Save the Children’s Future: A Conversation With Incoming US Chief Carolyn Miles

The nonprofit community’s stature in international development has risen steadily over the years, thanks to the work of countless local civil society groups and global giants such as Save the Children. As they assume seats at the negotiating table with governments, multilaterals and corporations, these non-governmental organizations are helping to redefine development business as an industry fueled by close partnerships between funding institutions, implementers and recipients. Still, global development NGOs face familiar challenges: Competition for government and private funding remains fierce. Natural disasters, civic unrest and governance issues continue to threaten sustainable development. And as the world’s population rises, staying focused on long-term goals can seem daunting. Save the Children is responding to these challenges by streamlining and consolidating the work of its 29 country affiliates, a move that is expected to increase efficiency and aid effectiveness. Central to this organizational revamp will be Carolyn Miles, who on Sept. 1 will succeed Charles MacCormack as president and CEO of Save the Children U.S., the NGO’s largest country branch. Miles first joined Save the Children in 1998 as associate vice president for sponsorship and marketing, and currently serves as the Westport, Connecticut-based organization’s chief operating officer. Devex spoke with Miles about her vision for Save the Children and how her experience in the private sector guides her work. How do you think your background will influence you in your new role? I have a background in the corporate world, actually, before Save the Children, working for American Express and in starting up a small business. And I think that’s actually been tremendously helpful in bringing some of these skills into Save the Children as a large complicated nonprofit, but also as I look to the future: There’s so much about the development world that’s about partnerships, and about how do we form more partnerships with NGOs, with private companies, with public governments. And so much of this is about how we tackle these issues for children with these strategic partnerships. So, coming from a different sector has actually helped me see the possibilities there, and I think it’s a growing, growing trend for international development work. And I think it’s going to continue being a helpful background. Can you give an example that illustrates your approach to tackling development challenges? Sure. I think the best example is when I think about our biggest issue that we’re working on at this point and that a lot of our programs are focused on: child survival. So, we are focused on driving down the number of children who die from preventable diseases every single day. Getting to Millennium Development Goal 4, which is to reduce child mortality by two-thirds: That is a huge issue. It’s not an issue that Save the Children is going to solve on its own. There are lots and lots of things that are happening in key countries where children are dying that have to be changed. Obviously, you got to have government involved because they can make things sustainable. But I also think you need the kind of expertise you have on the corporate side, on things like marketing and behavior change. A lot of these issues relate to education – what can be done when children are sick, why you should be seeking care, and what are the things that you can make happen? And large corporations are extremely good at that kind of thing and getting people to think about what the issues are inside of a country, as well as obviously influencing people in developed countries to help, by doing cross-marketing activities and all those kinds of things. I think there’s a big move toward these multistakeholder partnerships where you’re really looking at what’s the issue and how can we bring lots of different skill sets to the table to try to solve them. Child survival is really just one good example on where we’re doing that. What types of cross-sector partnerships will Save the Children get more involved in under your leadership? We have a great example in Bangladesh on education. We’re working with the government of Bangladesh, local NGOs and corporate partners, and it’s all around early childhood development, getting kids into preschools. Save the Children, with the help of corporate funding, is doing these pilot programs, but then we are influencing the government of Bangladesh to take this up and make this a national priority of getting kids into preschool, because there’s lots of data that say if you get kids into even a couple years of preschool, their ability to get through to fifth grade is much, much better, and these kids who’ve had a couple years of preschool graduate from fifth grade at much higher rates. That’s an example where we’re doing something on the national scale, and it takes multiple corporate partners, it takes multiple NGOs – it’s not just Save the Children; it’s other NGOs that are working on this. And it takes the government of Bangladesh to sort of say, “OK, there’s lots of evidence that it works and that this is the way to really drive education inside our country.” So, that’s one example. … I think what you have to do is be very open, too. The corporation is interested, in this case, in the garment industry in Bangladesh, and of course they’re interested in having a workplace that has satisfied workers and educated workers, and they see that a lot of the preschools are for the children of the factory workers. So, they’re interested in having a workforce that’s stable and able to continue doing their job and drive their business. And that’s what they’re there to do. And we’re obviously interested in changing things for the better for children and families. And the government is interested in a more educated population. So, you have to put those things together, and sometimes that can be uncomfortable until you sit down at the table and say, “These are the things we’re all trying to do; let’s see if this fits together.” Do you envision Save the Children to work more through existing associations and alliances? Yes, much more. And also, we do work a lot now with local NGOs. Where there are strong networks of NGOs, then we really do want to work with community NGOs and local NGOs as well, because that’s just a sustainable model. Save the Children is not able to stay in those communities forever. … We want to build a model that, then, can be taken over by either a local NGO or by the government in those countries. So, we’re looking for those partnerships. And we’re working more and more in those coalitions because again, these issues are just too big for all of us to solve on our own – it’s just not going to happen. How will this sharper focus on partnerships and results reflect in your hiring strategy? We need people [from a variety of backgrounds]. But I think increasingly, we’re looking for people who are able to straddle these more kind of project management or general management tasks. We have experts in education, health, livelihood programs and HIV/AIDS, and you need those technical experts and you need people who have experience and understand what works on the ground in poor communities. But we also need people increasingly who can take those efforts to the next level, and are interested, also, in how to put together the fundraising, advocacy or partnership pieces for a particular issue. And that’s what I see as a growing trend, that we need more people who look at these issues from a global perspective. In some cases, we have great people we can grow into those jobs, and in some cases we don’t. So, that’s a big challenge I think for the future. U.S. government funding is very much in doubt these days. Do you envision Save the Children branching out to new institutional donors here or abroad? We spend an awful lot of time raising funds; that’s a big part of what we do. And I think right now, there’s a big uncertainty on the U.S. government side. Save the Children has – and this is by a lot of hard work over the last 10 years – a very diversified funding stream: About 35 percent of our funding comes from government, and the other 65 percent comes from private funding, and that’s corporations, foundations, individuals, child sponsorship. There’s a whole diversified set of funding anywhere from the person who gives us $10 to the person who gives $10 million. And that, I think, is really important, particularly when you have challenging economic times, challenging times in terms of government funding: It’s really important to have a diversified funding portfolio. We’re expecting that the U.S. government funding outlook is going to be very challenging certainly in the next couple years. So that means we have to work harder on the private funding piece and continue to diversify. We’re doing a lot of work with social media now, looking at: Do people who get involved with social media turn into donors? And, how do you do that? It’s a long-term investment because generally, that generation of people that’s on social media, they do want to be very involved; they’re not going to give a lot of money, but they want to really get involved and understand and learn what you’re doing. So you have to be there, but I think it’s a longer-term investment in terms of raising funds. But, you have to do it, I think. Do you think large international NGOs like Save the Children have the status they deserve within the aid community, or are they still regarded by donors as mere grant recipients rather than equal partners in international development? I think that’s a very good question and a good observation. One of the things about Save the Children, and one of the reasons why we’re spending a whole lot of time aligning our efforts amongst ourselves, is because when you put Save the Children all together and you put all the 29 Save the Children [organizations] together, you have a very, very large global organization that works in 80 countries and has 29 members in 29 developed countries and raises $1.5 billion and has great ability to drive programs for children. I think that international NGOs coming together amongst themselves and their members, I think that’s going to change the dynamic a bit. And it’s also why you have to have the ability to sit at the table with U.N. organizations, with governments, with corporations: because that’s often where some of these big partnerships are happening, at those levels: The U.N. agencies are involved, and I think you got to have international NGOs there, because if you look at the work that’s actually being done, so much of it is being done by international NGOs. I think by being part of these partnerships, that’s a way to continue to influence how things are going and make sure that the work being done is getting down to the families and children we’re trying to serve. Sometimes, when these partnerships are being put together, they’re very high-level, they are global mechanisms, they’re advocacy-based. But do they ever make it down to people dying from preventable causes or children not going to school, or families not being able to make a living? You got to make sure they reach the communities and the people that we’re trying to give opportunities. And international NGOs have the ability to do that. You mentioned the global network of Save the Children affiliates. How do you envision the U.S. branch to collaborate with the rest of the organization, also in light of ongoing efforts to streamline and centralize Save the Children’s international work? Save the Children U.S. is the largest member, but there are 29 members. And there’s one international board, which is made up of members of the member boards. Save the Children U.S. has four members that sit on that board. We are actually consolidating all of our international program operations under Save the Children International. And that is a big, big effort. That is absolutely what’s going to enable us to deliver even higher-quality programs for children and families, because we will be able to – in 80 operating countries – have very high-standard programs and very experienced staff and the ability to really put forward a whole set of best practices in terms of our programs in the field. So, over the next year and a half, we’re moving our programs – all of us who operate international programs – into this Save the Children International management structure. It’s a lot of work, a lot of work. But, it is absolutely the right thing, at the end of the day, to do in terms of the work that we do. And, back to how international NGOs are seen: I think it will make us a really efficient organization that really is able to deliver very high-quality programs in 80 countries. There aren’t many organizations that are operating on that scale. Has this process caused friction between Save the Children affiliates, since each of them now does its own fundraising and business development? It’s definitely been challenging and there’s been friction. But, at the end of the day, all Save the Children organizations are trying to do the same thing: We’re working to give children and families opportunities and ensure their rights to education and health. But we all have different cultures, and we all come from different places. And there are some things we think differently about. So, it is absolutely not without challenges as we go, but I think everybody keeps an eye on the end, which is once we do this we will have something that will work even stronger for children and families. So, people are just figuring out ways to get through these differences. I think the kind of structure we’ve designed is one of codependency: The Save the Children International structure is dependent on the members to do inside of their member country the fundraising, the advocacy, the relationship building with the public in those countries. And the 29 members are dependent on Save the Children International to deliver those programs. It is a model where neither one can really work without the other. So, you got to really figure out how to make it work together. That’s, I think, the beauty of it: You really have to depend on everybody doing their part. And that’s also the challenge of it. Learn more: - Latest news on Save the Children - Save the Children jobs - Development experts with experience working with Save the Children Read more international development news.