Spring Impact Donor Guide - International

NONPROFIT STORY
TOSTAN
“The community is in the driver’s seat. … It’s not about Tostan’s
agenda; it’s about the community’s agenda.”
Tostan was launched in 1991 with a vision to promote a world
where everyone is treated equally and respectfully, can
live free from harm, and has the tools to determine their
own future and fulfill their potential. Based in the West
African country of Senegal, Tostan changes lives by helping
communities promote their own well-being.
“The community is in the driver’s seat,” says Elena Bonometti,
Tostan’s CEO. “It’s not about Tostan’s agenda; it’s about the
community’s agenda.”
COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT
Alongside its empowering education classes for adults
and adolescents, Tostan helps the community establish
a democratically selected Community Management
Committee—with women making up at least half the
membership—that takes responsibility for implementing
chosen development projects.
“We have seen more than 30,000 women become leaders,
thanks to the benefits of Tostan’s educational programs,”
Bonometti says. “That’s one of our most important
outcomes—to help women fully participate in the life of
their communities.”
Tostan has been a leader in helping communities eliminate
female genital cutting and child marriage through listening to
local women’s experiences and helping build their confidence.
Six years after Tostan was founded, a group of local women
encouraged Tostan to create a new educational module
to facilitate discussions in communities and set goals for
eliminating genital cutting. “This was a pivotal moment, when
we began to understand the power of using human rights in
our curriculum,” Bonometti says.
READY TO SCALE
Over the past 30 years, Tostan’s program has been fine-tuned
based on what it’s learned working with communities. When
Tostan was ready to grow its proven program to reach even
more communities, its leadership did their homework.
“We chose Spring Impact after a very thorough process,”
Bonometti says. “We knew we had something to offer to the
world, but needed to know how to be smart about it to amplify
our impact to the greatest extent. With Spring Impact, we
found values alignment and a partner ready to listen and
adapt our framework. The choice was easy.”
Spring Impact worked with Tostan to prepare the organization
for entry into new countries and communities. Then came the
implementation stage. “We defined a pilot for our replication
pathway to scale, which is today taking place in Nigeria,” she
says. “We are learning by doing, as we are used to at Tostan.”
Bonometti says that Spring Impact is adept at facilitating
illuminating conversations and challenging organizations to
delve deeper into new possibilities. “We knew we could trust
them to provide us with a sounding board and push us so that
we can achieve our mission,” she says.
FLEXIBILITY UNDER PRESSURE
When COVID hit, Tostan had to pause and quickly pivot to
address prevention and care in the communities where they
work. “We were able to do that because we knew clearly what
our mission was and what our partner communities needed,”
Bonometti says. “Thanks to Spring Impact’s work with us, our
organization was flexible and had consciousness of what we
could do and what we couldn’t.”