Building Collective Power
Client: Unlock Aid
Rather than creating more competition for public funds, we helped our client band together with other like-minded leaders and set the foundation for all to further their impact.
The Challenge
USAID spends $20,000,000,000 a year through a fundamentally broken procurement system dominated by incumbent, “prime” contractors who have perfected the art of “winning” bids without delivering on the calls for innovation and localization that have been coming for decades.
As a result, the most innovative companies in the United States avoid working on important international development projects because it’s just not worth the pain. Solving this challenge would take competitors collaborating in a coalition that applied pressure on public institutions to unlock critical aid dollars.
The Approach
From Findings to Fulfillment
Unlock Aid began as a research project for the frustrated but action-oriented CEO of a mid-size company in the international development space. With a three-month contact, Starling conducted over 70 interviews to understand the problem and its surrounding context – and organized a founding group of 20 companies, aligned around a common vision.
To get things going, Starling applied the approach many of Unlock Aid’s members took with their idea: we made a deck and pounded the pavement. Armed with research, an initial group of interested companies and a clear mission, we pitched foundations, securing hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding.
With the money, Starling stood up the new organization from scratch, from establishing a fiscal agent to creating an initial advocacy agenda to designing the website to recruiting a full-time Executive Director.
Building and Take-Off
Through our interviews, Starling discovered three key insights on global development and aid:
- Exclusion of Smaller Innovators: Large contractors included smaller innovators in donor proposals but often excluded them from actual work.
- High Costs for Smaller Innovators: Smaller innovators struggled with the financial and HR costs of working in development.
- Departure of Top Innovators: The best innovators were leaving global development.
These findings shaped our advocacy and business plan:
- Recruitment: We recruited 20 founding members to build a community of engaged leaders.
- Infrastructure: We guided our client through the 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) process, pitched to foundations, and raised significant funds from organizations like the Skoll and Mulago Foundations.
- Awareness: We maintained focus on both the initial build and longevity of the coalition by placing op-eds, developing campaigns, building a website, and engaging policymakers to generate momentum for the community.
Unlock Aid Executive Director, Walter Kerr testifies to Congress
Lesson Learned
The importance of letting go
Part of successfuly incubating an organizations means letting it go to stand on its own. Unlock Aid is now a thriving 501c(3) and c(4) with a growing member community and a track record of success. We’re proud to say that Starling helped Unlock Aid lift off, and now we are its biggest cheerleaders.
“Starling Strategy was an essential part of both the Unlock Aid origin story and many of our most successful campaigns. They incubated the organization, helping us to figure out the right strategy to get results. They’ve also been an indispensable partner towards executing our most successful campaigns that translated into real policy changes.”
-Walter Kerr, executive director of Unlock Aid
36
Organizations joined as Unlock Aid members in less than 6 months
22
Congressional meetings in Unlock Aid’s first Washington, DC Advocacy week
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Countries represented across first cohort of Unlock Aid members
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