cities International between the
intersection of public-private partnerships and where our local programs
do, because many of the them struggle a bit, to be honest, that navigate
both local partnerships and then has a partner abroad, as I'm sure many
of you do.

So our recommendation is before you get into a partnership you reflect
on it, you decide and then move forward with everybody onboard. And to
me, there are four sort of key areas that you want to focus on when
you're partnering: the relationships, the knowledge the partners are
bringing, communications and expectations. So I'm just going to sort of
highlight a few of these. On the relationships side I think it's really
important to realize who's driving and are you among equals; usually in
a partnership not everybody is bringing the exact same skill set, money
and resources to the table. And who is driving the partnership? There
might be a big NGO and some small NGOs, it might be a corporation or an
RFP that's come out that's driving it, so really analyzing that and
figuring out where the strengths are, who's in charge and making sure
everyone understands their role in the partnership.

And then related to that is the knowledge, what strengths that you're
bringing and what everybody else is bringing, because not everyone might
agree on what your strength is of your organization or one of your
partnering organizations. And I'll give you an example of that in just a
minute. On the communications front, this is something I have seen time
and time again personally -- and, again, I'll give you an example in
just a minute -- but it is -- I do not believe it is possible to
over-communicate when you're dealing with -- (inaudible) --
sponsorships. The more informed people are, the better off your
partnership will be.

And the thing that I think often we forget in partnerships -- if you're
sort of leading the charge -- is, how does the situation change? Every
partnership evolves, you might start off with a certain set of
circumstances on the ground in a country or in a community and something
happens -- a political shift, a money shift, whatever it is -- and does
everybody who's involved in that know about the shift in a timely
fashion? So communication is really vital.

And then the expectations: We heard a little of this from the speakers
this morning -- setting goals, articulating what you want to get out of
a project -- and that's really all of the partners, not just you in your
mind -- I know what I'm going to get out of this, you know, a check from
X, Y, Z -- but really, what are going to be the outcomes. And I was
going to say look in the mirror, because sometimes you might fall down
on the way and it's important to admit that and then you get up and
admit that to your other partners and say okay, here's how we need to
adjust and then you move forward.

So what does this look like? And I'm going to give you an example of
actually a program we're in right now. It's a clean-water project that
we're working on with Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, and so in this --
they have a major clean-water initiative and a -- the Safe Drinking
Water Initiative is what it's formally called -- and we got a grant from
them this summer, and so the partners -- let's see -- are us; P&G as the
funder; the Denver sister city, Kansas sister city and Atlanta sister
city programs; their three African sister cities and then population
services, which is on the ground -- one of P&G's partners for what they
do in Africa.

So it's a lot of folks to juggle and it's been an interesting experience
for us, and our role in this is we receive the grant, we administer the
grant and help oversee and manage it, but the work happens -- I like to
joke that -- Sister Cities is with many other institutions in Washington
-- nothing happens in Washington, everything happens out at a local
level. So we are helping them navigate the process, but the actual work
-- the exchanges, the program, the public-education campaigns and so
forth -- are happening by the local sister city programs.

So they bring -- so here are some of the bumps in the road five months
into it. The baggage -- we have baggage from every angle, really, I
should say. Some of our sister cities in the local level -- some of them
are health officials in their local government, they've been involved in
water projects with their sister city for years and they have an opinion
of what, you know, the water solution might be in their African sister
city, and in some cases our sister cities are on long-term projects with
their sister city. So here this grant has come up, where it's an
opportunity to have an immediate solution, and so they have a certain
opinion about maybe how it should be executed.

Well, as you can imagine, P&G has a vision for how it might be executed.
So navigating those relationships, because from our standpoint,
obviously, we want all three cities to be doing the same thing so we can
monitor, evaluate it, see its success and so forth. And of course from
our perspective, go back to P&G, show them how successful it was and
then expand it to a broader group in our network. So everyone brings
sort of baggage to the table. They were -- local sister cities were
telling us well, we should do it this way, and then of course P&G says
well, we have PSI on the ground in Africa and this is what they tell us.
And then when we call a PSI, they said well actually, you know, we don't
tell P&G this, but here's how it's really working in the country, which
is kind of an interesting -- (laughter) -- situation to be in because we
have to balance that information with how we share it with P&G.

So, you know, we have to realize this is part of the knowledge that
everyone brings to a partnership. And the roles and expectations,
obviously -- the communications piece of it -- has been critical, we
make all of our sister cities create plans -- exactly what you're going
to do. But as I mentioned before, it's not a cookie-cutter, every city's
going to do exactly the same thing. We're all accomplishing the same
goal of distributing these -- these what are clean water satchels to the
communities to produce clean water. However, how they do it going to be
very different. In one community, they're focusing on schools and public
education through the schools. Another one they're working through
clinics and healthcare providers, doctors and so forth.

So we have to navigate that -- communicate that, because from P&G's
perspective, we should just tell them what to do and then all three will
do it. But that's, again -- our network is very grassroots based, very
organic, and we want them to respond to what's happening on the ground
because, in the end, we're looking at, of course the local programs in
Africa taking ownership of it and continuing the project after the
grant's over.

And then I think -- (inaudible)-- of space is good on the relationships
front, I think it's important to make sure you're navigating -- when you
decide who's driving the grant -- in this case, we're driving this grant
-- we communicate with PSI, we communicate with our local sister cities,
our local sister cities communicate with their African sister cities and
we are sort of the gatekeeper for P&G because we're there to navigate
and work on the administrative stuff and we do have some feedback from
local members who say well P&G should go call PSI and tell them we need
da, da, da, because that's what they should do. Well, that's not how
it's going to work. So making sure of everyone's role is important in
this.

So I wanted just to sort of finish here --

MR. JORDAN: Thanks. It's exactly time, excellent.

MR. MADDEN: All right.

MR. JORDAN: Good time.

MR. MADDEN: Just one other point -- with our programs, and I mentioned
this morning -- because we have long-term relationships with these
cities, as you're well aware, grants come and go, and the way we try to
position these kinds of projects -- these short-term projects -- is
putting them in a larger context. And that's a challenge as you look at
partnerships -- is how can you do that? Because in the end you want the
ownership at the local level, you're building capacity and expertise for
those organizations so that they can continue it on whether we're there
or our money is there.

MR. JORDAN: Well, thank you very much, Patrick. Appreciate it. All
right, our next presenter and last one, because I want to circle back
and get some more feedback from you and be sure that we're answering
your questions here, is Kevin -- do you pronounce it Saba or Saba?

KEVIN SABA: Saba.

MR. JORDAN: Kevin Saba. And he comes to us from the Global Partnership
Center at the Department of State, or in government-speak, GPC at DOS.
The GPC facilitates strategic alliances between business, government and
civil-society, recognizing that goals of sustainable development can at
times be better served through multi-sector partnerships. Kevin began
his career in the private sector; he served for over 20 years in a
number of senior-level management positions, most recently as president
of finance and risk-management concern.

And, you know, actually, despite the embarrassment of not being able to
pronounce his last name accurately, Kevin and I have actually know each
other for quite a bit of time because he's involved with a very
interesting project at the Department of State in terms of standing up
the partnership center there. And one of the reasons why I thought that
he would be an excellent choice for our last set of remarks today is
because the State Department really is thinking, you know, about the
state-to-state relationships, the policy goals, the dynamic, the
multi-stakeholder elements involved in this. And I thought that you
know, talking about the micro-partnerships is very important, but it's
also important to get a sense of the larger context.

I think almost all of us really are doing what we're doing not just
because we want to see that particular house get that particular
mosquito net or that particular family develop an income stream or
something, but we're doing it because we want to see large changes take
place. And so, Kevin, not to put too much on you, but really would
appreciate you're -- the kind of the bigger-picture perspective of where
you see this space going.

MR. SABA: Great. Thanks Steve, and thanks to USAID for hosting this
conference and thanks to all of you for sticking around on a nice Friday
afternoon with gorgeous weather -- I think it's 75 degrees outside. And
thanks to -- also to Patrick for standing up, because I bent over to
whisper in Steve's ear a little while ago that I was going to stand,
before Patrick stood up and -- I didn't want anybody to think I was
necessarily the unranked boor who needed to be different, but I ate
lunch just before this session and it is just sitting here on the rocks
-- (laughter) -- so I thought it'd be better just to stand up.

MR. JORDAN: Yes, we believe in full disclosure here. (Chuckles.)

MR. SABA: I'm going to talk about three things. First, a brief overview
in trends of resource flows and what the Department of State has done to
try to respond to that. Second, we speak a little bit about the general
characteristics that we see as inherent to a strong partnership. And
then third, talk a little bit about the attributes or strengths and
weaknesses as we perceive them in terms of dealing with the Department
of State in partnership initiatives.

I think maybe to start off -- I think Ben early on referred to a study
that was done by USAID in 2007. It was based on 2005 data, and at that
time, of a \$164 billion in resource flows going overseas, about 83
percent of that money was coming from the non-government sector -- the
private sector in the most broad definition of the term, leaving about
17 percent coming from the traditional government source. So it was
clear that if the Department of State wanted to be relevant, we needed
to capitalize on the opportunity and work with the private sector to a
greater degree than we had in the past. Not only is it an opportunity
but it almost -- we viewed it almost as a requirement to be relevant.

There's three -- as a consequence, the Department of State created what
Steve described as the Global Partnership Center in December of last
year. And it was an outgrowth of the secretary's retreat on
transformational diplomacy -- one of the ideas that came out of there --
that retreat. We set three basic functions, and if I could distill those
for you. The first would be to serve as both an internal and external
resource for a post -- and posts mean our embassies overseas -- and
partners to assist in partnership building. So actually get into the
operational element of facilitating partnership building.

Secondly, to serve as an honest broker to direct and facilitate the
formation of partnerships by coordinating contacts both internally and
externally with to the degree possible within the State Department. And
then third, to facilitate collaboration amongst the -- what we call the
interagency -- the interagency including the State Department, USAID,
Commerce, U.S. TPA, OPIC, MCC and a number of other players on the
government side that are in this business of partnership promotion --
try to facilitate coordination amongst those entities to leverage all of
the good work that's being done individually by them.

Some of the general characteristics that we think are inherent to strong
partnerships -- we call them the core principles. And I think some of
this will be redundant -- I think the term equity was used -- that's one
of our core principles. Equity, because it leads to respect amongst the
partners. That doesn't mean dollar for dollar, but equity based on some
equal contribution relative to your ability to perform within a
partnership.

We look for transparency because it leads to trust. We look for mutual
benefit because it leads to sustainability, we look for shared risk and
reward in the partnerships, and we look to achieve a result that on the
whole, would be greater than a result achieved individually by
individual members. So it's, I think, somewhat redundant on what's been
said already, but these are the kinds of the elements we look for in
terms of a strong partnership, without simply looking at a partnership
where one party's writing a check and the other party's performing.

I think Steve earlier talked about identifying shared interests and
working off of those shared interests. We also, when looking at partners
and partnerships, we look at, is there a process in place? And a process
beyond, you know, the check writing. And we've kind of distilled the
three main steps: There's an exploration phase, a building phase and a
partnership-maintenance phase. And in the exploration phase, we're
really trying to think about the shared vision that each of the partners
brings to the table. Identifying parameters for the partnership -- have
you identified all of the partners that could be a part of this
partnership or are there others that could be looked at? And then
mapping those resources and competencies is part of the overall
expiration of, does a partnership make sense?

Then the second step is building, identifying the strategic interests,
generating an agreement, could be informal, formal. And then building a
capacity of implement. You've got a great idea, but the capacity to
implement it. Do you have all the partners you need to do that? And then
the third phase that we would look for in looking at partnerships is the
maintenance piece. Do you have a way to monitor, implement and monitor
performance? Is there an ability to amend the agreement as necessary?
You know, DOD is famous for creating plans, but as soon as the first
shot is fired in battle, they have to throw the plans out and improvise.
Same with partnerships. There's no partnership that I've yet seen that's
gotten exactly right from the get-go. Is it already built into that
partnership so you can react to changing conditions?

And then finally, is there an exit strategy to terminate the
partnership? I think -- and through all that, you really need to focus
on results, and not to sound too much like a private sector, but I
realized it's kind of where I came from. It's all about results, and
when we look at partnerships, we really need to focus more on the
solution, rather than the problem. You pick all of -- (inaudible) --
very good understanding of the problem and then come up with very
general solutions. Let's be specific on the problems and let's try to be
specific with the solutions and be able to monitor and track performance
of those.

In terms of the strengths and weaknesses in partnering with the State
Department, I think a fundamental strength is the ability under the
authority of our ambassadors to convene. The convening authority of our
ambassadors, and that's within a country. They have the ability to tap
into an in-country network that's already established, they have the
ability to raise awareness of the issues to a very high degree, they
have access to information and expertise which is quite incredible and
they have existing relationships which are very often broad and
extensive. So those are very, very powerful reasons to try to bring the
ambassador into the equation, in terms of partnerships.

Some of the things we look at is key. Atrophy of strengths --
(inaudible) -- is attracted to the State Department. Am I running long?

MR. JORDAN: You've got -- please, take your time.

MR. SABA: All right. Anything is fine. I'll wrap up very quickly, but
there's a few main things that we look for in terms of what makes a
partnership grow. And one of those is -- and why they're attracted to
the State Department. We've talked about the leverage flows, the
opportunity to identify additional funding or expertise to address State
Department strategic objectives, as well as the mission of the partners
I think is fundamental. There's an opportunity, we think, about our
national security interest, but not in the appearance of conditional
aid. It enhances the credibility of the claim that what benefits the
program will go to the people it's supposed to benefit if they're part
of the end solution, if they're actually partners to the process.

It reinforces the principle of country ownership. It's a principle
that's increasingly recognized as key to sustained development. It also
creates, potentially, an opportunity for the funds to flow in a more
efficient manner. As opposed to having to bill government-to-government,
it could be from private sector to NGO. Promotes creativity, innovation
and risk-taking by reducing administrative burden.

Administrative, administration by bureaucrats -- bureaucrats aren't real
good at looking at risk and innovation. Private-sector partners can
bring a lot more to the table in terms of that. And we look at it as an
opportunity to supplement existing aid programs and help build bridges
of trust between countries. So they're very attractive from the State
Department's perspective. The weaknesses, I think, are very clear,
probably, already to you, in terms of when we look at government.

MR. JORDAN: Great.

MR. SABA: We're not nimble, we have rigid processes and I'd love to hear
from you in terms of your perceptions of strengths and weaknesses as
well. Thank you.

MR. JORDAN: Thanks, Kevin, very much.

(Applause.)

All right. I want to take the prerogative here to ask each of you this
question: I want you all to put yourselves in the position of the head
of a faith-based, private, voluntary organization based in Kigali,
Rwanda. And you're sitting there, and you want to help -- you have a
mission of poverty reduction, wealth creation, and you want to figure
out how to work with companies either in-country or get companies from
outside of the country, or other resources to come and partner with you
to fulfill this mission. Very briefly, what would you do if you were the
executive director? And just go on down the line with this.

MR. SABA: Well, just based on my talk, I'd make sure to reach out to the
ambassador. Actually, if I were looking to enter a new market, which is
essentially --

MR. KAUFFELD: Yeah, I'm the head of the faith-based office, yeah. Go
ahead.

MR. SABA: Essentially what you're talking about, I'd look at who are the
existing players that are already in that market, I'd make sure I'd
identified them as clearly as possible. I'd reach out and talk to them,
and that would probably be the first step to see in terms of what
direction I might go from there. In terms of monopolizing the answer,
I'd --

MR. KAUFFELD: Go ahead, pass on me. If I was in that position, I would
want to be, to want to be very clear about what's my mandate as an
organization but also, what's our strategy or we're trying to achieve
there, and try to understand the problem we're trying to address in
engaging this community. And what I'd like to suggest is, I would like
to try to think about what may be transformative solutions to that
rather than an aid-focused, a band-aid, a patch, a quick fix. But, you
know, if the issues are poverty, if the issues are jobs, if they issues
are education, who could I partner with, who could my organization work
with to present solutions that would transform the equation that is
affecting the people in that community.

MR. MADDEN: I would say on that sort of theme, a variation on that,
would be to initially probably look for maybe a single partner or two
partners that could help you effectively achieve that transformational
wand and then scale it up, versus trying to attack everything at once.
Give us success, we'll attract others to what you're doing.

MS. SNYDER: I would research the organization -- (inaudible). You need
to go on the corporate level of some location, or if there are local
operations, I would always start with the local, to be quite honest,
because I think they're the best educators within the region that you
operate within. And then I think, also really knowing your own
objectives and what you really need. As an example, on the volunteerism
front, if you wanted to get involved with -- I mean, some article said
to address, what's the real need? So let me go there. Like I said
before, you need a labor pool that's trained and skilled. We know how to
train people in hospitality, so, you know, if you have a labor pool that
you can bet and help us qualify and work together on that, that might be
very helpful, especially in a market like Africa, where we might not
have an awful lot of experience yet.

The other thing is knowing the assets that the potential partners could
bring. As an example, say you want to look at a volunteer effort, and
you need a lot of hands and legs to do something. Build housing, say.
You know, look at the -- I mean, I have a big labor force. But they're
going to be, it's going to be a lot of in-kind volunteers, because 85
percent of our all-new staff are hourlies. If you want money to come
from those individuals, then you might want to look at, like, a KBNG
office, for lack of a better example, or somebody that has a lot of
partners, lawyers, et cetera. So I think knowing the asset that you need
to really empower your program is really helpful. And just to answer
that question about, you know, how -- as a company, we really feel that
the philosophy of partnership is that we should have someone on the
ground in that market.

We don't necessarily do an awful lot of fundraising, partnerships,
public-private partnerships in countries that we do not yet have
operations in. That being said, I think as we -- you know, we're looking
at, we're expecting that in the next year or two we'll be in Ghana.
That's probably a country that I would expect to get a letter from on
the corporate level. Please don't taunt me. Look into your research, but
if you have a program, that's one. Now, if it's a new market in, like,
Poland, you know, corporate is not the way to go. But Africa will be new
for this company, so we'll probably try to help address it on a
corporate scale.

But we're not -- that's basically the only country that we're at. So
anything -- we're probably a little too early. And I think many
companies are like that. There are a lot of times that we get approached
by international or internationally-located NGOs about fundraising
opportunities. Look into your research to see if that's something that
the companies do, and address that question really quickly, because it's
very clear if companies believe in that or not. We're not necessarily
one that does an awful lot of that.

MR. JORDAN: Mari, I got to tell you something. I'm going to play the
role of Steven Jordan, executive director of a group in Kigali.

MS. SNYDER: Great.

MR. JORDAN: This is the land of a thousand hills, and I really, really,
really want to create conditions to make Marriot want to put in a hotel
in Kigali in three years. What have I got to do? How can you work with
me?

MS. SNYDER: Have a business committee that needs hotel rooms to stay. I
mean, we're a business-hotel partner. We do -- 20 percent of our
business is leisure. The rest of it is group business and individual
business travelers. So we do feasibility studies, and there has -- to
your point on establishing an embassy? That's kind of how we look at,
where do we establish a hotel?

MR. JORDAN: Mm-hmm.

MS. SNYDER: So there has to be enough infrastructure built. We probably
are not one of those companies that are going to -- that can build, that
will go and build the infrastructure. We're probably looking for an
economic base to a certain level and a concentration of infrastructure
as we, when we go in.

MR. JORDAN: So it's like, Kevin, can I go to the State Department and to
the embassy and say, could you help, like connect me to the commercial
attaché and then figure out which companies are, like, interested in the
country or which ones are already investing and who's doing what and
what they see and -- could you give me some guidance about that kind of
thing?

MR. SABA: Sure.

MR. JORDAN: How would that work?

MR. SABA: Well, the short answer is yes. But one of things we're doing
at the global partnership center is we've for the first time ever
created a database of existing partnerships within the State Department.
And to many people's surprise, we've already 654 active partnerships
either being run at the mission or bureau level. So there's a lot of
partnership activity already going on. It's happening in bits and, you
know, starts and stops within different bureaus within the department.

There isn't one main clearinghouse, if you will, so the Global
Partnership Center is filling that void to create the data so that if
somebody in this audience came to the Global Partnership Center and
said, what's going on in Uganda in terms of partnerships today, today we
can give you that information. Nine months ago, we couldn't give that to
you, so at least that's a starting point in terms of understanding
what's happening.

I think there's a second value to people in the audience, is, we're
looking across, as I mentioned earlier, the interagency. What's
Millennium Challenge Corporation doing in Uganda? I was in a meeting
last night, for example, with the embassy of Malawi, and they were
discussing their Millennium Challenge compact, which will be some
hundreds of millions of dollars potentially focused in probably an
infrastructure area. But that type of a compact -- they call it a
compact, a program on behalf of the MCC -- could lead to conditions
where Marriott would say, you know what, Malawi didn't make sense for us
six months ago, but it makes sense now. So Marriott could call us as
well and say, what's going on in Uganda or Malawi?

MR. JORDAN: Ben, part of my theory about Rwanda is that right now it's
got a really good agribusiness for, kind of, the rural sector. It's
really starting to develop, kind of, technical infrastructure and things
like that. The reason why I think it would be great to try and attract
the travel and tourism industry is because they've got jobs at different
skill sets, so it's kind of like a nice escalator industry for helping
to place people from one level to the next. But there are partnerships
at AID in other countries that maybe we could import to Rwanda to get us
to a point where then it becomes more feasible for some of the more
advanced kind of, you know, the folks that are farther down on the
development chain to be, to want to come into Rwanda. Do you ever do
that, when you take a program from one country and say, I'm going to
slide it into here because that would get me to there?

MR. KAUFFELD: We're thinking about doing a lot, and we talk about doing
it and we're trying to do it. We often find that it's harder than you
might think. Locality is sometimes such a dominant factor in aspects of
the partnership, but we are working to broker that. In fact, Rwanda's an
interesting example because among African countries, sub-Saharan
countries, it is really taking off. There's a lot of good things,
dynamic things happening there economically. I wanted to make a quick
comment on, sort of, just the earlier conversation. You know, this is
half opinion, half observation. I think one of the things that the NGO
community can really do to change the dynamic around development at
large, but also in building partnerships is, I think, to change their
opinion, the collective opinion of, from a humanitarian community
towards the business community.

And I would like to encourage, let's say the hypothetical director of
that NGO, and this is, you know, to give a shout-out to your
organization, but I'd really like to encourage that NGO director, that
technical lead to go and visit the chamber of commerce, the local
chamber of commerce, the American Chamber of Commerce. Get a group of
NGOs together, make a presentation at the chamber. Communicate what
you're doing and why you're doing it to the business community. Think of
them as not just a benefactor or a donor but a partner, a member of the
solution, you know, to solve those issues.

But really communicate and build relationships, and I think, you know,
you'll find an expression of interest back from the business community
and partnerships will fall in place somewhat naturally. But on your
other question, USAID is working to broker partnerships, particularly
between multinational corporations and regional corporations in
developing countries in a particular context.

So if you're working on an issue -- like, for example, with Rwanda. We
worked together with Starbucks to help the coffee sector recover in
Rwanda. Starbucks was very interested, they are looking for diverse
coffees, different coffees, particularly quantities of coffee, because
they have such, you know, demand for product. We brought in agricultural
specialists, agriculture, economics, economists, and we worked together
with farming communities and we created a partnership that helped to
restore the coffee sector -- (inaudible) -- coffee producers in Rwanda
are selling to Starbucks and, you know, any other coffee company that
they want to.

MR. JORDAN: Patrick, what could -- what advice would you give to me? You
know, I've never been to the United States before, I don't know -- you
know, what kind of nonprofit practices -- I mean, are companies rude to
us or are they -- you know, will they shut the door on me? I mean, how
do I get into talking to the right people in the right places?

MR. MADDEN: I think we're -- what we would encourage folks to do is to
tap resource -- (inaudible) -- and in you're regional and they're
already being successful and used as best practices.

MR. JORDAN: But I'm in a place that just had a civil war, I mean, I'm
starting from, you know, almost from scratch.

MR. MADDEN: Well, I can give you the example. In the case of sister
cities, one of the things we have done in Africa-Specific, who this
spring helped an organization stand up in Ghana. That's a version of us
for the continent, because we realize we can't provide all the advice
that's possible from Washington, D.C. And so one of their roles is to go
into the countries and help advise them on how to get, in our case,
sister city programs, how to get partnerships up off the ground, and
that would be one of the places where they could come in and potentially
offer some sort of in-kind consultancy --

MR. JORDAN: Do you know, is there a mentoring thing for international
nonprofits for international nonprofits -- you know, is there a U.S.
nonprofits mentoring international nonprofits at all? Anything like
that?

MR. MADDEN: I know through the city program there is sort of technical
and professional exchanges that happen, but it's not a formal sort of
program of ours, per se. It's happened informally. I don't know, did you
have a --

MR. KAUFFELD: Well, there's also the -- I don't know exactly how to
describe them, others probably know better. There's interaction, which
is an association of non-government PVO organizations. They have a lot
of resources available through their website, as well as specific -- I
think there are mentoring elements in that about one aspect, how to be
registered as a practical voluntary organization in regards to the U.S.
government, but on many different issues.

MR. JORDAN: Okay, go for it.

Q: I do have a question. I'm sure that there are many new foundations
that are here with very limited funds, so my question is, and I'm going
to direct it to you, is it Mara?

MS. SNYDER: Mari.

Q: Mari. I'll direct it to you.

MS. SNYDER: Okay.

Q: Okay, I'm a new foundation, don't have a lot of funds. What can I say
to you to influence or convince you to be interested in starting a
business overseas?

MR. JORDAN: Business opportunity, business case?

Q: And the ideal is -- for instance, let me use this as an example. I
know that you're into hotel business, but for instance, agriculture.
Suppose I wanted to start an agricultural program, say, in Ghana, where
I need to have the equipment. So I'm going to come to you as a
construction company, and I need heavy equipment and I need you to -- I
want to influence you to ship that equipment over and help us build
roads. What key words would you look for to come from me that would
really, that would influence you to be interested in what we're trying
to do, our initiatives?

MS. SNYDER: Mm-hmm. Well, I think what -- the point was touched on
before, I think it was Ben who said, you know, coming with other
partners and having a larger voice is sometimes very, very helpful. So
you know, even -- I think that an organization that's looking for
something like that, where there is not yet presence by the company that
you're approaching, it's really helpful to present the overall business
case and why this is important and how it can help. And for me,
something like that, I would vote for -- I'd vote for the public partner
that you came with. So you know, you might be a nonprofit, but the
government should really probably be involved in something like that. I
think anything that's -- I guess for me, we always look for, what's the
scalability? And how important is it? Help us get context for it.

I mean, obviously what you're describing -- if I'm John Deere and you're
looking for agricultural equipment, there's probably -- I'm not certain
enough about John Deere's business, but in terms of that, that's really,
you need to understand what we've got. We've got equipment that you're
looking for in kind and then we need a transportation provider, and so
maybe John Deere has some kind of relationship with FedEx and UPS. They
absolutely do, one of them, UPS, FedEx, whatever. Or some shipping
container company, et cetera. So that can be done.

I think it's just a matter sometimes for all of us -- (inaudible) --
that's, because you can make that case. You know, lots of different
countries in that area can make that case. So I think we also look for,
to Ben's point, what's the systemic? How do we scale that to be the
right place and then how do we select? So working with government, maybe
other nonprofits that are a little bit larger in the scale to kind of
give the big picture would be helpful on that front.

MR. JORDAN: Okay, there was another one back here. Was that you? Yeah?
Go ahead.

Q: My name is Felix (ph). My question is about reinforcing what you just
-- (inaudible). In a situation where you -- (inaudible) -- and the
external politic. What I want to ask this question, because this is a
faith-based initiative. And over the year, you have seen that they are
consistent in providing all the necessary information, but because of
the amount of money that is reviewed, that is limited, for you have
external auditor. You want to get the external auditor, it's a lot of
money. And therefore, if you have seen a particular organization be
consistent in keeping records, we don't necessarily need to be standard
of having external politic.

How do you accommodate that, because I believe having the opportunity,
opportunity sometime might expand your capacity to perform. (Inaudible)
-- to come about naturally, but over the ledgers you have been keeping,
you have been faithful about it, you have been keeping the record over
the years, whether it is through resources for me to expand to the level
where we have external politics. How do you distinguish, how do you
compensate for their faithfulness without denying them of the
opportunity of growth, you know?

MR. KAUFFELD: I think I understand your question and what you're seeking
on that. I'll say a caveat right at the beginning, that perhaps it's
largely outside of this discussion, and maybe we can talk about that
separately. I think one of the issues, though, is that we're aware that
there have been concerns and complaints from smaller nongovernmental
organizations, that they have difficulties in getting business with
USAID. And critiques have come up that USAID works a lot with the major
international NGOs and contractors and it's difficult. We tried to work
closely with nongovernmental organizations; we have programs that work
with small businesses.

But one new initiative that I would mention in regards to your question
is, there is a \$50 million, eight-year program that just started called
the Development Grants Program that is directly targeting providing
resources to smaller, community-based organizations. That program has
already been launched, there's been several activities, but if you do,
you know if you do a Google search or whatever on USAID Development
Grants Program, you can find out some more about that. I can't really --
your issue is relating to auditing and financing and levels like that. I
can't really speak to that, that's determined by Congress and by other
authorities that I'm not dealing with. But main point being that we are
looking to ways to better interact and better support the world of
smaller-size NGOs and helping build your capacity as you become larger
NGOs or, you know, whatever scope and future you're working on.

MR. JORDAN: Okay, as usual, I have completely mismanaged this so that
we're almost out of time here, and I'm sorry about that. So I -- just
one more question, and then we'll connect to wrap up. Yes?

Q: Kevin, I was going to ask you about with the introduction of AFRICOM
in the beginning of October, you know, obviously it's a partnership
between the DOD, State Department, USAID. As a faith-based organization
that deals with medical, kids with disabilities in Kenya, but we travel
throughout the entire Horn of Africa, including some sensitive
countries. How do we interact with, you know, the embassies or even the
State Department, and in a partnership, if you will, with USAID, but
also protect ourselves as far away, you know, future expansion or at
least, you know, we obviously have a need in those countries. Would it
be best if we not partner, in a sense, to risk what we've already got in
some of those sensitive countries? Do you understand what I mean?

MR. SABA: I think I'm following. The last part I'm not sure I got,
though in terms of the risk of partnering with the U.S. government?

Q: Yes, and then closing the doors because of those relationships,
possibly. You know?

MR. SABA: Yeah. Let me try and answer this in the general way, and then
I think we can come back to the risk issue.

MS. SNYDER: Would you repeat the question, please? Could you repeat the
question?

MR. SABA: I'm not sure I can, but I'll try. The question was, he's got
an initiative in Kenya, amongst other places. You've had some
discussions with DOD, I understand. And I think the question boils down
to a cost-benefit with his organization. If they're to expand, is there
a value in working with the U.S. government or not? Is that --

Q: Well, and affiliation issues on the development side with civilian
military.

MR. SABA: Identification with the government, yes. Let me just, quick --
I think it's important for you to know in a broad context, when I talk
about interagency cooperation, you mentioned AFRICOM. We are talking to
-- (inaudible) -- the three D's need to work together -- Defense,
Development and Diplomacy. And I think Defense has reached out to us,
AFRICOM amongst others, SOUTHCOM, NORTHCOM, et cetera. So there's a
growing recognition within the government, we need to work together to
be effective. I think, maybe to come back to your question, at the end
of the day, I think you should explore to the greatest degree possible
relationships with the U.S. government, because partnerships are all
about meeting mutual interests.

To the extent that your interests are satisfied in a partnership, then
you become a part of that partnership. To the extent that they're not
satisfied, you pull out, but you won't know that until you have the
opportunity to explore all the variables involved in each of those
partnership. But rest assured, I think that the three D's working
together will create an environment that will be more conducive to
working with folks like yourself.

MR. JORDAN: Okay. Kevin -- keep the microphone. Okay. What I'd like to
ask each of you to close out this discussion is if there was one thing
that you hope folks take away from us about engaging with the private
sector. You know, one element of this, what would it be?

MR. SABA: One element about engaging with the private sector? I would
say --

MR. JORDAN: Well, that's kind of the --

MR. SABA: Yeah. I would say, razor-like focus on a solution, what makes
you different, how will your intervention solve the problem? And be
clear about how you'll communicate that to your potential partner. I
think the question was asked earlier, I think that the term "key word"
was used. I don't think it's key words, I think it's identifying real
solutions to real problems and being able to demonstrate that your
intervention will make a difference.

MR. KAUFFELD: I guess my bottom line, to leave you with a provocative
thought, is that even though I'm coming from a background, a
humanitarian relief background, I am coming through practice, I'm coming
to see that many of the development, the humanitarian and development
challenges that we're facing in the world can be effectively addressed,
not necessarily through assistance but through private sector economic
activity. And so the point that I would like to leave you with is that I
think we in the humanitarian community perhaps need to be the ones to
cross the divide a bit, or reach our hands across the divide to engage
the private sector and find a way to partner effectively with them to
take on some of these challenges.

MR. JORDAN: Patrick?

MR. MADDEN: I'll try to be just as provocative. Partnerships are like
Play-Doh, and they are always evolving, you have to accept that and
reshape them as you need to, as you react to it, and make sure that all
of your partners are on board as you reshape it. Be flexible.

MS. SNYDER: I'd say collaboration on the issues that the partners are
trying to address, the ability for the partners to use their assets to
address those problems and the ability to involve others so that you can
scale and systematically change -- (inaudible).

MR. JORDAN: (Inaudible) -- of giving you a leap behind as well, if
that's okay. And that is this. Think of yourselves as part of a network
that doesn't know it's a network. You know they talk about six degrees
of separation? You know that we're all connected to one another? It's
amazing if you start asking the question of one person how you can lead
to the next, to the next, to the next, to get to the person that
actually can help you with this. And at BCLC, one of the things that
we're going to be working over the next few years about, and which I
would encourage all of you to consider is, how do you map out the
existing environment in which you're operating?

In terms of understanding who's doing what in your particular space, how
do you figure out where the gaps are, where they overlaps are and also
figure out how that connects to other networks in other places. And I
think that the more that all of us start working to create more
information transparency in the development space, the more that we're
going to start knowing what each other is doing and being able to
identify ways to work together. So I think that one of those -- it's the
basic first steps that all of us have to be thinking about is, how do we
make the information-exchange process more transparent and more mutually
beneficial? So with that, please thank me in thanking Mari, Patrick, Ben
and Kevin for a really interesting and provocative panel. Thank you.

(Applause.)

(END)