A 9/11 Donor Pioneers a Path to Meaningful Work in the Middle East
/
Women in Jordan training to launch micro businesses in hospitality. Photo: EFE/Twitter
Ron Bruder spent the morning of 9/11 worrying about his daughter. She was attending school in Manhattan, and he was concerned for her safety. Like many Americans, Bruder spent the following months considering the safety and security of the concentric circles around him. His daughter had escaped harm, but how could his family, city and country ever feel secure again?
At a time when many funders were focused on answering the whens, wheres and hows of recovery, Bruder was asking himself “why?” A successful real estate developer, he tracked the great economic disparity between the Middle East and the United States—two parts of the world that were now actively in conflict—and saw that an “us-versus-them” mentality wasn’t the path to a lasting peace.
In his own life, Bruder had pulled himself up through a combination of education and hard work. And his working life had taught him valuable lessons. Business had taken him to Belfast at a time when people said working with one side ruled out working with the other, and he saw firsthand that an improved economy could change all that. If his background had taught him anything, it was the importance of a job. To Bruder, jobs meant dignity and security, a defining lever in reducing inequity and defusing anger.
By 2002, Bruder had launched Education for Employment (EFE), a nonprofit with the mission of helping young people in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) learn marketable skills and find meaningful work. Today, the organization works in nine countries across the region, and just celebrated its 100,000th graduate.
The Philanthropic Response to 9/11
When the twin towers fell, the philanthropic response was unprecedented. More than $1 billion was raised for recovery, relief and rebuilding efforts. But looking back through the lens of cause and effect, it’s interesting to see just how much of that support was aimed at the effects of the attacks rather than root causes.
The Foundation Center, which tracked giving following September 11, reported that nearly three-quarters of all funding went to 282 relief agencies that were created in its wake. The September 11th Fund drew the highest level of support, at $158 million, followed by the Red Cross Liberty Fund, which quickly raised $149 million, and just as quickly drew funders’ ire after word spread that relief wasn’t limited to 9/11 efforts.
Funders created other agencies to support the families of the fallen, like the Twin Towers Fund, which raised $40 million to support the families of New York City police, firefighters and rescue workers, and the New York Police and Fire Widows’ and Children’s Benefit Fund. Employers like Howard Lutnick, chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services firm headquartered in Tower One, founded a fund to support the families of fallen colleagues.
Others prioritized the rebuilding of the Lower Manhattan community. By the time the 9/11 Memorial and Museum was dedicated in the spring of 2014, its fund had secured commitments of more than $10 million from 15 donors, including David Rockefeller and American Express. Bank of America committed $20 million, the Starr Foundation $25 million.
A total of $57 million funded educational programs, mainly scholarships for children of the fallen. And nearly $23 million was invested in economic opportunity and community development projects for nonprofits and businesses in impacted areas below Canal Street. Other fields of investment attracted less than $1 million each, from mental health to civil rights.
Against that backdrop of competing priorities, Bruder followed his own path and decided to get to the root of the problem. He self-funded Education for Employment with an initial investment of $10 million, and began exploring the best ways to help MENA youth find meaningful employment.
Getting an Idea Off the Ground
Bruder began the process of establishing EFE by bringing together “great minds,” people he thought were “smarter than he is,” drawing together leaders from the worlds of government, philanthropy and business. When it was time to begin work, that “sounding board” gave him entree to—and a license to operate in—the Middle East and North Africa, geographies where youth employment collaborations simply didn’t exist.
Bruder quickly learned that one size wouldn’t fit all, acknowledging that the “economies, security context, political situation and cultural norms” differed in each country, and “even within countries—especially capital cities compared to rural areas.” EFE overcame those obstacles by working with local partners, creating local boards of directors, and engaging local staff to run semi-autonomous affiliates.
The organization wanted offices that were “built to stay,” ready and able to shoulder a high degree of independence. As it grew its organizational footprint, EFE was guided by those factors, as well on-the-ground conditions that supported local partnerships and long-term stability, need, and the opportunity to make a “distinct and measurable” impact. In 2006, EFE opened its first office in Jordan. Today, it operates in nine countries: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the UAE and Tunisia. Beyond Bruder, EFE’s funders include the Citi Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, the Velaj Foundation. As we’ve often reported, a range of major corporate philanthropies are keenly focused on workforce development in the United States and globally.
Linking Education to Jobs
As Bruder started spending time in the region, he learned that the educational system was “essentially broken,” with no clear links to the labor market. He favored a more practical, employer-driven approach based on the German model, an advanced ecosystem where government, companies and educational institutions work in concert to align resources and apprenticeships with concrete opportunities. If employers want welders, the German model produces welders.
He also learned that job prospects were growing dire. Unemployment rates rooted in economic, social and political upheaval were among the highest in the world. And those levels would be pushing up against the largest youth population on the globe, and a rising cohort of young job seekers that is expected to swell to 40 million by 2022.
To combat that, EFE developed programming that falls into three categories: job placement training, entrepreneurship, and pathways to a job. EFE’s job placement program creates a pipeline to employment opportunities for university-educated youth. The entrepreneurship program arms youth with the structure and skills they need to launch their own micro-enterprises, then connects alumni to financing and mentorships. And “pathways to a job” provides hard and soft skills training to first-time job hunters, teaching everything from how to write a resume to interview-appropriate attire.
Staying Local
Thirteen years later, Bruder still feels that “key decisions are best made locally,” from developing partnerships to identifying skills training gaps, service areas, and the “right ratio between job training and entrepreneurship programming.” That also goes for leadership. EFE International includes board chairs from the MENA countries who set overall strategy and placement target rates.
That mindset plays out in EFE’s local programming, which is geared to each geography’s strengths and aspirations. In Saudi Arabia, EFE is excited by the growth it sees in the areas that align with Saudi Vision 2030: hospitality, retail and health. In Egypt, EFE’s currently seeing opportunities that bridge the digital divide, partnering with Google to link 1,500 unemployed youth with opportunities in IT. And in Morocco, which has positioned itself as “the Digital Gateway to Africa,” EFE is partnering with the Ministry of Youth and employers like Dell to bring tech skills to youth, even in far-flung places. Overall, tech skills training represents a “growing portion” of its work.
Back in 2001, many were reluctant to go it alone in a perilous part of the world. Bruder jokes that he never felt in danger after spending his formative years in Brooklyn. And today, he’s far less alone. A number of organizations entered MENA’s youth employment space following the uprisings across the Arab world in 2011, and EFE is proud of the fact that organizations like U.N. Women, People 1st and AMIDEAST have adopted aspects of its demand-driven model. Other organizations, like Endeavor Global, do complementary work, catalyzing jobs at promising small- and medium-sized companies in the region. Meanwhile, EFE’s 100,000-strong alumni base is busy creating networks of mentors for professional development and skills building, and is working in teams to give back to their communities.
Related:
