This blog post was written by our CEO, Rachel Lindley.
Rachel visits with trainers in Aru, DRC.
I love that quote: ‘If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans…’ 2019 was such a year of uncertainty on the national stage that making any predictions for 2020 seems bold, if not foolish.
But of course, we have a plan and vision for the year at Five Talents, as well as some questions we’re still grappling with. Here are three priorities we predict 2020 has in store for us:
1. Tough times – but we’ll thrive because of YOU
Last year, there was a sense of people ‘battening down the hatches’ in the face of political and economic uncertainty, perhaps an increase in insularity. We felt it at Five Talents; we had fewer invitations to speak at City groups and fewer new donors. Of course, it has always been hard for a small, Anglican charity to open doors in the City, even when our focus on sustainable microfinance is such a good ‘fit’ with the banks and law firms that surround us. But in 2019, it felt even harder.
And with rumours about the future of DFID and concerns that the international aid budget will be diverted into trade deals, foreign policy and defence, development charities like us will have our work cut out to keep the focus on the most vulnerable.
But Five Talents is remarkably resilient to these ructions. Much as we might have wished for DfID or EU grants in the past, perhaps we’re fortunate now that we don’t rely on them. Instead, we rely on a whole army of wonderful people – you. We’ve grown enormously since 2015, and we’ve done that primarily through you. We don’t have a huge marketing budget, we never do ‘direct mailshots’ or TV campaigns - but we have you. You already love Five Talents and when you introduce somebody (individual, trust, foundation, corporate) who respects you to our work, that’s by far the most effective marketing there is.
So this year, I know we’ll be asking you again to do just that.
2. Environment, Youth, Security - and Partnerships
Perhaps the international community taking stock on the Sustainable Development Goals (five years on, ten years to go) will help keep international poverty on the agenda. The climate emergency is on everyone’s radar now, including ours. And with youth unemployment reaching new heights and increasingly being linked to migration and security issues, you’ll hear Five Talents frame our work against these topical and hugely important issues too.
Rachel met members in South Sudan.
Of course, we’ve always tackled these, but expect to hear more about them this year.
That said, you won’t find us broadening our programme interventions too much. We know we can’t do everything; we need to focus on what we’re good at (literacy, savings groups and business skills training delivered through the Church in rural communities), without being distracted. We’ve introduced trauma counselling in some of our post (or mid) conflict programmes as we’ve seen that is essential to release members’ potential – but another question we’ll grapple with this year is where to draw the line, and who to partner with to meet the needs we don’t.
3. “One Five Talents” and new programmes
Perhaps counter-culturally, given the B-word, I predict we’ll be focusing on what we call ‘One Five Talents’ this year too – a closer union with Five Talents Kenya and Five Talents USA. The greatest joy of that is the potential for programmes to share learning. As I write, Claudette of our Burundi programme is leading a training workshop for teams from Kenya and Uganda, whilst we’re also teeing up a full partner workshop for peer to peer exchanges and some safeguarding training.
Together, we’ll be investing in our new programme in Marsabit and also preparing the ground for work in Mombasa this year. We’ll be beginning work in Terekeka, South Sudan, too, and partnering with the Mothers’ Union in Tanzania to help scale up their savings groups there.
Ready for the challenges
Despite my prediction of tough times ahead for development charities, I’m actually really optimistic about 2020. We have a great team in the UK, US, Kenya and across our programmes; we have a model that works; hugely supportive Boards and all of you – our wonderful donors. None of us would be here to make these plans for 2020 without you – and the fact that we’ve grown so much over the last 5 years tells me you’re still behind us, and together we will reach even further this year.
Thank you so much for all your support, and may 2020 bring good things to you and yours.