Internship Description
Nadine Bibawi, ’22SIPA; Hannah Clifford, ’22SIPA; Jessica Peck, ’22SIPA; Julia Tauscher, ’22SIPA; and Kevin Vu, ’22SIPA, interned with Imago Global Grassroots, a nonprofit that collaborates with entrepreneurs at the base of the pyramid and supports scaling their social enterprises. Nadine assisted the creation of Imago's first online social enterprise scaling course, and worked on developing a strategy to support dissemination of its knowledge products and services by leveraging technology. Hannah worked with the Washington, DC office on research, the creation of knowledge products, and supported active projects focused on gender and human rights. Jessica collaborated with the southern cone office in Latin America to scope potential partners in the region, and also developed a model for scaling RUDI — a social enterprise of the Self-Employed Women Association (SEWA) — leveraging a government program called the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM). Julia worked closely with the Poverty Stoplight to design manuals to help organizations across the world to implement a tool to assess and address multidimensional poverty at the household level. Kevin worked with Imago's various clients to improve health care systems that provide affordable health care to high-need, high-cost vulnerable populations in Houston, and consulted in scaling up the SEWA project design.
"Imago summer, I was a fellow at Imago Global Grassroots. Imago works with grassroots organizations and social enterprises “to build capacity and scale impact in a way that respects their unique contexts and strengths.” From its conception, the organization has sought to address the "missing middle" in the international development sector, whereby large, institutional funders and entities are often the most financially capable of supporting large projects, yet they cannot (and very often do not) reach or prioritize local organizations. In supporting the growth and scaling of local grassroots organizations and social enterprises, Imago prioritizes community-centered solutions led by local organizations who are already providing effective solutions to local challenges.
I had the opportunity to work on a number of projects across the organization. I most consistently worked on a project on feminine leadership with Lever for Change (an affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation) and the Eileen Fisher Leadership Institute. The project consisted of two streams of activities with Lever for Change’s Bold Solutions Network — a feminine leadership dialogue series and feminine leadership coaching circles. I also supported training on DEI for member organizations in the Bold Solutions Network. In addition to the project work with Lever for Change, I supported the early stages of a transition for Imago's existing scaling up course to an online audience. Finally, I worked collaboratively to pitch and draft a blog series that will hopefully be released this fall. The series seeks to challenge the routine silence in the development industry and social enterprise space around missteps or mistaken assumptions and endeavors to reframe the conversation to recognize adaptations as an important step in the development and scaling-up process.
I am in the master's of public administration in development practice (MPA-DP) program at SIPA. Supporting a variety of programs on a range of topics this summer allowed me to utilize the skills I have used in our core class on project development and management, and elements of our courses on sustainable development. In addition, I am specializing in gender and public policy. Both working for an organization that prioritizes gender equity as a key tenant of their approach and work, and working specifically on a project on female leadership, allowed me to leverage my knowledge and skills gained in the gender focused classes I have taken thus far while at Imago.
The biggest challenge this summer was working remotely. Beginning my placement after a year of learning on Zoom, it was challenging to feel excited about logging into Zoom again for work. I found it challenging at times to develop the same level of excitement or motivation as I would when working collaboratively in an office environment where you can feel the energy and excitement of those around you. Despite the initial challenge of remote work, Imago did a great job of ensuring we all felt connected through team meetings, check-ins, and opportunities for us to connect and get to know the team throughout the summer, which made connecting online feel far less challenging by the summer’s end.
A core belief at IMAGO is that those closest to a challenge are often best positioned to solve it. This philosophy is one of the reasons I was attracted to the organization when applying to summer placements. So often in the development sector, top down approaches are turned to, relied on, and the most robustly funded. I think it is really important to challenge this thinking and recognize that top down approaches frequently perpetuate unequal power hierarchies, cannot reach all populations, and are not often efficient in supporting local organizations that are already providing effective solutions to local challenges. Imago's support, recognition, and valuing of the inborn potential of grassroots organizations and social enterprises to scale impact and find solutions challenges this top-down way of thinking, and I am confident lessons I have learned this summer will stay with me into the future. The process of deep listening, feedback gathering, valuing local knowledge and expertise, and openness to new ideas and ways of knowing in all the projects I supported was extremely refreshing and invigorating to be a part of."