Halfway through Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid, I find myself with many of the same thoughts that plagued me during my graduate studies - how could so many smart people get this so entirely wrong?  Regardless of whether you agree with the intensity of Moyo’s criticism, you will find your head nodding along at some point.  You will remember the stories of foreign aid through the decades - as though you are recalling the fashions of that time frame.  Aid as reconstruction, aid as poverty alleviation, aid for good governance, and aid by celebrity.

We create our realities through these stories - whether or not the work is particularly “good”, “useful” or “effective”.

Working in the field of philanthropy, we rely heavily on stories to bring the stark reality of the world into people’s hearts and heads.  Donors are not always close enough to the issue to understand its operations and intricacies, so our stories help guide on why their support is so necessary.  Yet, the stories we tell can not always capture the entirety of the dilemmas we are seeking to solve, the changes we are trying to make.  Usually, our stories focus on one perspective, from one perspective.

The danger of this is oversimplifying the problem.  And if we use aid as an example, we’ve oversimplified the story and changed the story to a point to where we are all confused.

This article came across my Google Reader today “Values Underlying Microfinance Success Stories” (Romani and Lerpold).  It examines how Western values are coloring our stories of  microfinance’s success.  My favorite point comes near the end “Are the signified values and assumptions representing beliefs and preferences of microfinance clients, or rather those of development professionals?”

We assume a lot about the importance of our work - and what if our perspective is only using one set of values to tell these stories?  Are we oversimplifying?  Are we missing a critical message?

As a philanthropy professional, I don’t always take as much notice of my values bias when I tell stories of our organization.  In thinking about aid, microfinance and telling stories of our own work, are there ways to tell a more complete story from the very start of our work?

When the FP Article,  A $9 Trillion Question: Did the World Get Muhammad Yunus Wrong?, came across my Twitter feed this morning my first thought was, blasphemy!  The praise and attention that Yunus and Soto have received over the past few years - collecting fans and converts of their teachings - make it hard to imagine that someone would write such a title, such a critique.

And yet, there is merit in what Peter Schaefer writes. 

As of 2004, loans provided by microfinance organizations amounted to just $17 billion worldwide. This is a pittance compared with the potential credit requirements of de Soto’s 4 billion poor, most of whom are small-scale entrepreneurs. All capitalists need capital — but the current system will never provide an adequate amount.

Yes!  We need to change the system 1) so that more capital is available to those who need it and 2) so that these programs can achieve widespread change.  But does a overarching need ”to change the system” automatically debunk the accolades these men have received?

No.

The article blends well into a conversation happening on Tactical Philanthropy - high performance vs. high impact.  In a number of blog postings, folks have debated whether focus should be on 1) creating high performing organizations - organizations with strong capacity, strong operations or 2) on creating high impact organization - organizations achieving their missions at a large enough scale to achieve change.

The answer is not one or the other - it is both.  The journey to get to both high performance and high impact is not linear - it is riddled with starts, stops, successes, and failures.  Shaefer may be right to question the quantitative metrics of how these interventions are doing, but it is unfair to count the interventions out.  In defense, he offers us a solution that could further the work of Yunus and Soto - micromortages - that *could* reach many, many more folks.  It is an interesting idea.

Time shows us what works and what would work better.   We strive for that holy grail - the miraclous intersection of high performace and high impact.  Yet in reality, we stand on the shoulders of what came before us and we should hope that their foundations were built well - so that we might achieve greater impact.