Get support

NGOs in Geneva often buy the same support services, and there is little sharing of information on cost or quality. This assignment finds out what they buy, from whom and at what cost, so that plans for buying together can move forward.

This is one assignment within a larger effort to develop a collective services platform: shared support services that any organisation can draw on, whatever its size or mandate. Buying together is one of the platform’s four ways of working. The aim is not only a lower price. It is also to:

• Get better terms than any single organisation can negotiate.
• Build sector values into the deal, such as data protection, safeguarding and humanitarian principles, which no one organisation can demand on its own.
• Share what we know about suppliers: who delivers, and who shares the sector’s values.
• Keep expertise and free up resources. The aim is to strengthen in-house teams with better terms and shared know-how, not to replace them, and to free up money for other activities.

Geneva is a practical place to start. Many organisations sit close together, use the same firms, and face the same Swiss rules. What we learn here will help test the approach elsewhere.