Assist International, Inc.
Assist International partners with changemakers around the world to provide solutions that save lives and build resilient communities.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Assist International works to identify barriers and collaborate with others to solve big and often overlooked challenges. We do this by partnering with changemakers around the world to develop and increase the local capacity of communities in need. Our global health programming seeks to improve the quality of healthcare in resource-constrained contexts by increasing the capacity of local healthcare providers. Our child and community programs aim to improve the quality of life for orphaned and abandoned children and families by establishing family-style orphan villages where food, clean water, education, care, and love are always mainstays.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
child:assist
We design and implement humanitarian programs that build capacity, develop opportunities, and save lives around the world. With all of our programs, we believe the best way to provide effective and sustainable solutions that bring about lasting change is by working with in-country partners and coming alongside to empower them and increase their capacity. In our child:assist program, we work with indigenous partners to place orphaned children in family-style homes where food, clean water, education, care and love are always mainstays. During the pandemic, we have continued to support our partners to distribute emergency food, wash stations, medication, and over 3,100 liters of liquid soap and 3,090 masks for refugees, orphans and families in need! We also launched brand new farming initiatives to establish long-term food security in regions of scarcity.
oxygen:assist
Our medical oxygen program is a comprehensive medical oxygen production, distribution, and training model that aims to meet emergency demand while also creating the infrastructure to make health systems more robust and more resilient into the future. Additionally, we have developed clinical training programs to train healthcare workers on best practices in clinical oxygen therapy. To date, we have helped strengthen the oxygen ecosystem in 3 countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda, collectively impacting 4.1M patients in these settings. As COVID-19 continues to impact our world, we remain committed to scaling this effort to reach as many people as possible.
community:assist and optical:assist
Through our community:assist program, we provide emergency supplies, furniture, hygiene items, and household goods to families and individuals in need. We also work to provide sustainable income opportunities internationally with items such as sewing machines for single mothers, and jewelry-making supplies for those seeking vocational training. In addition, our optical:assist program distributes much needed eyewear to those in need of glasses. This year, we also established a new partnership with Step Up in Crisis. Together, we distributed over 1M units of PPE to front-line healthcare workers across the United States!
In collaboration with over 1,000+ volunteers and over 100 local and international partner organizations, our community:assist program reaches thousands of people each year, such as: domestic violence survivors, local schools, foster youth, and wildfire survivors, as well as those who live in underserved regions of the world.
health:assist
Through our health:assist program, we train, educate, and provide life-saving equipment to healthcare providers in some of the world’s most low-resource settings. In partnership with the Project ECHO Institute, AI began a tele-education program as a way to discover viable, cost-effective alternatives to in-person trainings. Our program reaches clinicians, biomedical technicians, and hospital administration, providing training in the areas of anesthesia, sterilization processing, medical equipment. At the onset of the pandemic, we worked to establish additional tele-education hubs in Africa and Latin America to train medical personnel on life-saving topics, including oxygen therapy and critical care, COVID-19 case management, safe surgery and more. So far, these efforts have reached 10,000+ healthcare learners in 128 countries around the world!
wash:assist
Through our wash:assist programs, we provide clean water in geographic communities that lack access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene. We believe one of the most effective ways to improve the overall health of a community is to provide clean water to local health facilities. Since 2006, we have collaborated with partners to provide Safe Water Filtration Systems to birthing centers and community health clinics. Our WASH Solution improve health outcomes and save lives at healthcare facilities worldwide. We also worked to develop the local healthcare workforce through comprehensive WASH training and infrastructure maintenance.
Where we work
External reviews
Photos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of people trained
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Health
Related Program
health:assist
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Clinical & biomedical professionals reached with our virtual programs
Number of children reached everyday through our child:assist programs
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Health, Family relationships, Social and economic status
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
Children impacted daily through our child:assist programs.
Number of pick up and deliveries through our community:assist program
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Social and economic status
Related Program
community:assist and optical:assist
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Pick up and deliveries through our community:assist program
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?
We aim to build local-capacity for long-term sustainability in the Global South by collaborating with partners and in-country colleagues to design and implement programs that meet the needs of those who are vulnerable. We seek to be ethical in the way we do business, report on programs, and handle donor funds with transparency and maximum efficiency.
In everything we do, we always remember “the one”— the one baby receiving oxygen therapy treatment, the one mother receiving a safe and effective surgery, the one orphan now living with a warm, adopted family. While we always aim for transformative impact, ultimately, we want to improve the livelihoods of individual people.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
We believe the best way to drive lasting change is to partner with local individuals, NGOs/agencies and governments to increase their capacity to meet their community’s needs. We partner with in country leaders and indigenous individuals, from frontline nurses and doctors to engineers to orphan home founders to equip them with the tools and training so that they can continue impacting communities long after our involvement ends. We do this utilizing 1) innovative and locally appropriate solutions, 2) partnerships, including health facilities, governments and other leaders as well as international agencies, knowing each partner brings unique value, 3) Monitoring and evaluation, so we are able to track and measure the progress and areas that can improve, and 4) always remembering “the one,” meaning, that while many of our programs have transformative impact for many people, we want to improve the lives of individual people, rescue the one child, help the one person in need of water or other assistance, or get oxygen into the lungs of one more patient.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Assist International’s contributions towards alleviating suffering stem from our philosophy to bring about long-term change by collaborating with in-country partners to increase capacity to impact communities. We carry a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, their highest honor. Included in this score was a perfect 100.00 for accountability and transparency. Our passionate team excels in implementing a variety of programs and projects in challenging settings. From those who work with us outside our organization, we have been called “solutions architects.”
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Assist International believes in the power of partnerships, and due to our ongoing commitment and transparency, we have developed many outstanding partnerships over the years, working with over 500 partners since our founding in 1990.
In 2013, Assist International set out to impact lives with access to medical oxygen. To date, we have built five oxygen plants in Rwanda, Kenya, and three in Ethiopia. Combined, these sites now serve 185 hospitals. With over 115,000 large cylinders distributed, access to oxygen has improved the quality of care for 4.11M patients requiring inpatient care at facilities consistently receiving oxygen from Assist's plants; and 84,000 patients have directly received life-saving oxygen treatment (as of August 2021).
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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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
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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 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
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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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.
Assist International, Inc.
Board of directorsas of 02/22/2022
Ralph Sudfeld
Assist International
Robert J. Pagett
Charlene Pagett
Jon Carmichael
Michael Comer
Gil Miltenberger
Deborah Balch
Austin Carmichael
Sharon Fruh
Ralph Sudfeld
Albert Vaters
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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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? Yes
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:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
Transgender Identity
No data
Sexual orientation
Disability
Equity strategies
Last updated: 04/16/2021GuideStar 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 ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- 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 disaggregate data by demographics, including race, in every policy and program measured.
- 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 have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- 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.