Dynamics of International Nonprofit Capacity Building Partnerships

This study worked to expand the discourse of international nonprofit capacity building research. In the field of Communication, research investigating international nonprofit partnerships is limited, and some international communities lack a voice within the scholarship. Through the lens of postcolonial reflexivity, the author traveled to Kenya to conduct participant observations and one-on-one interviews with a US Capacity Building Nonprofit (USCBN) and two local Kenyan nonprofit organizations (the KCN and the KSN). The findings revealed that the USCBN established previous organizational alliances with the KCN and the KSN. The previous alliances led to strong relationships. The relationships engendered collaboration within the partnerships, which resulted in sustainability for all three organizations. Dynamics of International Nonprofits 4 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION It was a cloudy afternoon, but my spirits were high as it was my first day traveling to volunteer in the township of Khayelitsha, South Africa with a US nonprofit organization. As I left my study abroad house on the University of Cape Town campus, I geared up for a forty-five minute drive to the orphanage in the township. When I applied to volunteer for the US organization, they had described themselves as a capacity building nonprofit endeavoring to support and sustain various local orphanages throughout Khayelitsha. The US nonprofit provided assistance to the orphanages through material resources and volunteer support. Throughout the summer of 2010, my study abroad cohort and I travelled five days a week to volunteer in a local orphanage operated by women from Khayeltisha. That very first day, I was elated to meet the children. It seemed as if the US nonprofit provided exemplary assistance to its partner orphanages. The orphanage I visited was poorly understaffed, there were approximately thirty children to every adult. As we arrived, the “house mothers” eagerly greeted us. Then, they quickly disappeared once we were settled with our groups. At our volunteer orientation, we were told we would be supporting the house “moms” in caring for the children. We created educational lesson plans appropriate for the age groups for which we were responsible. Yet, in spite of having English as a national language, a majority of the younger children did not speak English, which made communication exceedingly difficult without the support of the house mothers. As my fellow volunteers and I struggled to enact lesson plans with our groups throughout the summer, I began to realize the many issues plaguing the sustainability and success of the orphanage. The initial elation I experienced on that first day quickly dissipated to a feeling of helplessness. Apart from being understaffed, the children were undernourished and Dynamics of International Nonprofits 5 undereducated. Instead of tackling these ever present inadequacies, the US nonprofit used grant funding to build brand new cement homes on the orphanage compound. Khayelistha is primarily composed of tin shacks and small cement homes with dirt floors; the US nonprofit built grandiose two story units that resembled US construction. After construction initiated, the orphanage experienced multiple robberies. One afternoon, a child I was responsible for fell down a flight of stairs at the newly built home. Since the orphanage was home to children with HIV/AIDS and their status was not disclosed to volunteers, I was unable to care for the crying child to avoid infection. It was devastating. Further, it was devastating to watch the children go hungry each day and devour the treats we brought to them. Why was the US organization building new homes when the children were hungry? I was frustrated and pressed our volunteer coordinator for answers. In short, our volunteer coordinator explained that the US organization thought the children needed homes versus shacks. I also casually asked a house mother about the assistance the orphanage received; she told me they would take what they could get. I asked her whose idea it was to build the new homes; she told me she did not know because she never spoke with the US organization. I left South Africa feeling disheartened. I thought I was going to make an impact in the life of South African children; instead, I babysat. **** Introduction Upon returning to the States after volunteering in South Africa, I was plagued by various questions that emerged from memories of my experiences. As I returned to school that fall quarter, I decided to focus on international nonprofit organizing to better understand the frustrations I experienced while volunteering. Much to my surprise, there is limited research Dynamics of International Nonprofits 6 investigating international nonprofit organizing in the field of Communication. As I began my inquiry, I discovered that the exigent forces of globalization have dramatically changed organizational structures and international organizing over the last few decades (Stohl, 2005). “Globalization is seen as a central driving force behind the rapid political, social, economic, and communicative changes taking place in contemporary society” (Stohl, 2005, p. 243). Communication researchers have composed and presented succinct theories as applied to communication within organizational settings. Nevertheless, these theories reflect domestic organizing versus international organizational praxis. Throughout the discipline of Communication, there are a scare number of researchers investigating the phenomenon of globalization as it affects organizational activity and communication. Before the 1980s, the field of Communication addressed cultural integration through the lens of Intercultural Communication (Stohl, 2005). In the 1990s, Communication researchers began to interpret globalization and its effects on communication and organizational activity. However, the theories presented by Communication scholars failed to address the intricate complexities that are emerging due to the inequities in our globalized system (Stohl, 2005). At the end of the twentieth-century, researchers started to explore and comprehend the multifaceted effects of globalization. To develop a thorough understanding of this phenomenon, Communication researchers were required to go outside of the field of Communication to review and analyze various interdisciplinary scholarship addressing globalization theory and practice; “globalization is far too complex and far-ranging to be situated easily within one perspective” (Stohl, 2005, p. 247). Even though the research and theory is quite disparate, it is evident that globalization inequitably impacts our political systems, economies, cultures, environments, information technologies, and spatio-temporal dimensions (Stohl, 2005). Dynamics of International Nonprofits 7 In spite of the insurgence of globalized systems and organizational constructs, the field of Communication has continued to focus much of its inquiry on domestic, critical managerial studies (Simpson & Zorn, 2004; Broadfoot & Munshi, 2007). While some scholars have attempted to highlight the international research of Communication scholars and frame Communication as an internationally inclusive field (Mumby & Stohl, 2007), the field of Communication, in particular Organizational Communication, is mostly a homogenous field that limits the participation and inclusion of “Others” (Broadfoot & Munshi, 2007). Organizational Communication has historically situated itself as a “dominant Euro-American” force which colonizes, subordinates, and oppresses “[native, indigenous, and other forms] of understanding and organizing” (Broadfoot & Munshi, 2007, p. 249). Organizational Communication is a “U.S. centric” field, which limits the access of international voices and input as it applied to the scope of Organizational Communication publication (Broadfoot & Munshi, 2007). There is a need for Communication researchers to expand upon international inquiry within the field. Through writing my Master‟s thesis, I wanted to address the limitations within the field of Communication and empirically expand international scholarship within the field. With that said, I realized the need for Communication researchers to readdress the methods through which they were analyzing cultures outside of their own. “[Communication researchers] interested in decolonizing organizational communication, must be ready to listen to and really hear Others and [the researchers] must be willing to see, understand, and address structural issues” present within our globalized systems (Grimes & Parker, 2009, p.510). My experience volunteering in South Africa allowed me to see the structural issues present within our globalized system; however, I wanted to conduct research that would permit me to really listen and hear the voices of Others and understand and address the structural issues that have engendered the differences in our Dynamics of International Nonprofits 8 organizational experiences and imbalanced presence in Communication scholarship. Therefore, I designed this research to focus on international organizing, specifically international nonprofit organizations, to include the diverse voices underrepresented within our “dominant EuroAmerican” field of Communication (Broadfoot & Munshi, 2007). I needed to understand the breakdown that caused children to go unfed during my South African experience. I wanted to know what caused that breakdown and what could be done to better facilitate the efficiency of international nonprofit partnerships. Further, I wanted to explore ways in which Others were equitably included in organizing processes to build a stable and efficient international organizing system. To explore these issues, I volunteered with a US nonprofit capacity building organization. The organization gave me clearance to conduct research during a trip to Kenya. While in Kenya I visited two local nonprofits with the