This portal describes Nyaya Health's approach to Development.
Rationale
To work towards Nyaya's two-fold mission -- implementing health care infrastructure in collaboration with the Nepali public sector, and developing a scalable model of health care delivery -- we must approach organizational development from both the financial and social domains. While many of us may find ourselves drawn to the organizational work that falls within our "comfort zone" of clinical, analytical, or managerial work, we must continually maintain these two goals as organizational priorities of the utmost importance.
Financial Development
To provide free health care and health systems strengthening in Achham (e.g. payment of salaries, purchasing of drugs, renovations of the hospital, etc.) Nyaya must strive to raise funds on multiple levels. In the short-term, this will continue to involve a significant proportion of funding from private donors, small foundation grants, and our public sector (Nepali Ministry of Health and Population, MOHP) funding. In the long-term however, funding should necessarily shift towards larger grants from multi-nationals (e.g. UN, WHO, GFATM, et al.), large foundations (BMGF, Clinton, et al.), and in accordance with our mission of public sector strengthening, integration, and accountability, a continued proportion of financing from the MOHP. Given the social and political structures preventing developing nations from expanding public sector services, we must work in parallel with the government, bolstering their own financial pie, rather than accepting what is already an unacceptably low amount of total available financial capital.
Social Development
In parallel to financial resources, social development is a key component of Nyaya's work. To enhance the network of advocates and supporters of global health, Nyaya must strive to place issues of global health delivery at the forefront of public discourse. Similar to those organizations who continue to be a model for our work (e.g. PIH, MSF, Tiyatien, et al.), engaging in such advocacy will expand support for our work addressing inequities in health care globally. Such discourse will also offer Nyaya continued opportunity to learn from those with valuable and different experiences, ensuring critical and progressive examination and revision of our work.
On Technology and Magic Bullets
Especially in the era of IT-facilitated social entrepreneurship, many funders are looking for the next, big, innovative, scaleable idea. They're often looking for the modern, tech-version of small-pox vaccines that can eradicate various poverty-associated maladies. Nyaya Health is not an organization designed to discover and create these "magic bullet" innovations, though we of course celebrate and collaborate with those who are working on them. But for this reason, it can be challenging to describe to the "new funder" what it is that makes Nyaya unique. Our "innovation" is more in our long-term commitment to place and community, our deep passion for in healthcare quality, and our undying belief in openness, collaboration, and transparency. That's not particularly suited to the typical "elevator pitch", but with the proper framing, we can nevertheless appeal to our colleagues in the tech-innovation world and remain true to our vision. One "elevator pitch" is here:
In the last decade, momentum and financing to fight diseases of the poor globally has started to grow. To capitalize on this new momentum, we need a global movement that builds local infrastructure for healthcare. While global, the action takes place at a grassroots local level, where local community members and activists commit to innovation and commitment to solve their health problems. These local changemakers need data, information, and ideas to be effective. This is what Nyaya Health, our non-profit organization, is doing in remote, rural far western Nepal: we are creating innovative solutions to the problems particular to our place, while doing so in a transparent and collaborative manner. We publish our budgets line-by-line, discuss our mistakes, review our deaths, and analyze our outcomes in an open format. This strategy-- collaborative transparency-- helps us to be more effective while helping advance the global movement to the right to health of which we are one of many activists and innovators. Visit our wiki.nyayahealth.org and blog.nyayaheath.org to see how we are effecting change locally in rural Nepal and building the knowledge and practice infrastructure needed to fight disease globally.
Fundraising Approach
These sections outline Nyaya's approach to fundraising, including both small (personal fundraising, family, friends, etc.) and large (foundations, corporate in-kind giving, etc.) financing streams.
Communications Approach
These sections outline Nyaya's approach to interacting with the press/media, and in particular, guidelines for our own Blog.
Materials
These materials have been developed for Nyaya team members for use in any interaction with the public (e.g. fundraising efforts, presentations, etc.) or the press (e.g. interviews, background for articles, etc.). They have been developed for generic purposes, and should be tailored for the particular audience that they are aimed at.
- Two page info sheet about Nyaya Health [.doc] [.pdf]
- Nyaya Health poster [.pdf]
- Tri-fold brochure [.pdf]
- Direct mailing materials -- see here
- Powerpoint presentations
- Quick links to important Nyaya websites
On Branding
How Nyaya portrays ourself to the public is critical to the development of our "brand", which itself is central to fundraising and development. Branding is not just a strategy used by corporations to convince consumers to buy their wares; its a reality of any social or economic transaction in human societies. The branding process itself should be open and transparent, and align with our actual work and mission. A few aspects of our current branding process:
- our brand is not tied into any one leader or figurehead, which is one branding strategy that is not consistent with our particular team- and collaboration-oriented model
- we should not degrade the very real resources of Achham to "sell" poverty; our mission is to rectify historic injustices and resource-denial rather than to "save" the impoverished citizens of "resource-poor" areas
- our branding should allow flexibility for honest and open assessments of our mistakes while being proud and strategically marketing our successes
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