For over twenty years, REI has served in “building people to build nations” in emerging countries worldwide: from Asia to Africa to Eastern Europe to the Middle East, REI’s impact has been felt. But what quantitative impact have we truly made?
We measure our impact in a few ways:
We aspire to honor?and to earn the respect of?the nationals in countries where we serve. Nothing satisfies us more than to be welcome in the countries where we work and to be invited into new areas of service by government and civic leaders. We do not presume the necessity of our presence; rather, we wait to be asked to serve. We prefer to have local and national leaders recognize a need, and request that REI endeavor to meet it.
One measure of success that we use to determine our impact is local reaction to our work. When local publications praise our work, we evaluate our impact as positive and good. When governments and highly-placed national leaders honor us publically, we know that we have achieved our goal of mutual respect and honor through the work we have done in their country.
In 2009, when REI’s staff in Indonesia was able to provide 30 jobs to national farmers through the production of dried mangoes, we knew their work had been successful. More than that, when village employees of the not-for-profit production facility more than doubled their income through their employment with this project; when the employees were successfully trained in the business of food processing, hygienic standards of food manufacturing, management, and the maintenance of the dehydrating technology; and when REI’s dried mango production project was able to create a new export for the Indonesian economy, selling in Singapore food markets in 2010, REI staff rejoiced and knew that their work had been a success.
At REI, we know that our work is successful when we can measure our success by the number of people impacted, and by the way that our work has changed their lives.
In 2005, when REI’s branch in Kazakhstan closed its Micro-Enterprise Development (MED) program, it was not because it had failed. It was because REI learned that locals, equipped by REI, could manage the program better than REI’s mostly expatriate staff in Kazakhstan. The project had served 200 clients in their small business loan program, and they had granted more than 400 loans in total, having faced only two defaults on those loans during the program’s six-year history. Today, the loan program is still going on in the Kazakh villages where it began, with REI staff acting as consultants as needed, and the interest that is earned through the loan program has helped create a community fund for the villages.
At REI, we are currently in the process of gathering more telling, quantitative statistics of our impact overseas, and we look forward to sharing those with you on the website and in our in-progress annual report when our research is finished!
Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have about this.
