The West Foundation’s Impact on Outreach International
Outreach International has been building and refining community-led development in places suffering from chronic extreme poverty for more than four decades. It has become one of the highest-rated international charities in North America in the last ten years, growing its impact by 8X, halving overhead, acquiring and rehabbing a new headquarters, and consistently being named a best place to work. It has also dramatically increased its visibility, including becoming the number one search result for “how to help people in poverty.” This growth has resulted from a powerful team partnered with generous individuals and organizations who find lasting joy by creating outstanding social ROI.
(From contributing writer Dr. Kevin Prine, President & CEO, Outreach International)
Outreach International balances the funding of several hundred projects with the operational support of the local teams responsible for creating true sustainability. Through this balance, we discover the greatest degree of community transformation and the creation of social good.
For seven years, The West Foundation has supported the work of Outreach International, acting as a true partner along our pathway of growth. Sometimes, this partnership allowed us to enhance our performance – for example, through purchasing technology, we decreased costs while improving monitoring and feedback.
Other times, this financial support allowed us to deploy resources to the field so that we directly impacted families creating their self-reliant communities. Most recently, this meant local construction of thousands of handwashing stations combined with new healthy sanitation habits, start-up capital for seven community sustainable food loan programs, and emergency food relief for 1,340 households in 23 rural communities, to name just a few examples.
The world would be pretty miserable if we were alone in this work. Thankfully, there are many, many amazing people and organizations who partner together to make the planet a better place for others. The West Foundation and Outreach International is one beautiful example of that cooperation.