work

So—what am I actually DOING? After three months, I’ve identified two areas of focus: travel philanthropy and attracting investment to the region. For travel philanthropy, that means setting up a system to connect tourists and travel operators with local development projects. How to collect and disburse funds, how to measure and report results. Just starting to put that together, with support from staff in the US. It means meeting with local organizations, discussing their field projects, learning about their accounting systems, understanding their method of tracking results. Also identifying potential donors and communicating with them. Setting up the funds management is the sticky part, it’s what I’m trying to sort out right now.

For attracting investment—this will be fun. So far I’ve completed an analysis of the local business environment (and in a country that has essentially no statistical database, this was a neat trick) and composed an informational brief for potential investors. I went to two conferences in October (in Bamako, the capital city) and met a few prospects there. The big fish I’m targeting is a company that operates luxury lodges, five star properties, super de luxe. Hopefully I’ll met with them next month, they may do a field visit to scout sites for development.

I also spend a lot of time tagging along with the project coordinator—attending meetings of local associations, consulting with local hotel owners, trying to build awareness about the benefits of tourism while at the same time recognizing fundamental unmet needs and local constraints.