What's a Good Exit Strategy for a Charity?

Readers asked: When a humanitarian group has helped a community become self-sustaining, how can the group create a good exit strategy?

Our sources answered: Create the exit strategy from the get-go.

Case in point: Weh Yeoh founded OIC Cambodia in 2013 with both a goal and a strategy in mind to hand the group over to the community. The Phnom Penh-based project, which was recently ranked among the world's top 500 NGOs by the independent nonprofit monitor NGO Advisor, aims to make speech therapy available to anyone in the country who needs it.

"We have a 14-year plan, including an exit strategy, after which OIC will leave Cambodia," its website proclaims. Those 14 years will be devoted to establishing speech therapy courses in universities, training therapists and persuading the government to employ them. The target is 100 government-employed speech therapists by 2030, at which point, OIC will pass the baton and walk away.