Spark equips local governments, civil society organizations and NGOs with a tested approach and accompanying tools for activating villages to drive their own planning and development. Spark’s novel Village Strengthening Process enables remote villages to design and launch their own communal projects, from schools to farms. To date, over 160 communities in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Ghana and DRC have completed this process.

At the heart of Spark’s approach are weekly meetings, in which women and men, young and old, sit together and plan for their community’s future. Each village democratically elects a leadership committee, defines communal goals, plans a project and establishes a village savings group. As a part of the process, villages receive a seed fund of up to 8,000 USD to make project ideas a reality.

Through this approach, Spark enables institutions to put resources and power directly into the hands of those they serve.