Over the years there have been many people who have helped us become the organ­isa­tion that we are today. There are far too many to name all indi­vidu­ally, but we can point out some of our more not­able supporters.

Mike Roberts: As well as being a good friend, Mike has been Involved with us since 2004, provid­ing his sup­port with both dir­ect and indir­ect con­tri­bu­tions. Mike assisted in fun­drais­ing and donor rela­tion­ship build­ing, as well as volun­teer­ing in the field to provide tech­nical sup­port to field staff and rep­res­ent the donor, Mivac. Mike also made his own dona­tions both in cash and in assist­ance to CRDT projects.

Unfor­tu­nately Mike passed away in March 2010. All at CRDT express their sin­cere con­dol­ences to his wife and his fam­ily. He was a great friend and will be dearly missed.

Dr. John Schiller: Another big sup­porter and good friend. Since 2003, John has encour­aged the young team to improve its capa­city and intro­duce access to donors, par­tic­u­larly Aus­AID. Even though he has not been involved dir­ectly, John has given strong ref­er­ences for fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies and assisted CRDT mem­bers to access the capa­city devel­op­ment pro­gram.

Isa­bel Beasly: Friend of CRDT since 2004, Isa­bel was a former dol­phin researcher on the Mekong for over four years and was work­ing closely with our advisors, Alex and Brendan, to assist CRDT in fun­drais­ing, and push­ing for good part­ner­ships with the big inter­na­tional con­ser­va­tion organ­isa­tions, WCS and WWF. She helped us to define a clear vis­ion of devel­op­ment for con­ser­va­tion, intro­du­cing the Mekong areas and main dol­phin hab­it­ats in Kratie and Stung Treng provinces, we were then able to tar­get pro­ject areas through­out north-east Cam­bodia.

Vince White­head: A good friend of since 2004. An engin­eer in pro­fes­sion, Vince has provided tech­nical sup­port and free con­struc­tion know­ledge so the team could improve the qual­ity of con­struc­tion activ­it­ies and some other design innov­a­tions. Such as con­struc­tion of toi­lets, wells, rope pumps and the qual­ity of our biod­igesters.

Brid­get and Will: Good friends and sup­port­ers since 2004, Brid­get and Will are the first and biggest private donors as the Macintosh-Williamson fund. The couple has provided the biggest private dona­tion of $16,000 in total. The first dona­tion of $10,000 was raised from their wed­ding cere­mony con­trib­uted by their friends and fam­il­ies from Aus­tralia to sup­port live­li­hood devel­op­ment pro­jects such as the dol­phin con­ser­va­tion on the Cam­bod­ian– Lao bor­der, and also in Stung Treng Province, and the second dona­tion, of $6,000 from their fam­ily mem­bers, was to sup­port vul­ner­able fresh gradu­ate stu­dents to seek oppor­tun­ity for work and gain exper­i­ence with CRDT. The first dona­tion provided in 2005, was sin­cerely unfor­get­table as we were in the tight grip of fund­ing uncer­tainty. This sig­ni­fic­antly ful­filled the fund­ing gap, which oth­er­wise would have meant we either stopped activ­it­ies for a while or lost staff. This kind assist­ance will not be for­got­ten. The second dona­tion provided in 2006 for the amount of $6000 was to sup­port four gradu­ates from rural back­grounds to exper­i­ence and con­tinue employ­ment, to sup­port 22 under­gradu­ate MVU stu­dents for 3 months on an intern­ship in Phnom Penh, through CRDT, and to sup­ple­ment other private char­it­ies to sup­port live­li­hood devel­op­ment pro­ject in Lgeung vil­lage, Kam­pong Cham province.

Sheila Tucker: Sheila has vast exper­i­ence of work­ing with NGOs in both the UK and devel­op­ing coun­tries, and cur­rently man­ages a strategy for DFID in devel­op­ment and envir­on­ment edu­ca­tion. She came to Cam­bodia for a “hol­i­day” in July-August 2009, but instead got roped in to work­ing as a con­sult­ant to train the CRDT staff team in present­a­tion skills, and to sup­port CRDT to develop their first organ­isa­tional strategy.

Anna Griggs: As a former lec­turer of MVU where the CRDT found­ing mem­bers stud­ied, Anna was proud to get engaged and sup­port her student’s work. Anna has provided per­sonal sub­stan­tial dona­tions as well as from her fam­ily to sup­port our work, as well as intro­du­cing us to other donors.

Car­oline Chat­eau: As a friend of Channy’s fam­ily from France, Car­oline is a key mem­ber and rep­res­ent­at­ive of her French Char­ity Asso­ci­ation named “Ker­messe Fran­co­phone”. Through Car­oline, the char­ity has provided funds to sup­port 2 CRDT pro­jects with the total amount of up to $6,000. The first pro­ject was called “Sub­sist­ence Com­munity Live­li­hood Devel­op­ment Pro­ject” for Lngeang vil­lage, Kam­pong Cham province. It was sup­ple­men­ted by the Macintosh-Williamson Fund to sup­port the over­head costs. The pro­ject aimed to improve the liv­ing con­di­tions of this sub­sist­ence agri­cul­ture com­munity, through provid­ing agri­cul­tural train­ing to com­munity mem­bers and improv­ing vil­lage san­it­a­tion through the con­struc­tion of lat­rines. The second pro­ject was called “School Nutri­tion, Water, and San­it­a­tion Improve­ment in Sup­port of Com­munity Dol­phin Con­ser­va­tion Pro­ject” which was imple­men­ted along the Mekong in Kratie and Stung Treng province. Being sup­ple­men­ted by Sor­op­tim­ist to sup­port some over­head costs, This pro­ject aimed to improve the infra­struc­ture facil­it­ies at the pub­lic cen­ters (Schools and pago­das) to com­ple­ment with the exist­ing major live­li­hood devel­op­ment pro­ject along the Mekong.

Naomi: was the first short– term volun­teer to assist the CRDT com­munity devel­op­ment tour pro­gram. She is Cam­bod­ian by birth but was brought up in Canada. She was also the first tour­ist to embark on a tour­ism devel­op­ment pro­gram while it was in its trial stage. As the first eco-tourist, Naomi was so delighted with the tour pro­gram and impressed with CRDT so that she decided to volun­teer for three months to assist in tour­ism devel­op­ment. Naomi has assisted in the whole tour sys­tem, includ­ing the itin­er­ary, mar­ket­ing notes and ori­ent­a­tion design to pro­mote the pro­gram and provide tour guid­ance for staff. With her sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion get­ting the ball rolling, the com­munity devel­op­ment tour pro­gram has developed suc­cess­fully and now is a well known eco­tour­ism site in North-East Cambodia.

Rory McCormick: Rory came to the organ­isa­tion in 2009 as a com­mu­nic­a­tions volun­teer, help­ing to cre­ate a range of pub­li­city mater­i­als and fund-raising cam­paigns, and boost our online pres­ence. He has developed a num­ber of design products and was involved with the set up of CRD­Tours — a social enter­prise that sup­ports sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and con­ser­va­tion through respons­ible tour­ism — brand­ing the organ­isa­tion and design­ing many pro­mo­tional mater­i­als to go with it. In 2012 he developed a new CRDT web­site — the one you are read­ing right now!

Pre­vi­ous Advisors

Alex Diment: was the former volun­teer agri­cul­ture lec­turer of MVU, where the CRDT found­ing mem­bers came from. As a lec­turer, Alex was also a key team mem­ber, act­ing as a tech­nical advisor to assist the young team’s ini­ti­at­ives, lead­ing to the form­a­tion of the Cam­bod­ian Volun­teer Rural Devel­op­ment Team. Alex was work­ing as volun­teer advisor for over four years to assist the team in fun­drais­ing, provid­ing capa­city build­ing and pub­lic rela­tions. With Alex’s con­tri­bu­tion to the organ­isa­tion, CRDT got registered with The Min­istry of the Interior in 2005, and has been able to approach many part­ners and donors. With his sig­ni­fic­ant roles, Alex helped us to define clear goals and tar­get areas.

Brendan Boucher: As ini­tially a volun­teer lec­turer in the Man­age­ment Fac­ulty at MVU, Brendan was a key team mem­ber, assist­ing the gradu­ate team to form the Volun­teer Rural Devel­op­ment Team, with Alex. Brendan who later acted as a pro­ject coordin­ator to assist the team in fun­drais­ing, pub­lic rela­tions and provid­ing pro­ject man­age­ment and lead­er­ship. As a self– sup­port pro­ject coordin­ator for over 3 years, Brendan was able to lead the team to fur­ther grow­ing and bridging prob­lems for sur­vival under very dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances of fund­ing insec­ur­ity. Without Brendan and Alex, CRDT would have found those early years very dif­fi­cult indeed.

Adam T. Starr: Was a man­age­ment advisor and star­ted with CRDT in 2006. Like, the two pre­vi­ous advisors, Adam’s roles were to assist in fun­drais­ing, donor and part­ner rela­tions as well as improv­ing organ­isa­tional lead­er­ship. As CRDT grew dra­mat­ic­ally, Adam’s job was to focus on improv­ing man­age­ment capa­city, to assist in set­ting man­age­ment sys­tems and struc­tures, includ­ing policies and admin­is­tra­tion pro­ced­ures. As fund­ing was secured, Adam moved from CRDT after being with the organ­isa­tion for over 1.5 years, to take up a role on the BoD.

Erin Guth: As the first lady in a man­age­ment advisor role, Erin assisted CRDT to fur­ther dra­matic growth, its highest in 7 years, through provid­ing man­age­ment and tech­nical sup­port. One of her sig­ni­fic­ant roles was to raise funds that secured our work for 2 years. Erin has also assisted in strength­en­ing the organ­isa­tional man­age­ment capa­city and tech­nical pro­ject implementation.

Claire Ben­nett: Claire came to us from VSO and stayed for almost two years. She made a sig­ni­fic­ant impact at CRDT help­ing to sup­port man­age­ment capa­city devel­op­ment and organ­isa­tional restruc­tur­ing. She raised funds and advised the man­age­ment on many dif­fer­ent aspects of CRDT’s oper­a­tions. She is a dear friend of CRDT.

Sam Roberts: Sam was a VSO volun­teer as part of the Accen­ture fun­ded ‘Mak­ing Mar­kets Work for the Poor’ pro­gramme and he worked for CRDT for almost two years.  His work at CRDT was primar­ily focused on pro­mot­ing market-based approaches to devel­op­ment and income gen­er­a­tion for CRDT bene­fi­ciar­ies.  He was also sup­port­ing the plan­ning of some of CRDT’s social enter­prises and provid­ing man­age­ment advice to the man­age­ment committee.