-: So, I'm Katrina Boyd, I'm the External Affairs Coordinator
with Harvest Plus, which is a global development
organization, we're based on Washington, D.C.
We believe that everybody should be able to live
a healthy, happy, productive life, but the reality is
that most people around the world aren't getting
access to all the vitamins and minerals,
the nutrition that they really need,
to grow physically and cognitively.
And so our mission is to help these millions of people
who are suffering from malnutrition and give them access
to the foods and crops that they need to grow.
So, as the External Affairs Coordinator,
my day today looks like external meetings with donors,
stakeholders, other partners.
Basically, I work to ensure that our partnerships,
fundraising, advocacy and communications
teams are all aligned.
And so, other things that I'm responsible for include
coordinating with our global staff, to make sure that
our strategies for policy and advocacy are aligned,
supporting proposal development,
to make sure that our fundraising goes through,
and other things like that.
Our number one donor, and number one partner
in all things that we do is the Gates Foundation,
so the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds
most of our work, as does the U.S. government,
USAID, the development agency.
Those partners have been with us for as long as
we've been around, they really provided the seed money
to get our work going off the ground.
So once that you've convinced them to give you the funds,
then it's about actually implementing the project
and reporting along the way.
So a key function of my job right now is actually
to complete donor reports on an annual basis,
and so how many people have you reached,
how are you using the funds, can you show impact.
That's really important to maintain positive relationships
with your donors because you want them to understand
that what you're doing is having real, positive impact
for the people like you said it would.
Once you receive the funds, we work with a global staff
that's based in 13 different countries around the world.
I work at the headquarters office, in Washington, D.C.,
which is an exciting place to be, but can sometimes
feel a little bit far from where
all the work is actually happening.
But a good way that we manage that is through field visits.
And so I actually did a field visit to India
earlier this year, to work, we had gotten
a ton of funding from the Gates Foundation
to work in some rural areas in India.
And so once you get there, you decide who your staff
is gonna be, you go through the project,
through the timelines, and the budget, to make sure
that you're gonna be able to hit
all your targets that you said you would.