GLOBAL BRIGADES INC
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Global Brigades implements a Holistic Model in rural communities where a general lack of resources and opportunities exist. We work to address a number of problems including the absence of water and sanitation infrastructure, scarcity of regular and affordable healthcare services and lack of access to basic financial services such as savings and loans. While addressing these issues we implement components of education and women's empowerment to increase inclusion of women and future generations, aimed at ensuring sustainable programming.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Economic Development
Global Brigades supports Microfinance and Micro-enterprise Consulting Programs in Ghana, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. The Economic Development programs consist of three primary pillars: providing access to financial resources via the creation of a community owned banks that provide credit & savings services, financial literacy education, and micro-enterprise development & counseling. Global Brigades staff work with communities to establish the Community Banks and provide follow-up and technical assistance. Financial education and micro-enterprise counseling are provided through the implementation of student volunteers during 7 day trips to Ghana, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.
Global Health
Global Brigades supports Medical, Dental, and Community Health Worker Programs in Ghana, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.
The goal of Global Health programs is to ensure regular and affordable access to improved healthcare for rural community members. To improve access, the program works with volunteers to implement mobile-clinics with the support of community leaders and volunteers. Mobile clinics in offering medical, dental, OBGYN, and vision screening stations are implemented in a community every 4-6 months. As part of Global Brigades' holistic development model, Community Health Workers are trained in partner communities. These CHWs are tasked with providing basic health care and health/WASH education to the community. They are capable of responding to the health needs of the community, and provide referrals to patients needing a higher level of care.
Water, Sanitation & Hygiene
Global Brigades implements Water and Public Health Infrastructure Programs in Ghana, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.Water Brigades' mission is to empower communities to access sufficient clean water through infrastructural development, water treatment, community leader training, and education. Water Brigades volunteers assist in designing and constructing water systems to prevent water related illnesses in communities with limited access to clean water.Public Health Brigades implements in-home health infrastructure projects, aiming to improve health, sanitation and hygiene practices community wide. Each project - latrines, water storage units, showers, clean-burning stoves and drinking water filters - is designed to prevent common and reoccurring illnesses that plague our community partners. The collaboration among all other GB program teams, local community members, their local government, and our student volunteers is essential for the completion and sustainability of each project.
Where we work
External reviews
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of loans issued
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults, Indigenous peoples, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Economic Development
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
The 2017 number is the total number of loans disbursed by Global Brigades' Community Banks through the en of the year 2017.
Number of individuals to whom medicines were distributed
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Indigenous peoples, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Global Health
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
This is the number of patient consultations in Global Brigades mobile medical clinics. Note 2005-2008 are conservative estimates.
Number of people receiving safe drinking water from community systems
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Water, Sanitation & Hygiene
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Decreasing
Number of women counseled about Pap tests
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Women and girls, Indigenous peoples, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Global Health
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of trained Community Health Workers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Indigenous peoples, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Global Health
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This is the cumulative number of Community Health Workers trained and working in Global Brigades partner communities.
Number of families benefited from in-home public health infrastructure
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Water, Sanitation & Hygiene
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
This is all families that benefited from public health infrastructure projects each year.
Number of community owned banks trained
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Indigenous peoples, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Economic Development
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of individuals to which dental care services were provided
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Indigenous peoples, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Global Health
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Our primary aim is to empower communities. We build the infrastructure and local leadership to transition from having international volunteers engage in the projects to one of complete solidarity owned and operated by community leaders with just follow-up / maintenance from our local teams. We define an Empowered Community at the point where the health and development goals of the community have been met. Specifically, they have established and capitalized a community-owned bank, have access to designs, technical assistance and financing to build full-scale water systems with treated water piped directly into their home, latrines, eco-stoves and other in-home public health infrastructure, and they have trained Community Health Workers providing year-round primary care. All of the above led by local committees and funded by the communities to grow and maintain these initiatives.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Our funding model is based on disruptive philanthropy that creates transformational impact on society. Annually our university chapters mobilize nearly 10,000 volunteers to fundraise and become a part of implementing these solutions first hand. On average, each of them have ten different donors, so nearly 100,000 people annually are donating $15 million to not only cover the chapter's specific project costs, but much of our operating costs. Volunteers not only provide the majority of funding for project implementation, but also participate in it. We have local staff members that work year-round in the communities planning, implementing and doing follow-up on all projects and programs within the communities. This volunteer model and continual presence of local staff gives us the ability to empower communities to continue their development without continually send volunteers to the same community over and over again. In addition, we focus on providing access through a sustainable and scalable financing model, ensuring community buy-in and increased impacy.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Global Brigaes has developed strong internal controls and institutional processes that are ready to be expanded with new funding streams and projects. Global Brigades employs hundreds of local staff and technicians that build the capacity of local leaders and perpetuate the projects into the future. These staff include local engineers, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, business specialists, and other support staff that work together to implement a holistic approach for sustainable health and development. Our relationships with the 600+ community partners are built on empowerment and trust. We have never been asked to terminate a relationship from any community since beginning these partnerships in 2003. Quite the contrary, we are not meeting the demand of potential projects as we seek new funding opportunities to fulfill these opportunities.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
85,000+ volunteers mobilized
1,458,000+, patient consultations and treatments by licensed doctors
162,700+ dental patient consultations and treatments
37,300+ pap-smear exams
620+ Community Health Workers Trained
64 clean water systems providing treated drinking water to more than 20,400 people
Thousands of hours of health and economic education training
4,060+ families benefited with in-home public health projects (latrines, eco-stoves, concrete floors)
235+ Community Bank partners
15,900+ Loans Disbursed
1,700+ Small Business Consultations
$4.2M Invested in Community Banks and Businesses
44 Empowered Communities
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
-
How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
-
Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded
-
What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection, Staff find it hard to prioritize feedback collection and review due to lack of time, It is difficult to get honest feedback from the people we serve, It is difficult to identify actionable feedback
Financials
Unlock nonprofit financial insights that will help you make more informed decisions. Try our monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights?
Learn more
about GuideStar Pro.
Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
GLOBAL BRIGADES INC
Board of directorsas of 01/16/2024
Dr. Duffy Casey
Ke Ola Health Center
Term: 2020 -
Andrew Bird
Deloitte & Touche USA LLP
Dr. Duffy Casey
Ke Ola Health Center
Catherine Bermann
Charles Schwab
Angelo Passalacqua
Burg Translations
Toby Peters
United Way
Alex Dang
Opportunity Fund
Gabriela Valencia
Fundacion Calicanto
Jason Hirsch
Ohio State University
Dr, Richard Lee
University of Washington
Cassie Laibly
Medical College of Wisconsin
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
-
Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
The organization's co-leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 09/21/2022GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We measure and then disaggregate job satisfaction and retention data by race, function, level, and/or team.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.