Danish Refugee Council reviews

While the program side has grown a lot in recent years, the support functions are still catching up. DRC is making huge strides but to stay competitive, more investment is needed, particularly to retain and develop DRC's enormous pool of national employees.

I can see where some of the other reviewers are coming from, however. My region is perhaps less political than some others and we've had very good people in HQ. But I can see why the other reviewers may be upset, especially if they are not used to a Danish management style or if there was a different constellation of personalities in their area. - Leadership in Copenhagen is a small cadre of people who have worked at DRC forever and tend to be insular and self-regarding. - Decisions at the upper management levels tend to be taken without much input from the field, but then sold as "bottom-up". - Have grown fast, but still act like a small Danish NGO. Need to start acting like the bigger international player that they are. - Tough for non-Danes to be considered for HQ jobs. - Too focused on Denmark for private fundraising to exclusion of much bigger markets, i.e. US, UK, anywhere else. - No formal mechanisms for field staff retention. - Too dependent on major institutional donors. - Flip side of the above, while they give managers lots of freedom, they also don't give them much help, especially as regards proposal writing. - Agree with another reviewer: too obsessed with turnover, but not doing enough to broaden the funding base.