January 31, 2023 — In 2023, Partners of the Americas (Partners) announced an organizational restructuring of its Home Office Units to better represent the current programmatic areas of focus. Additionally, this restructuring is designed to support the growth that the organization has undergone over the last three years. The nonprofit has tripled in size, with new government-funded grant programs and a renewed focus on the organization’s 109 volunteer Chapters. This change will allow Partners to continue to grow and advance through the improvement of its structure, systems, and management processes, which will better respond to its stakeholders’ goals, needs, and priorities, and generate more impact in the countries Partners serves.
The previous four program units included: Membership; Education & Global Citizenship (EGC); Child Protection (CPU); and Economic Development & Health (EDH).
The new program units will be: Community & Volunteer Engagement; Education; Labor; and Agriculture & Food Security.
The Community & Volunteer Engagement Unit (CVE) replaces the Membership Unit. The unit includes Partners’ Chapters, as well as programs from the former EGC Unit — Education & Culture (U.S. Department of State (USDOS)-funded) and Meta Engineer for the Week — that either support the Chapters or focus on CVE directly. The change comes as the name of the previous unit, “Membership,” needed to be broadened to encompass the complete portfolio of the unit’s activities. The CVE Unit empowers people, institutions, and communities to create sustainable solutions that meet local needs. Membership fosters a community of passionate and dedicated individuals, organizations, and higher-education institutions striving to connect, serve, and change lives through partnerships, locally-led development, and volunteerism. The CVE Unit provides access to resources, connections, and tools to support growth and build knowledge and capacity to drive civic engagement and community development for a long-lasting difference. This restructuring will streamline processes and staff time to provide the results that the community of members and volunteers are seeking.
The Labor Unit replaces the Child Protection Unit to represent the wide array of issues the programs now address, including child labor, forced labor, trafficking, labor compliance, labor rights, and gender equality in the workplace. This unit includes the following programs: Advancing Labor Compliance in Colombia’s Port Sector (U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL)-funded); Implementing a Culture of Labor Compliance in Costa Rica’s Agricultural Exporting Sector (USDOL-funded); Improving Substantive Gender Equality in the Mexican Workplace (USDOL-funded); Mexico Awareness Raising Project (USDOL-funded); Mexico United 2026 (USDOL-funded); Palma Futuro (USDOL-funded); and Ñande Ko’ẽ (USDOS-funded).
The Education Unit replaces the Education & Global Citizenship Unit and includes two programs that have broadened yet deepened the organization’s work in education: Juntos Aprendemos (U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded) and the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund (USDOS-funded). Juntos Aprendemos is Partners’ largest program in its almost 60 years.
The Agriculture & Food Security Unit replaces the Economic Development & Health Unit to reflect the organization’s efforts to reinforce resilience, food security, and climate-smart agriculture, nutrition, and economic growth across Latin America and the Caribbean and beyond. This unit includes the following programs: Cacao for Development (U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)-funded), Farmer-to-Farmer (USAID-funded), the Agricultural Volunteer Opportunity Project (USAID-funded), and Ranfòse Abitid Nitrisyon pou Fè Ogmante Sante (RANFOSE) (USAID-funded).
In addition to the new program units, Partners has created a new Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, & Learning Unit (MERL) that will work to support the programs, Chapters, and future program development opportunities. The unit will focus on incorporating new monitoring, evaluation, and research tools and methodologies to inform continuous evidence-based learning that is purposefully used to adapt programs and policy decision-making. Partners created the unit based on a need to develop more meaningful, sustained, and accurate results and impact. The MERL Unit strives to guide programs’ performance management and help donors, partners, and other stakeholders meet rigorous data and knowledge needs.
Partners has also streamlined its Finance and Operations Departments and created a new Organizational Advancement (OA) Department, which will focus on new business development, marketing, communications and innovation, and public/private partnerships. All of these changes are designed to provide a more intentional support structure to ensure a focus on the organization’s vision and mission.
“We have a mission that’s worth working towards. And we think that the new structure we’re rolling out right now is meant to address that, support this growth. Ultimately, this change will better help the communities we serve.” – John McPhail, Partners President and CEO.
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Inspired by President John F. Kennedy and founded in 1964 under the Alliance for Progress, Partners of the Americas is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with international offices in Washington, D.C. Learn more at www.partners.net or via Facebook @partnersamericas.
Press Contact: Rachel Falek