Mission:

Our mission is to provide critical support and resources to civilians and civil servants during, and after war. Through our dedicated efforts, we strive to create a secure environment that fosters hope, healing, and resilience.

Important concepts for this mission:

We achieve this primarily by independently identifying, vetting, and then providing ways to keep civilians safer.

Our goal is to support under-identified, and/or under-served people and areas that can occur during the chaotic environment of war.

Concept:

Large NGOs usually have narrower mission statements and mandates. They often have donor and board policies that can be slow to pivot or gain approval from. The larger resources of these NGOs are critical and necessary, but often slow to adapt compared to the pace of life-threatening safety issues that war presents for civilians.

Official government reactions and adaptations can be even slower than large NGOs. Militaries that may be in the area have to focus on their part in the war and may inadvertently be a cause of danger to civilians themselves.

This leaves it to smaller NGOs to fill in the gaps, by being adaptable and responsive. They often have wider mandates and fewer commitments and personnel to manage. This can cover immediate situation transitions until the larger resource pools can see the demonstrated needs and shift to react. The main challenge for small NGOs like Civilian Shield, is finding and maintaining funding.

Civilian Shield looks at largest life-threatening issues, and societal stability issues that are occurring, from an inside-access and civilian perspective. We then build networks of highly responsible, often self-sacrificing people in varied positions already doing the work, and vet them. We look for what these subject matter/area experts are missing to scale already proven solutions. What they are missing are often lowest common denominator issues that larger societal problems are made of.

We try to solve the problems at the source, and with as much efficiency in vetting as possible, making best use of our collective time and means. In this way we are all reaching for the best possible outcome of saving more lives and protecting/repairing a more stable society.

As an added bonus, our efforts have had the demonstrative effect of inspiring altruism in both local and foreign civilians, motivating them to volunteer substantial effort and means toward the same goals. Together we have made a massive difference so far, using comparitively few resources. With your help we can achieve much more.