Locking Down, Looking Forward
Two months ago this week the State of North Carolina and the Province of Ontario, the two locations where our headquarters are based, went into full lockdown. Our team at NeedsList is global, spanning from Beirut to Brooklyn. We are accustomed to working remotely and are built to respond to crisis. Yet, like people working in startups all over the world, we have had to navigate uncharted territory: school-age children at home needing support; immediate loss of loved ones to COVID-19; and increased anxiety around the uncertainty of our future. Today as we move into month three of lockdown, we would like to share beliefs affirmed, lessons learned, and new questions we are facing as a humanitarian tech startup
1. Your first pivot won’t be your last.
In mid-March, it became clear to our leadership that our partners and users were going to have to support the onset of COVID19 on top of their existing humanitarian response. We knew that if we, as a startup building tools for crisis relief, did not take COVID-19 on front and center, we would quickly become irrelevant. And so we quickly launched a multi-pronged strategy that would make our toolsets widely available for free. We were immediately flooded with requests, of course for PPE. We soon realized that efficiently purchasing and deploying PPE to those in need was a challenge that federal governments, multilateral organizations, and numerous other stakeholders have failed. We’re witnessing unprecedented global supply chain shortages and the “Wild West” of procurement nightmares. Concerned that we were potentially contributing to the pricing surges, we huddled internally, and decided to instead explore where our toolsets and expertise might be more useful, leading us to consider…
2. The hierarchical nature of needs.
While masks, gloves, and other PPE were, and still are, front and center of the COVID-19 response, we knew from prior experience that other sets of commodities and services would also become urgently needed as shelter in place orders were given. Here in Toronto, as in many areas, food insecurity was top of mind for vulnerable populations. Local organizations such as Scadding Court Community Centre and Feed it Forward quickly became alpha testers of our software. When they posted needs for items such as colanders and kitchen work benches, we were thrilled to see IKEA Canada come on board to meet these needs with offers of in-kind donations. Moving forward, we will take this lesson to heart, encouraging our users to think broadly not only about what is needs are most urgent, but also, what might be relatively easily met. We know that technology alone can not solve supply chain issues — but perhaps what it can do is help to address is the gap between needs and the abundance of generosity we see emerging during all crises.
3. The dilemma of collaboration.
When we first started NeedsList we were pretty damn naive. We assumed that when it came to humanitarian action, decisions were driven by how many people could be helped. Yes, of course we knew there were political and economic drivers, but my understanding was that organizations with a mandate to help those in need would live by these words. However we discovered during previous disasters, that two opposing trends may co-exist in times of crisis. COVID-19 is no outlier.
a. Humanitarian organizations are frequently unwilling to collaborate with one another. Whether it is a matter of ego or funding, the reality is the incentive of providing greater “helping” is not enough to foster collaboration.
b. And yet, when given the opportunity and the tools, these same organizations step up to help one another by meeting each other’s needs. We’ve seen this over and over again — from grassroots organizations on the island of Lesvos using NeedsList to exchange a defibrillator, to community groups in North Carolina supporting one another through hurricane response by posting needs and alerting one another to suitable offers.
4. Change as the only constant.
This week our partners The Core Group are launching NeedsList with Ministries of Health, partner NGOs, suppliers, and community-based organizations in three new countries — Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia, with plans to expand to Uganda, Somalia, South Sudan and India later this summer. This marks the first full-scale deployment of our updated software to address urgent needs for commodities and knowledge sharing in some of the hardest to reach communities. Our goal is to give communities on the frontline of COVID-19 a direct link to suppliers and service providers so they can quickly get exactly when they need it. On the flipside, we’ll be engaging a wide local and regional supplier network to provide SMEs and global corporations with opportunities not only to give philanthropically, but to sell at fair market prices — thus avoiding the kind of price gouging historically accompanying crisis relief.
What’s next?
At NeedsList, we’ve never been ones to shy away from challenges. We have managed to deploy new software three months ahead of schedule in a global pandemic, focusing on entirely new markets including conflict zones. Maybe it’s because my son has been practicing Frank Sinatra nonstop on the piano throughout lockdown — but we know that “If we can make it there, we’ll make it anywhere…..”
It’s up to us. All of us.
Want to learn more or partner? Please reach out via our website or at info@needslist.co
