Founded in early 2000, FDTA-Valles (Foundation for the Development of Agricultural Technology of the Valleys) is a non-profit institution based in Cochabamba, Bolivia and working to end poverty among indigenous farmers and their families. In 2000, the Foundation expanded with support from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through Chemonics' Market Access and Poverty Alleviation (MAPA) 1 Project.

Since then, FDTA-Valles has managed a very successful portfolio of more than 100 projects serving more than 100 organizations, 44 technology providers, and impacting almost 75,000 families. Local farmers have seen a 90% average income increase by crop, and average rural household income has increased by 54%. By virtually every measure and with every donor, the Foundation has exceeded expectations.

Despite impressive yields from the monies invested in the Trust Fund, it has long been expected that all of the original principal would be used to fund grants. With those funds running out in late 2010, Common Ground was first contracted in the summer of 2009 to provide assistance in implementing a successful fundraising strategy to guarantee long-term sustainability of the Foundation and its programs.

In October 2009, Common Ground consultants traveled to Bolivia to put in place a mechanism for engaging outside help with FDTA-Valles' fundraising efforts. Once there, however, we found highly competent, passionate, and motivated fund development capacity already existing on the team; and we recommended strengthening internal capacity—rather than outsourcing—as a more efficient use of limited resources.

In the next few months, the Foundation came to believe as we did—that key staff had already proven their fundraising abilities and that building internal capacity should be the goal. Unfortunately, competing priorities prevented the Foundation from implementing the changes. Most decisions have a status quo option—a choice that means doing nothing and/or maintaining a current or previous decision. The truth is that most of us prefer that option, even when it's no longer in our interests.

It's fair to say that this organization is not so unusual in having voiced the desire to make changes in how they operate, yet failing to act when the opportunities for change became manifest. In order to jumpstart the process, Chemonics again engaged with Common Ground to establish a strategy for moving forward. When we arrived in FDTA-Valles' offices in January 2010, we met immediately with the key staff, agreed to specific deliverables, and began the coaching process to ensure success.

At Common Ground we believe in the "Economics of Trust." In order to push forward an appropriate fundraising strategy for the Foundation, this has once again been an integral part of our work with the organization's leadership—particularly as our recommendations involved staffing changes throughout the organization.

In our work, we find that the hardest part of a change process usually isn't diagnosing the problem. The hardest part is helping an organization's leadership create and walk the bridge between the old and the new. It's about the journey. Effective technical assistance interventions must focus on both identifying a problem and offering paths to real solutions—a process that requires the cooperation and commitment of leadership and stakeholders at every step.

One of the aspects of the work threaded throughout our engagements with FDTA-Valles has been helping the organization prepare to tell its story more effectively to potential donors and investors. Working with an outstanding videographer from Chemonics, we've offered a framework, content suggestions and feedback as they develop a short and powerful video for use in their fundraising efforts. You can watch the final video below.

The most important thing to know about change is that it is rarely a simple event. It is a process fraught with risk and conflict, marked more often than not by one step forward and two steps back. It's difficult, takes time and always starts with a single step. FDTA-Valles took that step following our second visit and have since engaged with Common Ground a third time using our coaching intervention to move through the next few difficult months ahead.

With this long-term engagement, Common Ground has been able to work with an amazing group of leaders committed to continuing their life-changing work on behalf of Bolivian farmers and their families. They're exercising their risk-taking muscles in smart and strategic ways; stepping outside of their comfort zones; and playing in every way to their strengths as an organization. FDTA-Valles is proving that while change can be difficult, the results can be profound.