Special Edition - how you can help save lives

It's a moral obligation to help the most vulnerable

Today’s newsletter will not be focused on policy or politics. Instead I’d like to highlight how each of us, in one small way, can help to overcome some of the inhumane and deadly cuts that Trump has undertaken with our country’s foreign assistance.

In a previous post I highlighted the real-world implications of those cuts - people are literally dying around the world because of Trump’s actions.

But what can we do? Well, below, is one option.

Project Resource Optimization

To be clear, I always encourage people to “do their own research” when thinking about giving to charities. It’s important to understand how a charity actually spends its donated dollars and, crucially, how they measure their impact and make changes to their activities based on that information.

One organization that I have personally begun to support is Project Resource Optimization (PRO). It was recently organized by several laid-off former U.S. AID employees who have used a very sophisticated methodology to:

1. Identify over 22,000 projects that had been receiving U.S. foreign assistance.

2. culling that list to narrow their focus on life-saving health and humanitarian services in the highest need countries, resulting in about 600 potential projects to fund.

3. From there, the group looked at projects that faced a funding gap that private donors could conceivably fill, and were still viable projects (but would soon end if they didn’t receive additional funding).

4. They also conducted an independent review to ensure the projects were delivering proven, cost-effective interventions.

5. Finally, projects that met all these criteria were moved to their final Urgent & Vetted list (about 50 final projects). These are the projects that donated dollars to PRO will help to fund.

PRO has also partnered with two very well known entities in this space, Founders Pledge and The Life You Can Save, to assist in this endeavor. The work being conducted through donations to PRO includes maternal health care, vaccinations, food assistance, treating malnourished children and supporting mobile health clinics for internally displaced people. This is important work.

I know a little something about this

I spent almost 25 years in the non-profit and social impact space and, among other things, oversaw grant making of over $20M to entities working in developing countries. I also oversaw evaluation and measurement activities that were implemented to understand the impact of such funding on those we were targeting for assistance. In the absolutely most fulfilling moments of my life I spent some “time on the ground” in developing countries to help implement such programs. I do not come to this from a position of ignorance.

We can’t do everything but we can do something

It’s often overwhelming when we look at all the world’s ills - the unsheltered, the war-torn, the malnourished, the abused, and the forgotten. But that doesn’t mean we should sit back and accept this condition and I have always thought that our highest moral obligation is to help the most vulnerable, wherever they may live.

We can each decide to do something - because that’s always better than doing nothing. I am choosing compassion over hatred, humanity over inhumanity and caring over cruelty.

Please join me.