la evidencia
Las organizaciones lideradas por refugiados (OLR) son eficaces porque tienen un conocimiento que las organizaciones del extranjero no tienen y están impulsando soluciones para personas a las que las organizaciones del extranjero no pueden alcanzar.
Overview of the Resourcing Refugee Leadership Initiative
The Resourcing Refugee Leadership Initiative (RRLI) is a six-organization strong global coalition dedicated to shifting power and resources to refugee-led organizations (RLOs). The initiative includes 6 prominent RLOs around the world: Basmeh & Zeitooneh in Iraq and Lebanon, Refugees and Asylum Seekers Information Centre in Indonesia, Refugiados Unidos in Colombia, St. Andrew’s Refugee Services in Egypt, Young African Refugees for Integral Development in Uganda, and Asylum Access, a global refugee-led advocacy organization. RRLI gives out flexible, multiyear grants to refugee-led organizations through the RLO-to-RLO Fund, a first-of-its-kind fund for refugees, by refugees. RRLI then supports grantee partners through the Strengthening RLOs Partnership Program, a peer support program where Coalition members support grantee partners to overcome context-specific barriers, strengthen policies and systems, and connect to fundraising and advocacy networks. RRLI also carries out advocacy to encourage influential institutions to directly fund RLOs and to include people of forced displacement in decision-making and strategizing processes, and generates evidence on the impact of RLOs in their communities.
You can find out more about RRLI by reading our 2022 impact report or by checking out our website.
General Background for the Project
RRLI is breaking new ground in the refugee response sector as a global coalition of refugee-led organizations providing grants and non-financial support to peer refugee-led organizations. After a whirlwind first two years of operation, RRLI is embarking on a reflection and visioning process to review and update goals set at the beginning of the initiative, develop strategy and work plans based on experience and lessons learned, and create longer-term visioning for the initiative’s future.
Aspirations and Priorities
RRLI is led by people who have experienced forced displacement and includes people of diverse ethnicities, races, religions, sexualities, genders, and more. RRLI is committed to approaches grounded in decolonial theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We would expect the successful consultant would also share this DEI commitment as indicated by their own experience and approach demonstrating an understanding of diverse work cultures and the ways that DEI plays out across different cultures and contexts globally. RRLI is also committed to genuine, inclusive collective decision making, and governs through consensus.
Summary of Desired Services
The reflection and visioning process and facilitation consultant will, in close collaboration with RRLI staff, develop a framework for the process and shepherd staff and Coalition members through that framework. They will be primarily responsible for managing the building and execution of a reflection and visioning process that reflects RRLI’s values, vision, priorities, and realities. They will work closely with both a core team and the Coalition at large in this process (as well as potentially other stakeholders such as grantee partners as needed), but will be our primary expert on the ‘how’ of the process. The consultant will also be expected to facilitate meetings and workshops in ways that build trust and promote honest, transparent discussion.
This process will be answering key questions as determined by RRLI staff and Coalition members, and will not be a traditional strategic planning process. The process will center around reflecting on goals and strategies set at the beginning of the Coalition’s establishment, adjusting goals and strategies as needed resulting in short- and medium-term goals and workplans, and thinking through visioning for the initiative past our initial 5-year project period.
Target Profile for Consultant
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Demonstrated experience in leading and facilitating organizational planning processes from start to finish for complex, international, intercultural initiatives or organizations.
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Ability to utilize inclusive and mindful facilitation styles that create safety for participants and that promote ongoing relationship development, mindful of the many cultures present.
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Nuanced understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion, and demonstrated understanding of how power dynamics, white dominant professional culture and the white savior complex, and sector history play out in international humanitarian, development, and/or refugee response sectors. Commitment to centering those with lived experience in processes.
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Commitment to creating processes that ensure diverse perspectives are present and that meaningfully include relevant stakeholders across languages, organizations, cultures, countries, and time zones.
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Orientation towards flexibility and nuance, encouraging uncomfortable truths, assumption- checking, and disagreement to serve as data, rather than roadblocks, for the RRLI team.
Consultant Overview
We’d like to learn more about you. Please provide us with brief answers to the following questions (a couple paragraphs at most per question) - please send the answers back to us at info@refugeeslead.org.
About You and Your Approach
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Tell us about yourself (or your organization) and your values. Who are you?
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What is your approach to organizational planning, reflection, and/or visioning processes? What informs that approach?
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Based on RRLI’s understanding of and goals for reflection and visioning, tell us about how you would approach building and executing the process framework. What would you be considering?
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Please describe how diversity, equity and inclusion values drive your design.
Past Experience
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Tell us about your past experience with an organization, initiative, or coalition in a similar situation to RRLI. What did you learn that you would apply to our process?
Budget and Timeline
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Please describe your availability for this project (when you might be able to start, hours you are able to commit to the process, and timeline you would expect for what you have proposed based on this availability). We are ideally starting in May, with the process running until around fall 2023, and includes a retreat in late August/early September.
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Please list and describe your proposed cost structure options. While we are still finalizing our budget for this process and the specific role, we anticipate something in the range of 20K-25K for this role.
Next Steps
If you’re interested in this engagement, we would love to receive the completed RFI by April 21. If you have questions before filling out the RFI, please contact info@refugeeslead.org. We are open to having short discussions before receiving the RFI but will plan for longer explorations of potential engagements once we’ve received the initial information from you.