Strategy
A cross-sector outcome is agreed at a level where everyone can say yes to it.
Why TGIF
Cross-sector work does not fail in the strategy.
It fails at the handoff.
Cross-sector work fails when nobody in the room can speak all the languages involved. Very few nonprofit founders combine this range, and it is the reason TGIF can hold an initiative together end to end rather than handing it off.
The failure mode
Four steps, three organisations, nobody accountable for the outcome
Each step is done competently. The initiative still ends up owned by nobody, because the thing that was supposed to be continuous — the outcome — was the one thing that changed hands.
Design
One discipline writes the specification. It is excellent, and it is written from inside one discipline.
Handoff
Delivery moves to a different organisation, with a different vocabulary and a different definition of done.
Operation
Whatever survived the handoff is run by whoever is left, against measures nobody set at design time.
The range
Eight disciplines, stated as questions
A discipline earns its seat at the table by being responsible for a question the outcome cannot survive getting wrong. These are the eight, and the question each one has to answer.
Healthcare interoperability
Can a record move between the clinic, the lab and the ministry at all?
Artificial intelligence
Does the decision support hold up in a low-resource setting, where the constraint is rarely the model?
Cloud infrastructure
Where does the system actually run, and what happens to it when the power or the connection goes?
Cybersecurity
Once transit, water, waste and public safety data are one estate, who is defending it as one estate?
Government technology
Will this survive a ministry’s procurement route, its budget cycle and its data rules?
International development
Which funding instrument fits — development finance, blended finance, or an offtake commitment?
Diaspora engagement
Whose capital, expertise and networks can be routed back into the region, with a stake in the result?
Entrepreneurship
Who runs this as a going concern after the grant ends, and on what revenue?
Why it matters
Holding one initiative end to end
The eight disciplines are not a services list. They are the reason an initiative can be designed, convened and scaled by the same people, against the same definition of done.
Handed off
Continuity breaks at every boundary
- The definition of done is rewritten by whoever inherits the work.
- Constraints discovered late — procurement, data rules, connectivity — force a redesign nobody budgeted for.
- Nobody owns the measure, so nothing can be compared with anything else.
- When the funding leaves, the deployment leaves with it.
Held end to end
One initiative, one owner, one record
- What counts as finished is fixed at design time and does not move.
- Interoperability, security, procurement and connectivity are in the room from the first conversation.
- The council, the partners, the funding and the measures sit in one record.
- Local operators are trained to run the system, because a deployment that leaves when the funding leaves was never an initiative.
What TGIF contributes
Design, convene, scale — and stay
TGIF is not the delivery organisation for every part of an initiative. It is the structure that keeps the parts pointed at the same outcome.
The outcome, stated once
An initiative starts from what has to move, not from which department would host it. That single decision determines the council, the funding and the measure.
DesignThe room
Convening the advisory council and the partners an outcome actually needs — including the ones whose involvement is inconvenient.
ConveneThe funding fit
Matching the work to instruments that exist for it: development finance, climate finance, universal service funds, employer sponsorship, blended finance, offtake commitments.
ScaleTranslation between disciplines
A clinician, a regulator, a security architect and a lender describing the same constraint in four vocabularies is the normal condition of this work, not an edge case.
ThroughoutThe record
One format across all seven initiatives, so a funder, a ministry or a council member is always reading the same four things.
ThroughoutContinuity after the grant
Local operators trained, and the initiative structured so that it survives the end of any single funding line.
ScaleWho TGIF works with
The kinds of institution an initiative needs
These are the categories the seven initiative records are built from. They describe the shape of the table, not a client list.
Governments and ministries
Health systems
Foundations and funders
Universities and research institutions
Technology companies
Utilities and infrastructure providers
Cooperatives and community organisations
Diaspora networks
Evidence
What this site publishes, and what it does not
A foundation asking institutions to take it seriously should be precise about which of its claims are verifiable today. This is that list.
- Published
- Seven initiatives, each with a stated outcome, the disciplines it draws on, the kinds of council member and partner it requires, the funding instruments it is raised against, and the measures it will be judged on.
- Published
- The model itself: how an initiative is designed, convened and scaled, and the four-part record every initiative carries.
- Published
- Leadership, with the roles and responsibilities each person holds.
- Not published
- Named council members, named partner organisations, committed funding amounts, deployment locations, beneficiary numbers, impact statistics, dates and awards. None of these are stated anywhere on this site, because none have been supplied for publication.
Start a conversation
The first question is which room you belong in
A funder, a ministry, a university and a technology company all need different things established before a first call is worth having. The guided intake asks you which one you are, then asks only the questions that follow from it.