How we work
THREE guiding principles
1. HUMAN RIGHTS
We understand that human rights are universal and indivisible, and that it is therefore urgent to ensure that all people can exercise their rights.
2. PARTICIPATION AND COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP
We work from community development principles and recognise the crucial importance of self-determination, participation and community ownership.
3. ENVIRONMENTS
We believe that the health, wellbeing and life outcomes of all people are affected by the social and natural environments in which they live, and that environments must therefore be nurtured, protected and restored.
Our philosophy
THREE for All Foundation works alongside genuine and passionate community organisations around the world to address complex challenges that the communities themselves have identified. We provide technical support, resources, expertise in specific content areas (such as suicide prevention or improving educational outcomes) and assistance to access the resources and supports of other organisations. Through this, we help disadvantaged groups and communities to achieve their own goals, and we strengthen local organisations and support local heroes to make the difference in their own communities.
We build long term and trusting relationships with our partner organisations, based on mutual respect and commitment to shared goals. All of our projects are multi-year, and while we regularly review our progress in each community, we do so with an expectation that our partnerships will continue for as long as there is clear benefit to each community.
We look to build networks of relationships in each of the locations we work, to strengthen our projects and our partners and improve the sustainability of the work we do together. This also enables us to lever off the success of one project in a particular location to another nearby as we already have the relationships and an understanding of the context in which we're working.
We don’t shy away from dealing with complex, large and challenging issues. While we recognise that we are a small organisation with a small resource base, we have demonstrated that we can assist our partner communities to clarify and document their challenges and develop, trial and promote solutions, in ways that leverage and attract resources and supports from government, philanthropy and larger non-government organisations.
We support community-led decision making processes, while working to ensure that all decision making is inclusive, open to diverse viewpoints, and accessible and participatory for those who may otherwise be overlooked or excluded.
We see ourselves as Critical Friends – supporting and strengthening the work of our partner organisations, not doing it for them. As part of this we assist in developing robust monitoring and evaluation measures and assuring that we are all accountable for our actions. We help with research and documentation of both the challenges communities face and the strategies being undertaken to address them.
We are not a religious organisation and we do not provide support for missionary or evangelical work or the promotion of religion. Some of our partner organisations do have a religious basis, but our partnerships with them are focused exclusively on humanitarian goals and activities.
We maintain a small footprint in each of our partner communities, as our aim is to strengthen local organisations, not build our own empire. When we develop and deliver services directly to needy people in a community, we do it in partnership and in a way that builds local capacity and sustainability. We don’t establish our own offices or build our own resources in partner communities.
Sometimes we are able to access external funding to support our work, but much of what we do we do as volunteers. All of our own administrative work is done by volunteers, and volunteer commitment and passion drives our activity.
