The most instructive trust failures I have observed in East African nonprofits and development organisations have not been dramatic events — a financial scandal, a public betrayal, a governance breakdown. They have been quiet and cumulative. A CEO who consistently communicated decisions without explaining the reasoning behind them, until the…

There is a governance failure that is endemic in African civil society, and it is one that almost no CEO discusses openly: the board that exists on paper but cannot, in practice, hold its executive leadership to meaningful account. The signs are familiar to anyone who has worked closely with…

The most costly motivation failures in nonprofit organisations are not resignations. They are the gradual withdrawals that precede them — and that most CEOs do not recognise until the departure letter arrives. It looks like this: the experienced programme lead who stops raising strategic questions in team meetings. The finance…

The contraction of major bilateral programming — including the significant scaling back of USAID operations — has done more than create a funding gap. It has exposed a structural vulnerability that many African civil society organisations spent years choosing not to see: the danger of building an institution on a…

There is a leadership failure hiding in plain sight across Kenya’s development sector. It does not look like failure — it looks like dedication. It looks like a CEO who is always present, always available, and always involved. But this relentless operational presence is, in most cases, the single biggest…