The best — and worst — primes. Subs rank the industry's biggest players

Territorial, unethical, and predatory; reliable, cooperative, and respectful. Those were just a few of the words sub-awardees used to describe the prime organizations they had partnered with, according to a new analysis from Unlock Aid — an advocacy group focused on foreign assistance reform. For years, Unlock Aid has pushed to localize development funding, working with its own network to fight for change on Capitol Hill. “A lot of the challenges that people describe in this survey are those that for a long time, people have anecdotally heard,” said Walter Kerr, Unlock Aid’s co-founder. “This was really our effort to put data behind some of the challenges that are commonly expressed.” Coined as a “Glassdoor for Primes,” the report evaluated 26 of development’s biggest players — from United Nations agencies to for-profit contractors to international nongovernmental organizations, or INGOs. Despite that, the report still provided a jarring pulse on what it means to be a sub-awardee, which is often the only way for smaller, local organizations to receive bilateral cash. Today, most of the money from the U.S. Agency for International Development goes to a small group of large organizations. Last year, more than half of all USAID’s grant funding went to 20 organizations, while almost half of all contract funding went to just 10 contractors, the majority of which are based in the Washington, D.C. area. Once those organizations — the primes — receive that money, they often contract out segments of that work to dozens of smaller groups, the sub-awardees. “A lot of the U.S. foreign assistance funding is flowing to a very small, consolidated number of players,” Kerr told Devex. “Subcontracting is still the default way for most of these organizations to get in the door.” Unlock Aid did offer some words of caution about the relatively small number of respondents, and therefore the reliability of the report. The survey gathered 80 individual responses, and Unlock Aid noted that because of that number, “respondents may not fully represent the full set of all subrecipients that work with the prime contracting organizations represented.” Thirty-two of the 80 respondents were affiliated with an Unlock Aid coalition member, Kerr said, though they responded as individuals, not as representatives of those organizations. Unlock Aid said the report did not represent definitive conclusions about primes, instead showcasing a “snapshot in time” of sub-awardees’ perceptions. Still, the report has been questioned by primes featured over the strength of its analysis, particularly in regard to how organizations fare with respect to each other. Which were the best-ranked primes? When things went well, the report said respondents described prime contracting organizations as reliable, cooperative, and respectful. Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, and Save the Children were the highest-rated organizations in the analysis when it came to sub-awardees’ likelihood of recommending those organizations to others, scoring well above average when compared to the rest of the group. <iframe title="Glassdoor for Primes " aria-label="Table" id="datawrapper-chart-ecNwR" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ecNwR/4/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="651" data-external="1"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}(); </script> Catholic Relief Services, an international aid agency based in the United States, scored either first or second in every category Unlock Aid assessed, something that the organization said was due to the “significant time and resources” CRS invests to ensure their partnerships are rooted in “trust, mutuality, accountability, and transparency.” “We actively seek feedback from our partners to assess and improve our collaboration. This ongoing process allows us to adapt our approaches and enhance our work together,” said Bill O'Keefe, CRS’ executive vice president for mission, mobilization, and advocacy, in an emailed statement. “We believe that partnership is not transactional; it is rooted in a shared vision, respect, trust, transparency, and the Catholic Social Teaching principle of subsidiarity — the understanding that those closest to the issue are best positioned to address it.” Still, O’Keefe added that there was room to grow. Even CRS — which received the highest “likely to be recommended” score of all 26 organizations — earned just a 3.66 out of 5 in Unlock Aid’s survey. “We can integrate the learning from this report into our practices,” O’Keefe said. “As we work to advance locally led development and intermediaries increasingly play a different role in humanitarian and development aid, prime implementers and donors must work to make the time and provide the resources.” Those words were echoed by the head of Mercy Corps — the second highest-ranking organization — on social media. “This report highlights a reality we all recognize — there’s still significant work to do to enhance transparency, equity and communication in our sector,” Mercy Corps’ CEO, Tjada D'Oyen McKenna, wrote on Thursday. “Their insights are vital for helping our organization and others build stronger, trusting, and equitable relationships to partner better to help communities thrive.” Which was the worst-ranked prime? The lowest-ranked primes — defined by Unlock Aid as the organizations that received the lowest "likelihood to recommend" scores from respondents — were Chemonics, Credence Management Solutions, and Abt Global — though there was a significant deviation between Chemonics and the latter two. All three are for-profit contractors based in or near the American capital. Two other organizations, Creative Associates International and UNICEF, also scored much less than average when it came to values of fairness, collaboration, and respect for sub-awardees. Unlock Aid mapped all primes against each other based on their z-score — a measure of how many standard deviations each organization’s score was from the mean, with the likelihood to recommend on one axis, and an average of the other three scores on the other. “What might be surprising is how polarized the experience can be,” said Chris Watson, the vice president of international development at Premise, a data collection company that has worked as a vendor on several USAID projects. Watson took part in the survey as a member of Unlock Aid. “You have certain organizations that do a fantastic job of working with subs, local partners, vendors,” Watson added. “And you have organizations that have not prioritized that as part of their corporate ethos.” But in particular, there was no love lost for Chemonics, a development giant that last year took home more USAID grant or contract money than any partner outside the United Nations. It partnered with 2,800 local organizations and 92 small businesses in the United States to do so — but despite that, Chemonics ranked last in every category of the survey, from treating sub-awardees with fairness and respect to demonstrating trustworthiness and accountability to providing transparent, open communication. <iframe title="Glassdoor for Primes" aria-label="Table" id="datawrapper-chart-cfjao" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/cfjao/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="653" data-external="1"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}(); </script> In a statement to Devex, Chemonics said the organization was “committed to the continual improvement of foreign assistance delivery and outcomes,” that their “relationships with subcontractors are essential” to their work, and that they valued sub-awardees’ insights. “However, in the case of this survey, the few dozen individuals who responded are not representative of our vibrant community of partners around the world,” said a Chemonics spokesperson via email. “We consistently seek feedback through a variety of sources and are committed to being a trusted partner.” Just 46 people responded to Unlock Aid’s survey questions about Chemonics, meaning a small handful of people may have swung the organization’s score in either direction. Ten individuals gave Chemonics a one on the five-point scale, while three gave Chemonics a five. Credence Management Solutions, the second-lowest rated organization in the survey, did not respond to Devex’s request for comment. Chemonics earned an average rating of 2.85 out of 5 when it came to whether sub-awardees were likely to recommend working with the organization, and Credence followed close behind at 3. Regardless of the organization, primes earned a paltry score when it came to trust. On a scale of one to five, prime organizations received an average of 2.95 when respondents were asked if the organizations kept their promises to sub-awardees, especially once the prime and sub began working together. That score was impacted by several factors, including delays in the disbursement of committed funding, not following through on agreed-upon timelines, and providing sub-awardees with less money than they anticipated. More than 80% of those surveyed reported at least a one-month gap between when they were promised funding and when they actually received the cash — and one in four respondents said they were forced to wait six months or more. Even when sub-awardees did receive that funding, respondents reported it was often much smaller than originally anticipated. Sub-awardees received, on average, less than 60% of what they were promised — and one-third of all respondents received 25% or less. And considering that on average, respondents said it cost more than $19,600 to prepare a single proposal for a prime partner, those delays matter. “There is no category, and no question, where any organization received a four or higher,” said Kerr. “Some organizations performed much better than others, but I don’t think any organization should rest on their laurels.” What happens next? Unlock Aid synthesized several recommendations in the report, from involving sub-awardees in the proposal development process to allowing sub-awardees to speak on behalf of their own work with both funders and project leaders — the latter being something that was highlighted by Watson. “The organizations that let us talk directly to USAID with them … tend to be the ones where a lot of these problems haven’t happened,” Watson explained. “I think that’s one particular thing you can do to be transparent.” Going forward, Kerr says Unlock Aid will continue to produce reports like this one — and maybe next time around, they’ll be able to do so with an even larger group of respondents. Until then, Kerr hopes organizations will be able to learn from the primes who scored the best, regardless of their rankings. “There are different ways an organization will react to a report like this,” Kerr told Devex. “Some will look at this kind of report and reject its findings because they’re inconvenient. Others will look inward and ask, how can we do better? How an organization responds to this kind of feedback speaks volumes about the way they work with others.” Update, Nov. 11, 2024: This article has been updated to give additional context on how scores were calculated.