Nonprofit Leadership Podcast · Dr. Rob Harter

How to Move Beyond Short‑Term Relief to Systemic Change

·37 min·2 clips

Kurt Verbeek lays out ASJ's four-part theory of change: investigations, alliance building, communications, and lobbying.

1. Rob Harder's Nonprofit Leadership Podcast interviews Dr. Kurt Verbeek about moving from short-term relief to systemic reform at the Association for a More Just Society (ASJ) in Honduras. 2. Verbeek has lived in Honduras for about 30 years, co-founded ASJ with his friend Carlos, taught sociology at Calvin University, and ran its semester-abroad program for 25 years. 3. His thesis is that micro-enterprise and farming projects kept failing because gangs and corrupt officials, such as the general who took land farmers had improved, undid them, so ASJ turned to violence and corruption. 4. He recalls that his Calvin students could not name a single organization working on violence or corruption in developing countries, while he knew only one or two, which pushed him to found ASJ. 5. Honduras had 90 homicides per 100,000 people in 2011-2012, which Verbeek ties to drug trafficking and police corruption, and ASJ spent four years pushing a purge that led a six-person commission to fire 6,000 of 13,000 cops. 6. He says a New York Times story about top cops meeting to kill one of their own investigator colleagues added international pressure, and the commission started at the top, firing the country's chiefs of police first. 7. Verbeek describes the risks, including a commissioner whose bodyguard was killed when six men with M16s attacked his vehicle, and he credits security planning, a non-politicized reputation, and "grace of God" for ASJ's safety. 8. ASJ's theory of change has four parts (investigations that can take six months, alliances with churches, one or two press conferences a week drawing 10 to 50 outlets, and lobbying called incidencia), and Verbeek says Honduras's homicide rate is now 22. 9. On immigration and aid cuts, Verbeek argues most Honduran migrants are not fleeing threats to their lives, calls for short-term visas of three to nine months, and says USAID needed reform though the current administration's approach is "pretty awful." 10. Nonprofit leaders and fundraisers interested in advocacy, anti-corruption work, and international development will get the most from this.

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