This blog post was previously published on Under African Skies. 

The White Savior Industrial Complex: a riff on colonial-era bigotry encompassing the quest for many Westerners to validate their privilege through charity, volunteerism, and liking advocacy videos on Facebook. Two years ago, it showed up on our radars in a major way through Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 campaign and the inevitable backlash that followed. Two weeks ago, it popped up again on social media feeds in the form of Rafia Zakaria’s Al Jazeera America blog post on voluntourism.

Voluntourism is quickly becoming a thing for people wanting more than the mediocrity of a vacation to an exotic locale. Basically, they travel to some lush, tropical country, spend time playing tag with orphans/digging pit latrines/building schools, visit a tourist hot spot, and return home with a collection of stories with which they dazzle their friends and co-workers. But, rather than promoting genuine cross-cultural interaction and meeting real community needs, voluntourism often only satiates the volunteers’ desire for adventure and validates their benevolence toward the innately inferior international marginalized populations.

Several people have written on how to preserve the positive aspects of voluntourism (e.g. the potential for cross-cultural understanding and exposure to human rights and development work) while simultaneously diminishing its more nefarious angle. But while other writers have addressed voluntourism and the white savior industrial complex by targeting potential volunteers, I wanted to talk instead to the host organizations themselves.

Let me say that I’m not advocating for the elimination of the voluntourism industry. Rather, I’m suggesting a few changes to the soliciting and hosting of international volunteers that could transform the phenomenon into a truly positive experience for the organization, the surrounding community, and the volunteers themselves.

First, before you begin advertising for international volunteers, conduct an internal assessment of your organization. What are your human, financial, and material needs? How can you improve your programs? Are you meeting the needs of your community? Once you determine the gaps in your organization, you can map a way forward to addressing those requirements.

Next, look at the requisite human resources for you to move forward. Do you need to create short or long term positions? Do you need a technical expert or a specialist? Unskilled labor? Depending on your human resource gaps, you have a toolbox of options from which you can choose. But, due to the funding constraints experienced by most local organizations, you’ll probably want to go the volunteer route.

Now, the word “volunteer” is not synonymous with “international volunteer.” Before you seek foreign volunteers, look first to your own community. Are there skilled men, women, or youth willing to lend a hand at your organization? Alternatively, are there domestic volunteer organizations to whom you can appeal? (Here in Botswana, Tirelo ya Sechaba, or the National Service, has been recently rebooted and is placing volunteers in government and non-government offices around the country.) If either exist, get them onboard. Not only will you meet your own needs, but you will also encourage volunteerism and ownership within your community.

If you cannot enlist the local community as volunteers, it’s time to look beyond borders. But, instead of launching an open call for anybody willing and ready, be specific about what you need and how long you need it for. Remember: international volunteers are not a sustainable solution in and of themselves. You should focus on their role as capacity-builders; as such, they should be solicited and engaged on the basis of specific criteria. (It’s worth noting that some volunteer placement businesses aren’t very stringent with their application process, so you might need to screen volunteers yourself.)

While you’re hosting international volunteers, make sure there is a clear agreement upon roles, responsibilities, and expectations. These international volunteers aren’t staff members, but, if you did your prep work correctly, they will have come to you to fill specific human resource gaps. Manage their work output while respecting the spirit of their volunteerism.

Also, prioritize your volunteer’s integration into the community and the organization, regardless of the duration of their stay. Introduce them to community stakeholders, bring them to local events, and involve them in office functions. Socialize with them outside of the office, especially with other community members. Educate them on local culture, including language, history, and common customs. The result of all this integration? The volunteers will be less likely to view themselves as saviors of the international underprivileged. Instead, their self-image will be that of a colleague, a community member, and a friend.

Finally, plan your organization’s exit strategy from the land of International Volunteerism. These individuals are short-term solutions for long-term problems. If you still need the same human resources after several rounds of international volunteers, investigate funding for permanent staff members.

Yes, these suggestions require a lot of work and advance planning. But, haphazard interventions have no place in international development. If you don’t mindfully enlist the help of international volunteers, you might be responsible for a host of problems, from nourishing the white industrial savior complex to failing to meet your organization and community needs. On the other hand, exhaustive preparation and implementation of a coherent international volunteer strategy will undoubtedly benefit your organization, community, and volunteers.