By Susan Davis, Executive Director, Improve International

Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold. – campfire song

Continuing on the theme of celebrating improvements. My favorite part of this job is that I get to work with several old friends and continue to make new ones. Here are just a few examples:

Old friends

• I’m very excited to work closely with Water 1st International on developing and promoting the Accountability Forum and WASH Sustainability Rating. I’ve known Marla Smith-Nilson, the founder and executive director, since we worked together at WaterPartners International almost a decade ago. We recently jointly presented to an international audience at the LearnMandE Forum in Bangkok.
• The Millennium Water Alliance has been great to work with on some interesting projects, including a Collective Impact report that highlighted knowledge transfer as a key benefit of working in partnership. I’ve worked with three MWA partners since MWA was founded in 2002. I made many new friends when I traveled to Ethiopia in July and interviewed many of the MWA partners there.

New friends

• Georgia Tech counts as old (I got my undergraduate degree there) and new. I’ve enjoyed speaking to classes and was very impressed with the three summer interns who took an idea I had about monitoring and mapping tools and made it into something that will be quite useful to international development organizations.
• The social entrepreneur community is thriving and welcoming in Atlanta. I’ve gotten a lot of free advice over coffee and beer in the past year. Hub Atlanta and Atlanta+Acumen have been helpful in making connections.