Rebranding in a war zone

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TJADA MCKENNA: We cannot settle for survival. We can’t choose between responding to today’s crises and helping communities prepare for tomorrow. And also, it’s a message of hope and defiance, right? There are so many examples of people thriving and being able to do great things in the midst of really difficult circumstances. We’re really trying to change the narrative about what our aspirations should be and what we can achieve. We are not aiming high enough.

BOB SAFIAN: That’s Tjada McKenna, CEO of Prosper Global, which provides humanitarian support around the world and was long known as Mercy Corps. Tjada just rebranded the organization to Prosper Global as we head into UN General Assembly week in a bid to change the dialogue around crisis relief. With aid services under unprecedented financial pressure following funding pullbacks by the Trump administration, Tjada talks about recent visits to Syria, Ukraine, and Sudan, shares insights about conditions in Nepal after the devastating flood, and outlines what governments and donors are often missing when assessing crises. Tjada’s commitment to those in need is warm, but her resolve is steely, even calling on AI firms to step up in helping nonprofits like hers. There’s a lot to learn and be inspired by in her defiant optimism, so let’s get to it. I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response. I’m here with Tjada McKenna, CEO of Prosper Global, formerly known as Mercy Corps. Tjada, welcome back to the show.

MCKENNA: Thank you for having me. It’s great to be here.

Copy Link“Nepal is a devastating situation”

SAFIAN: I am eager to discuss the renaming of Mercy Corps, but first, while I have you, I have to ask about the flooding in Nepal. You’ve been on the show before talking about humanitarian crises in Ukraine, Gaza, and Syria. What’s the situation now in Nepal?

MCKENNA: Nepal is a devastating situation. It is a country that, in a matter of months, has gone from crippling heat to this severe catastrophe and flooding. The reality is Nepal is very prone to climate disasters, mainly due to issues that they had no contribution to. Obviously, we’re there helping people immediately with food, hygiene kits, and shelter, but what’s really important for Nepal is helping them build for the future because these kinds of crises are recurrent. This one feels crazy and unexpected, but the reality is these crises keep happening. Some of the longer-term work we’ve been doing in Nepal has been helping to stop riverbank erosion by planting different grasses and helping people with emergency and disaster preparedness. Those are the things people need to be resilient and survive the next one.

SAFIAN: And this particular slide that started all this, do we know if it’s related to climate change? Will we ever definitively know?

MCKENNA: If it’s related to a melting glacier, I think it’s hard to argue that it’s not climate change-related. The reality is we have this increase in very dramatic, severe weather-related incidents. They’re coming faster, closer together, and more severe than they ever have before. We can call it whatever we want, but we’ve got to meet the needs of people who are being impacted consistently by these kinds of issues.

Copy LinkWhy Mercy Corps became Prosper Global

SAFIAN: In the midst of that, Mercy Corps officially launched a rebrand to call itself Prosper Global.

MCKENNA: Yes.

SAFIAN: You’ve said that you outgrew the old identity. Can you explain that? You’re not about mercy anymore?

MCKENNA: Yes. I think organizations outgrow identities just as people do. A lot of people’s classic definition of aid is swooping in to save the day, whether it be food, and thinking of ourselves as the agents of mercy. The reality is we are there in emergency situations providing people with what they need, but oftentimes that crisis is just the beginning. We’re also there with communities, working with them to provide the conditions for longer-term sustainability and prosperity. When I would talk to potential donors about the kinds of things that we do, I would talk about cash assistance, but also things like seed insurance or the use of blockchain for identity management. One time, a potential donor said to me, “That has nothing to do with your name, Mercy Corps.” These long-term, innovative, market-oriented things weren’t encompassed by Mercy Corps. Our evolution to Prosper Global is really trying to shorten the conversation a bit by stating our values up front. We believe everybody has the ability to prosper, not just survive. Often, it doesn’t take that many resources to do so, and we invite people into that journey with us.

SAFIAN: This focus on prosperity in the new name, it’s not changing the focus or strategy behind the organization. It’s better reflecting what you’ve already been doing.

MCKENNA: Our mission and values are the source of continuity, not our name, right? Our mission and values have been to help people live their best, full, productive lives, particularly people who are beset by issues caused by poverty, conflict, or climate change. That outward statement of our mission and values has not changed at all. I was having a conversation with someone about the fact that we have a venture capital fund and that we’ve had one for 10 years. I was talking about the businesses we invest in. They’re businesses that serve these types of communities, helping them with financial services products and things like better building materials for climate-related challenges. And someone said, “But you’re Mercy Corps. What are you doing in venture capital? Why do you know about that?” I think Mercy Corps really describes the way that aid started, not what we are doing today, not how we operate, and not where we are going or where we have been.

SAFIAN: I was thinking that it’s not a typical corporate rebrand because of how long and hard it can take for reputation and trust to be built in some of these communities where you work. Changing the name could make things more dangerous in the near term for some of those on the ground, physically dangerous.

MCKENNA: Yes. We are in over 30 countries. In many of those countries, we have remote substation offices, often in conflict zones. The communities know Mercy Corps. They knew to look for the prior Mercy Corps color. So we do have a phased transition. It has really been country by country, with people telling us what the right timing is and what the context of that is. We’re getting people used to the fact that our identity has changed, talking to different government officials. But we work in very complicated countries, sometimes with contested governments. There’s not just one authority that you’re talking to. So it is a process. Safety is on the line. We don’t travel with armed guards. We don’t carry arms. We are able to work because of the trust of the communities that we serve.

SAFIAN: I could see the conversations being difficult for you with some of your team members who are there.

MCKENNA: Yeah.

SAFIAN: For you, in your conversations to raise money, sure, it’s easier to have this name, but for them, changing it doesn’t necessarily make it easier.

MCKENNA: It’s been interesting because 90% of our staff live and work in the communities they’re from. Some of our program staff are the first people to really get it because they see themselves in it. They’re like, “Yes, we are not just charity cases. We want to prosper.”

“There are innovative things going on where we are.” It was more people from the Global North who were like, “Really?” I think a lot of our staff got it right away, and they felt really proud. This is us building our next chapter and how we want to be perceived in the world.

Copy LinkWhat Syria reveals about recovery and return

SAFIAN: You recently got back from a trip to Syria, I understand.

MCKENNA: Yes.

SAFIAN: Which has faced a long war and an earthquake. Was that related to the rebrand?

MCKENNA: I think Syria is a great example of the rebrand and the need to move this conversation that you can’t just settle for survival. You have a country that is emerging from a 14-year civil war, so it’s a country that needs to rebuild. It’s facing great devastation. I saw a lot of rubble. I did a road trip from Aleppo and Idlib down to Damascus. But it’s also one of the few countries in the world that people are migrating back to, so you have millions of people who are returning home. At the same time, you have this dichotomy of great opportunity. You also have a lot of people still living in camps, still needing basic needs met, and even some of the returnees still need basic support. They’re returning to communities with no functioning water. The water systems have been destroyed. Homes have been destroyed.

I talked to a woman, Ola, whose husband was hurt in the war. Prior to the war, she did not work herself. She was in a community where it’s not customary for women to do certain things. She was forced to pick up the agriculture and start working the land. We’ve been working with her to do basic drip irrigation. We’re rehabilitating the water system in the area. In the process of working with us, she’s learned how to ride a motorcycle. She’s found another group of women to work with. She’s had to raise her daughters while also dealing with a husband who’s no longer able to do these things and helping him get to the next level. They have people coming back into the community. They’re trying to rebuild their lives. So it’s a great opportunity. Syria could be one of the really good news stories happening in the world. But I think there’s so much going on in so many countries, it’s getting forgotten.

SAFIAN: We do get distracted by whatever the new tragedy or disaster is and sometimes lose sight of that longer road of recovery.

MCKENNA: Yes. And Syria’s in a region where everyone around it is being affected by the Iran war. A lot of returnees are returning to Syria not only from places like Turkey, but from Lebanon and Jordan, all places that are affected by the conflict itself. So it’s an exciting time, but it’s also a period that still needs support.

Copy LinkHow war shocks spread through food systems

SAFIAN: You published a report recently called From Hormuz to Hunger, tracking how the Strait of Hormuz conflict is rippling through six fragile countries, right? Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Lebanon. So how does oil disruption in the Middle East lead to an empty food plate in Africa?

MCKENNA: Yes. I was in Sudan a few months ago. Many of these countries are reliant on the Strait of Hormuz for their basic fuel supplies, and this has affected fertilizer supply heavily. When I was in Sudan, farmers have a two- to three-week window in terms of getting seeds in the ground. The cost of fuel was up 60%, so now the cost of fertilizer is up. As people are making decisions about what to plant and what inputs they have, for some farmers that could be the decision to abandon the land. Not only are people grappling with the issue today, but now we are crippling food supply for the next season.

SAFIAN: You sounded almost optimistic about the possibilities in Syria. You don’t sound quite as optimistic about Sudan.

MCKENNA: The reality is, all these countries are working to maintain and build a life during a war. One of my staff members said, “I am 27. I need to get married. I want to reunite with this person who’s had to evacuate.” So people want to live, and at the same time we are throwing in higher fuel prices, higher food prices, and less availability. But also, as aid providers, we are able to do less because we ourselves are also paying more for fuel. Aid resources have already been taken away, and now it’s even more expensive to serve the same people, and there is a human cost to that.

SAFIAN: You’re still active in Ukraine. Prosper Global just joined the UN and the Ukrainian Red Cross to launch a grain storage program there. Ukraine’s facing a big shortfall potentially from this year’s harvest also.

MCKENNA: We have a very large programming presence in Ukraine. I was in Ukraine in December. The reality is, the nature of that war now is that Russia is increasingly attacking civilian and economic infrastructure. There have been increasing attacks on ports, but also, especially with drones, on grain silos and storage facilities. So there actually was a good harvest this year, but if you’ve bombed out the silos and storage for people to store it, or if you’ve bombed the roads and the ports to move those grains out, then you’ve lost the income from that time period. There are deliberate attacks on this kind of infrastructure.

We have been doing things like providing sleeved grain storage, working with farmers, and helping with demining. Because Ukraine was a breadbasket for a lot of the world, it needs that food to care for itself and its own economy. When we talk about Prosper Global and helping people not only survive the immediate but really build their future, that’s exactly the kind of support we mean. A lot of people have lost farm equipment. It’s about helping people rebuild or figure out alternative paths.

Copy LinkWhy survival alone is the wrong goal

SAFIAN: I wanted to ask you about Gaza, but I’m also struck that I’m just going from one crisis to another, which I know is your life. But for a lot of folks listening, they might feel like, “Oh my gosh, that is overwhelming.”

MCKENNA: The number and the severity of crises — you’ve never had so many at one time. The need is relentless, and we have to be relentless in pursuing support. There’s a current thing with the U.S. government to just do life-saving aid. That’s actually the least effective thing to do. Working on prevention, trying to avoid these things, is seven times cheaper than coming in after it’s happened.

SAFIAN: In your work, you’re used to dealing with hostile political environments, but it is a little different when it happens in the US.

MCKENNA: Yeah, the pushback and just the misinformation about what aid is. We were prepared to do this rebrand to Prosper Global before the beginning of the Trump administration. We put it on hold just to figure out where things were. In the midst of a crisis where some funding has gone away and the sector’s in a tough place, we’ve really doubled down to help the American people understand the nature of humanitarian needs and what aid looks like today, right?

And to correct a lot of misinformation, or just things that people have been saying about it. I think the important leadership moment there is being intentional. There may be things that we have let go or not done, but what are we building on? We’re building on that core belief that people deserve the right to prosper. We do basic survival, but that’s the minimum, and we shouldn’t accept the minimum. There’s a cost to doing that that long term leaves us worse off.

SAFIAN: Tjada doesn’t sugarcoat the challenges, but she’s also optimistic that better outcomes are possible. So how will she use this year’s UN General Assembly meeting to advance that goal? And could AI firms provide Prosper Global with a secret weapon? We’ll talk about that and more after the break. Stay with us.

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Before the break, CEO Tjada McKenna talked about rebranding Mercy Corps to Prosper Global in the midst of major disruption in the crisis relief sector. Now she talks about tapping both UN General Assembly week and AI firms to amplify Prosper’s impact. Plus, how an increase in natural disasters and altered wartime practices require a new playbook. Let’s jump back in. When there’s all that pushback on foreign aid, you have to do more with less, right?

Copy LinkHow AI could reshape humanitarian aid

MCKENNA: Yeah, we have to do more with less, but we also are rebuilding an architecture in some ways as well. We have to reinvent all of the U.S. aid offices and missions around the world. A lot of coordinating and information sharing and all that has evaporated. It’s gone away.

SAFIAN: Is there a role that AI plays in this reinvention, or does it not really apply to humanitarian work?

MCKENNA: AI can’t physically deliver things for you, and there are some limitations around what AI knows. But AI has been really useful programmatically in terms of getting best practices, helping us pinpoint more precisely what a community may need, and really anticipating what certain needs are. AI has been helpful in that. One of the ways that we are hoping to come together — and we haven’t found the magic solution yet — is whether there are ways we could better work with AI companies to really come up with something that transforms humanitarian assistance. Where can we be using it to cut costs in some places? Are there opportunities to do things more efficiently?

SAFIAN: So are you in conversation with the AI companies about how they can —

MCKENNA: Yeah, we have been in conversations with them, and really, like I said, I would welcome more ideas. People, please reach out to me at [email protected], because we really would love to come up with more there.

SAFIAN: I alluded to Gaza earlier. What’s happening there now?

MCKENNA: Gaza is still a severe humanitarian situation in terms of displacement, the destruction of housing supply, the destruction of the hospital systems, and other infrastructure. You have a lot of people still living in tents. The sewage situation in Gaza remains dire. There has been an increase in food allowed in, but you still have situations where people can’t afford it, or there might not be enough available because of transport or other issues. Gaza’s a good example of doing both/and. We are meeting people’s immediate needs by helping them get access to water, because clean water is very much an issue in Gaza right now. So that means trucking water to people and getting them cash assistance to help buy food. But we also have an initiative that we’ve had for a long time called Gaza Sky Geeks, where we have trained people in remote technical work so that they can do more tech and web-related work for others. We’ve set up a series of co-working spaces with electricity and facilities that people can use so that they can still maintain their livelihoods and help build themselves out of the crisis. So it’s a situation where we are meeting emergency needs, but also trying to help people find their way back to sustainability.

SAFIAN: I saw that you said the checks and balances governing international humanitarian law are being tested and violated. Was that specifically related to Gaza, or is that a broader trend, a broader observation?

MCKENNA: That’s a broader trend. The first instances of that really being seen as a deliberate pattern came when Russia invaded Ukraine. Very quickly, we saw attacks on civilian infrastructure, like I said, ports, bridges, things that were traditionally off-limits. And we’ve just seen that escalate across crises. That spread to the way warfare has been waged in Sudan. We believe there have been violations of international law in Gaza as well. So we are seeing this pattern of behavior spreading. Obviously, policy wonks understand it, but there are a lot of people who have no idea what international humanitarian law is. It was the millions of deaths and destruction we saw in World War II that really led us to create these rules: You can’t have collective punishment. You need to allow people to go to school and have a hospital network. Civilians shouldn’t pay. We just see that violated all over the place right now.

Copy LinkInside the UN General Assembly

SAFIAN: The UN’s annual General Assembly week is coming up in New York City. It’s a key gathering where historically some of these issues would be addressed. What do you anticipate about the mood this time around, the goals?

MCKENNA: The UN is under siege itself in terms of its own funding. The world dynamic has changed. I think the UN has still tried to be very assertive. I know there were recent declarations about drone warfare and the nature of autonomous drones, and how that’s just another step toward increasing civilian casualties, loss, and violations of the rules of war. So I expect a very lively discussion and debate, and we just need it to lead to more lasting action.

SAFIAN: Are there any specific goals that you and Prosper Global have or are hoping to achieve this year?

MCKENNA: I’m really looking forward to carrying the message that we cannot settle for survival. We can’t respond by choosing between today’s crises and preventing them, and helping communities prepare for tomorrow. And also a message of hope and defiance, right? There are so many examples of people thriving and being able to do great things in the midst of really difficult circumstances. We are able to do more with relatively small amounts of money. So we’re really trying to change the narrative about what our aspirations should be and what we can achieve. We are not aiming high enough.

SAFIAN: People sometimes say a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, that we only learn things the hard way.

MCKENNA: Yeah.

SAFIAN: Are there things that you’ve learned about leadership, or otherwise, that others might benefit from, things you maybe wouldn’t have appreciated if you hadn’t had to go through it?

MCKENNA: In a time when we had to contract really rapidly, there was a point where you had to say, “Look, it’s not going back to the way it was before,” and accept that the status quo had changed. I’ve seen as a leader that I can take nothing for granted. Even using terms like international humanitarian law, I might as well be speaking Greek to some people, right? So it’s really about breaking things down step by step and revisiting everything, because at some point we can’t just mourn what was. We’ve got to rebuild, and we have to make intentional decisions about where that’s happening and where it isn’t happening. That’s where clinging to the mission and the values matters, not the structures, not the trappings. When the aid sector was thrown into crisis, I had laid off a lot of people. There was a moment where, in the midst of layoffs and just a lot of sadness, you ask: Is it OK to make a further investment in changing your name? And I think that was the point where it was like, OK, the investment is in building our future. The investment is in changing the narrative, and this name change is absolutely imperative for us in securing that future. We were not accepting the trajectory as it was. We were saying, “We are going to remake the trajectory here.”

SAFIAN: Well, Tjada, I enjoyed having you on the show when it was Mercy Corps and, of course, even more as Prosper Global. Thanks so much for joining us.

MCKENNA: Thanks for having me, Bob. Thank you.