On May 14, from 3:00 to 5:00, Yo Ghana! will be honoring Mr. Brando Akoto in its annual celebration at Africa House.

Brando was part of Yo Ghana! for only about a year and a half when he passed away six months ago, but he left a big mark on how Yo Ghana! goes about its work.

As this photo suggests, Brando attended closely to children. I remember visiting one day last winter when he was obviously in a lot of pain but still enthralled by and attentive to the toddler who was bouncing all over the room and him. He brought the same level of attentiveness to every interaction, whether you were a life-long friend or a boy selling bananas alongside a dusty Ghana road he would never see again. Being around Brando made one feel as if you should expect more of yourself.

Brando brought an acute intelligence and many years of experience in doing grass-roots development in Ghana to Yo Ghana!  But most of all he brought a relentless focus on relationships, on caring for and about each other. Brando always wanted more time with whomever he was with. To a school administrator in Ghana who was regretting that a large nonprofit had quickly built them a cookie-cutter classroom that did not fit their needs and then moved on, Brando replied: "We won't build you a classroom. But if you start one, we will help, and twenty years from now we will still be visiting and working with you." When we returned to the school a year later, they had, indeed, started building some classrooms all on their own, to their own specifications.  In two months we will visit them for the third time, and the teachers and students will ask after Mr. Brando.

I hope that you can join us May 14.  You can get tickets (just $20.00 for over age 10, $10.00 for ages 5-10) by emailing Yo Ghana! or by registering through our Eventbrite page.
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There will be dancing and drumming from the Obo Addy Legacy Project, West African food from Madam Victorine and many other West African ladies, awards to some of our amazing volunteers and teachers, and we shall hear from a few of our 2,000 students.  And we'll light a candle for and say some words about the dear man responsible for bringing so many of us together and lighting our way.

Some years ago I read a that young nonprofits should approach their work as if they were trying to move a stationary flywheel.  The impulse is to try to do something big and intense.  But the way to get an organization going or a massive flywheel moving is through sustained, concentrated effort, a series of small explosions of force rather than a big bang or two.

Most of us learn this the hard way in our personal lives.  My junior year of high school I decided to become a great runner by putting in 120 miles a week  It didn't work.  So the summer before my senior year I committed to one high-quality run a day at more moderate distances, and I improved drastically.  Writing books takes years of sustained effort, of research, reading in a wide range of fields, thinking about ideas, considering new arguments and approaches, going back to research more deeply in some areas--in sum, keeping at it.  Sure, the occasional flash of insight comes.  But it is almost always the product of disciplined, sustained work.
When it comes to nonprofits, though, we often think that one big donation or program will put an organization "over the top."  But successful and durable organizations seem to be built more slowly, with care and attention to detail.  "Don't get out over your skis," one experienced fund raiser advised.  An expert in development cautioned: "Build capacity, not just programs"; in other words, do not tackle an exciting new initiative unless you have the resources, the money and time, to support it.

I think Yo Ghana! has, since becoming a 501(c)3 some two and a half years ago, followed this advice. We put a lot of emphasis on quality, evaluation, and collaboration.  If we are trying something new, we like to start small and see how it goes.  We try not to force participation where this is not the will to follow through.

It is very exciting to see our steady growth and successes in terms of reliability of letter exchanges, quality of letter exchanges, numbers of volunteers, numbers and types of grants that we reward, our research and evaluation program, and general enthusiasm and credibility.  Once a big flywheel starts moving, it has a lot of power behind it.