Why rebranding a charity is more dangerous than rebranding a company
Mercy Corps became Prosper Global not because the strategy changed, but because the old name no longer fit what it was already doing — and in conflict zones, a new name can put staff more at risk.
The video won't play here. Listen to the audio instead:
The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
The rename isn't a new strategy — the old name no longer fits the business
Jada says an organization's identity grows up like a person's. The name Mercy Corps described the starting point of aid — rushing in to save people, handing out food, casting itself as the merciful giver. But what she now discusses with potential donors is cash assistance, seed insurance, identity management on blockchain, and the response she gets is flatly "that has nothing to do with your name." The rename isn't a change of mission; mission and values are the source of continuity, the name is not. Prosper Global is meant to shorten the conversation and put the values up front: we believe every person has the capacity to prosper, not just to survive.
— Jada McKennaRenaming in a conflict zone puts safety on the line
Prosper Global operates in more than 30 countries, many of them remote sub-offices, often in conflict zones. Communities recognize the Mercy Corps colors and know who to look for. Renaming means a phased rollout, one country at a time, with local people judging the timing and the context. Jada is blunt: they don't rate armed guards, they don't carry weapons, and their ability to work rests entirely on the trust of the communities they serve. So this is not an ordinary corporate logo swap — in the short term it may put frontline staff more at risk. The interesting part: 90% of employees live in the communities they serve, and many program staff were the first to understand the rename — they don't want to be treated as "charity cases."
— Jada McKennaSyria is the clearest case for the rename logic
Jada drove from Aleppo to Damascus and saw rubble the whole way. Syria has just come out of 14 years of civil war and is one of the few countries in the world where the population is flowing back in rather than out, with millions returning home at the same time. But many are still living in camps, and the communities they return to have no working water systems and destroyed houses. She tells the story of a woman named Ola: her husband was injured in the war, she didn't work before it, and her community wasn't used to women doing certain things, so she was forced to take over the farming and start cultivating. Prosper Global helped her set up drip irrigation and repair the local water system, and along the way she learned to ride a motorcycle and brought another group of women with her. Jada says Syria may be one of the world's rare pieces of good news, and it has been forgotten.
— Jada McKennaOil in Hormuz decides whether African farmers plant at all
Prosper Global published a report called From Hormuz to Hunger, tracking how conflict in the Strait of Hormuz ripples into six fragile countries: Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Myanmar and Lebanon. The mechanism: these countries depend on Hormuz for basic fuel, and higher fuel prices hit fertilizer supply directly. When Jada was in Sudan, farmers had only a two-to-three-week window to get seeds in the ground, and fuel costs had already risen 60%. When farmers can't work out what to plant or which inputs they can afford, some decide to abandon the land. This isn't just a present problem — it cripples next season's food supply too. Meanwhile aid organizations are themselves paying higher fuel prices, so the same money serves fewer people.
— Jada McKennaUkraine's grain silos are being bombed on purpose
Prosper Global has just launched a grain storage project with the UN and the Ukrainian Red Cross. Jada says Ukraine's harvest this year is actually decent, but Russia is increasingly targeting civilian and economic infrastructure, especially grain silos and storage facilities, with drones. The logic is direct: even with a good harvest, if the silos and storage are destroyed, or the roads and ports are bombed to the point that nothing can move, that season's income is gone. This is a deliberate attack on that kind of infrastructure. What they do includes providing sleeved grain storage bags, helping farmers clear mines, and helping those who lost machinery rebuild or find alternatives. Ukraine was once the breadbasket for many countries, and it needs that grain to feed itself and its own economy.
— Jada McKennaPrevention costs about seven times less than response, and nobody wants to fund it
Jada says there's a tendency in the current relationship with the US government to fund only life-saving aid, and that this is in fact the least efficient way to do it. Her number: doing prevention, trying to avert a crisis before it happens, costs roughly seven times less than intervening afterward. She also says they were ready to rename as Prosper Global before the Trump administration came in, but held off to see how things would shake out — the funding had already vanished and the whole sector was in a hard place. Instead they doubled down on helping Americans understand the nature of humanitarian need and what aid actually looks like today, correcting a lot of misinformation. She says the key to a leadership moment is intentionality: what are you letting go of, and what are you continuing to build on?
— Jada McKennaWith USAID gone, the sector has to rebuild an architecture
Jada acknowledges they have to do more with less money, but stresses this isn't just about saving money — it's about, in a sense, rebuilding an architecture. USAID's offices and missions around the world used to carry a huge amount of coordination and information-sharing, and now all of that is gone. So the question isn't just "can AI help" — the sector's entire coordination layer has been pulled out. She says AI can't physically deliver supplies for you and has limits in knowledge, but it's useful at the program level: accessing best practices, pinpointing more precisely what a community needs, anticipating certain needs. They haven't found the magic solution yet, but they're talking to AI companies, hoping to build something together that genuinely changes humanitarian aid.
— Jada McKennaInternational humanitarian law is eroding, starting with Ukraine
Jada says the checks on international humanitarian law are being tested and violated, and that this is part of a broader trend. She sees the first case treated as a deliberate pattern as Russia's invasion of Ukraine — attacks on ports, bridges and other civilian infrastructure traditionally considered off-limits appeared quickly. The pattern then spread to the way the war is fought in Sudan, and they believe violations of international law are also occurring in Gaza. She notes it took the deaths and destruction of millions after World War II to bring these rules into being: no collective punishment, people must be able to go to school and have a hospital network, civilians shouldn't pay the price. Now those rules are being violated everywhere. She says even the phrase "international humanitarian law" sounds like Greek to a lot of people.
— Jada McKennaIn their own words · checked verbatim
We cannot settle for survival. We can't respond to choosing between today's crises and helping communities prepare for tomorrow.
Jada McKenna0:00
I think organizations outgrow identities just as people do.
Jada McKenna4:21
Our mission and values are the source of continuity, not our name.
Jada McKenna5:24
Working on prevention, trying to avoid these things is like seven times cheaper than coming in. And after it's happened
Jada McKenna14:47
The millions of deaths and the destruction we saw in World War Two that really made us create these rules that you can't have collective punishment.
Jada McKenna23:02
we can't just mourn what was we've got to rebuild and we have to make intentional decisions about where that's happening, where that isn't happening.
Jada McKenna26:08
Figures
| Countries where Prosper Global operates | more than 30 | 6:31 |
| Share of employees living in the communities they serve | 90% | 7:32 |
| Length of the Syrian civil war | 14 years | 8:37 |
| Planting window for farmers in Sudan | two to three weeks | 10:44 |
| Rise in fuel costs in Sudan | 60% | 10:44 |
| Cost of prevention relative to intervening afterward | about one-seventh | 14:47 |
Glossary
- From Hormuz to Hunger
- A Prosper Global report tracking how conflict in the Strait of Hormuz ripples into food supply in six fragile countries.
- Gaza Sky Geeks
- A long-running Prosper Global program in Gaza that trains people for remote tech work and provides shared office space with electricity.
- USAID
- The US foreign aid agency, whose local offices and missions used to carry a large share of coordination and information-sharing work.
How to listen
Founders and investors watching international aid, nonprofit branding and operations, and how geopolitics transmits into food and energy supply chains.
16:53 to 18:59 is a sponsor ad and a promo for another podcast — skippable.