Meet Your Mission

HOUSING

Thinking (and Praying) Big

Mark Crozet is the senior vice president of development for Habitat for Humanity International, the Americus, Ga.-based home-building organization that counts the Christian faith as its backbone. Recent natural disasters that have left thousands of people homeless throughout the world have helped focus international attention on Habitat and its work.

“Habitat is realizing unprecedented interest right now, focusing on the practical help we bring to those in desperate need — hurricane and tsunami victims. As people engage with us, they realize through experience the impact and transforming nature of our work (both for themselves and our homeowners), and that simply accelerates the enthusiasm and reach of the mission.”

And it helps that Habitat is one of the most widely recognized and respected nonprofit organizations in the world. But that doesn’t mean funds flow freely into its coffers. Its mission is huge, and Habitat has found that it relies heavily on partnerships with corporations and other nonprofit organizations to make its program ollars go as far as possible.

FundRaising Success: What are your toughest fundraising
challenges?
Mark Crozet: Scale — the global need for housing is in the billions, and trying to get to a size of operations that meaningfully impacts on that need is a challenge.

Also, systems and communication. As a 100-country operation, we have all the challenges of a global corporation without the budget and processes to implement solutions.

FS: What needs to be done to overcome them?
MC: We have to develop synergies with our NGO partners and leverage our corporate partnerships to address global needs.