We attempt to build corporate partnerships. Scotiabank is an organization that we've worked with in the past. One aspect of that is their releasing their staff to volunteer in our programs. We find they bring different skill sets. So perhaps historically your classic Cuso volunteer would have been somebody with a community work background or perhaps a teacher or a doctor. But increasingly we're working on business development.
We're also looking at strengthening management systems. One of the things that the civil society groups, the governments, the local governments that we work with face is that quite often with information systems, somewhere between the idea and the delivery there's a breakdown in the ability to take an idea from a policy and make it happen. We have found that often our corporate people, say from Scotiabank, have that business mind, the skills around business planning, how to get your ideas out there. So coaching and mentoring people on planning, delivering, etc., is important. Scotiabank springs to mind.
We've also worked with people like Deloitte. One of the things a lot of the organizations we work with have is financial management. I think in the developing world, there's a whole heap of issues that come from people's inability to manage their money. Having really skilled professionals working with people, looking at financial systems, how best to manage your resources.... We get a lot of MBA-type business professionals coming out of our partners and doing a lot of work around planning, system strengthening, really helping people to run better and more efficient organizations. Often a lot of our partners, particularly in civil society, have a lot of good intentions, a lot of drive, but it's that ability to take your ideas and to deliver.... What we often find is that our private sector volunteers bring in some slightly harder skills about how to deliver, and I think that's worked pretty well.