Tiny state, big international NGO footprint

DORSET, Vt. (AP) — From a converted garage in Dorset, James Hathaway helps rid Afghanistan and Vietnam of land mines. A few miles away in Manchester, Kathleen Colson helps women in northern Kenya start businesses.

They are just a few of the nonprofit, non-governmental organizations that call Vermont home while doing work worldwide in fields as varied as promoting democracy or clean water. Besides working on development projects in some of the remotest and neediest parts of the globe, the organizations are also pumping millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs into the Vermont economy.

‘‘These are people who are willing to think big with small resources. They will go out of their way to make relationships with anyone that they can and to make believers out of all they come across because the passion is so genuine,’’ said Peace Corps recruiter Brian Melman, who earned a graduate degree at the University of Vermont in Burlington and has also lived in Montpelier.

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Melman said that the same sense of community and the desire to help that he sees in Peace Corps volunteers is what led Vermonters to form nonprofits, in many cases based on work they did while overseas in the Peace Corps or other service. Vermont, per capita, produces more Peace Corps volunteers than any other state.

Burlington, he said, ‘‘was just absolutely awash with nonprofits,’’ Melman said. ‘‘We used to joke that there were more nonprofits than people.’’

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http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/2013/02/10/home-many-worldwide-development-groups/zI6BVP9gJWcdMsFdrr5LnJ/story.html