A Note from Joanna Colangelo

In March 2022, a month after Russia invaded Ukraine, I sat at my computer, staring at my completed application to join the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. I heard the voices of my friends and family begging me to reconsider – and my best friend’s plea: “Wouldn’t you be able to do more for Ukraine if you were alive?”

They were right, of course. Without any military or law enforcement experience, I would be of little use to Ukraine on the battlefield. If anything, I would be a burden to them. But, like so many people around the world, especially those whose families emigrated from Eastern Europe and who watched in horror as war broke out again in Europe, I knew it was necessary to do something. I thought of what I could offer – writing, photographing, volunteering – and left for Poland to do whatever I could once I arrived.

It didn’t take long to figure out how to lend a helping hand: editing rough English into native English for loosely assembled groups raising funds for helmets and bulletproof vests; interviewing and photographing Ukrainian families to share with educational institutions in the United States; volunteering at NGOs to pack food, clothes.

Almost immediately when I arrived in Poland, I began receiving unexpected texts and emails from philanthropic partners and clients in the United States all asking the same questions: What’s the situation really like on-the-ground? What aren’t we hearing on the news? How can we help? Can you recommend local organizations in Poland and Ukraine that we can support?   

The conversations were often quick and varied based on the focus areas of the philanthropic institutions. Some were interested in helping women and children; others were interested in providing specific resources to first responders – from fire departments to doctors. And others just wanted to know where general gaps existed so they could try to fill those. But almost every conversation centered on the same topic: philanthropies – whether foundations, companies or individual donors – were interested in supporting local organizations that were addressing the most immediate and ever-changing needs on the ground.

I began asking around – spending days with Ukrainian families to document their journeys into Poland, meeting with formal and informal organizations that were providing housing, tutoring, healthcare, clothing and food, and calling journalists who were covering the war to ask for their insights. And then I began writing back to the philanthropic organizations in the United States with reports and recommendations on how, where and with whom they could provide philanthropic or in-kind support.  

By the time I found myself in Poland, I had a nearly 20 year career in corporate and foundation-based philanthropy, and had always approached philanthropy and grantmaking through an anthropological lens. I believed that in order for funders to truly understand the needs of a community, they had to be on-the-ground, fully immersed in that community. They must build trust and listen to people living in those communities in order to be effective in their support or partnership. Without hearing from people – without experiencing and understanding situations with one’s own eyes and ears – how could philanthropic support really be all that effective or sustainable?

While this approach may be possible in many instances, I began questioning what happens when funders simply cannot be in the communities they seek to support? During that first month in Poland in the Spring of 2022, it became glaringly clear that philanthropic institutions wanted to have eyes and ears on the ground so that they could provide resources for specific needs, but for various reasons – geographic barriers, staffing restrictions and safety concerns – they were unable. This identified a huge gap between the desires of U.S.-based philanthropies to support immediate, local or specific needs in global conflict zones and crisis areas, and their actual abilities to do so.

Understanding this, I began to consider how I could meet this need. My company, Razem Worldwide, started as a philanthropic consulting firm, working with clients on building corporate philanthropy programs, and foundations in developing grantmaking initiatives and documenting impact reporting and storytelling. But, whenever possible, I began to carve out opportunities for Razem to be those eyes and ears – and to serve as a local partner in remote areas of the country and world for clients who do not have the ability or capacity to be there themselves.

Over the years, I’ve traveled to the most remote areas of the Navajo Nation and Laguna Pueblo to meet with first responders, business leaders and community health workers to help advise foundations in California and New York on their COVID-19 recovery grantmaking in Indigenous communities. I’ve continued to travel back and forth to Poland to help advise funders on the changing needs of Ukrainians during the war, and have reported on the growing nationalism of Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina for funders with particular interest in supporting Bosnia’s post-war development in the arts, education and small business economy.

With this work expanding into larger initiatives, there emerged an opportunity to truly formalize this approach and provide services to philanthropic institutions so they can have a greater impact in different parts of the world. These services include:

• Researching, reporting, and conducting on-the-ground analyses of philanthropic needs, humanitarian efforts, and resource gaps in conflict zones and crisis areas.

• Applying findings to how foundations, corporations and donors can have a direct and effective impact in those regions.