Tuesday, 2nd December 2025

For those of us in the sector, we know all too well that there is no silver bullet that can make our work more straightforward, less challenging, or what would often be the best possible outcome, no longer necessary.  Or, if there is, it is certainly not within our power to fire it.  Most of us spend the majority of our time and energy looking for ways into a problem- advocating to those who have the power to fix it, supporting those who are affected by it, cleaning up the mess that the problem makes.  Add to that the fact that our work is more often than not incremental, all too frequently completely frustrating, and just occasionally incredible, and you begin to wonder why any future recruit would look twice at what so many of us have chosen as our life’s work.  But the key is in my last point- occasionally, just occasionally, the difference we are able to make is remarkable. 

How do we get there?  Hard work?  Skill?  Luck?  On any given day it can be a spin of the wheel, as so many factors that affect what we do are out of our control, but the best outcomes represent a concrete change that makes a practical difference in the world around us and in the lives of those we serve.  At AMF, this is where we want to focus.  What one practical thing, if it could be changed, would make a disproportionate impact on your work?  Systems analysts call them leverage points.  In direct action work they are called points of intervention.  In our office we call them fixing the fixable.

So many organisations apply to us for projects with reactively movable parts, balanced precariously on the buy in of potentially resistant agencies or communities, that are destined to be beset with the same challenges and limitations that they continually face.  To a large extent this is a byproduct of the way that we are forced to work, with plans and mitigations and risk monitors for a list of factors both known and unknown, while somehow managing to weave our good work around it all.

At this point I can almost hear the collective grinding of your teeth as you pray that my next paragraph doesn’t start with another grant-splaining lecture about how innovation will save us all.  Let me be clear- we’re not asking you to reinvent the wheel, just to plug the slow leak that means you are going at half speed with double the effort.  Or more accurately, to tell us what you need to patch it.

It’s not really amazing that people usually need a moment just to consider how this might be possible, and also that someone might be willing to fund it.  Most are working so hard to fundraise for, mitigate the challenges to, and adequately carry out the work right in front of them that there is precious little time to spare for what some might believe comes perilously close to blue sky thinking.  Except it doesn’t, because in this instance I’m not talking about a cure for cancer or an end to war.  While these things may be the absolute goal for us all, it’s not a one-step change.  Remember, this hinges on my all-time favourite word- practical. Practical is concrete; practical is doable; and most importantly, practical can be game-changing.

After the initial stunned pause has come some pretty great answers, from strategy epiphanies to infrastructure changes.  One CEO said the government enforcing the laws it already has would cause a tectonic shift in her organisation’s work, but most people weren’t aware that these currently existed so thought a whole-cloth solution needed to be found. The Head of one of our supported schools in the Middle East said that despite having solar panels, every year a huge proportion of their budget went towards the cost of buying in expensive electricity because while the panels themselves were relatively cheap, the cost of purchasing and maintaining the storage batteries was prohibitively costly as a capital expense.  One of our most exciting projects at the moment was born out of frustration that special needs children are in theory entitled to attend state schools, but in practice aren’t because neither students nor teachers are prepared in a way that makes them successful in the classroom.

So, with all this in mind, what is your organisation’s leverage point? Because that’s definitely an application we’re looking forward to reading.