" None of those interventions are negatives— we should do all of those things," he said. " But it demonstrated to me that you have to take a holistic approach. What are girls going to do after they ' re educated? Do they have opportunities to use that education to improve life in their communities?"
It ' s the kind of insight that shapes how Kolker thinks about CAI ' s work: not as a single intervention, but as part of an interconnected system— one in which education, economic opportunity and stability reinforce one another.
" We need a long-term commitment," he said. " Not just a one- or three- or five-year period, which is the life of most development projects, but something that ' s going to last a decade or two, at least."
Kolker has learned that government policy, large donors and multilateral organizations are essential and irreplaceable— but they can ' t meet everyone ' s needs. That ' s where he sees CAI ' s role: as " an idealistic, donordriven organization which works outside of the government, outside of the major donor structures," able to supplement and complement what the bigger players can ' t reach.
That independence, he believes, is also what allows CAI to keep adapting as Afghanistan itself changes. Asked what CAI is doing well as it evolves with the country ' s shifting realities, Kolker is careful not to overstate his short tenure on the board— but two things stand out to him.
" We ' ve stayed. We ' re committed to Afghanistan and its people," he said. " And we ' ve got our eyes and ears open. We ' re not being naive that this is easy, or that our partners are going to be able to keep on as they have. We ' re adapting to the reality as it is on the ground."
He credits CAI ' s staying power— its refusal to put Afghanistan in, in his words, " the too-hard box "— as one of its greatest strengths. Long after it stopped being politically fashionable to focus on Afghanistan or northern Pakistan, he added, CAI and its American donors simply never stopped.
" We need to do whatever it takes to be sure we ' re not abandoning the people who have been with us for all these years," he said.
Having spent decades inside institutions like the U. S. government and UNICEF, Kolker is candid about what a small, focused nonprofit can do that they can ' t.
" Because they ' re big, they deal with governments and capitals," he said of the large institutions. " There ' s a whole world of opportunities that aren ' t being taken advantage of. We know how to do this. It ' s not as though we have to invent something new or have a new scientific discovery. These are skills and services we already know how to provide."
Organizations like CAI, he believes, can move faster, know their beneficiaries directly and reach the people that larger institutions were never built to see. That conviction traces back to the origins of the AIDS relief program he helped shape: the idea that a person with the exact same illness should not live or die based solely on where they happened to be born.
" As human beings, as Americans, as people who have some discretionary money— how can we be sure we ' re using it in a way that will benefit people who have similar needs to ours, but who are simply challenged, by circumstances beyond their control, in taking advantage of opportunities we take for granted?"
For Kolker, that question isn ' t rhetorical. It ' s personal.
A young boy washes his hands at a CAI-sponsored handwashing station at an internally displaced persons camp in Afghanistan
" How am I going to use my time and my very small amount of money to actually invest in a sense of what it means to be an American, what it means to be someone who cares about the world?" he asked. " There are lots of ways we can manifest that. It seems to me this is one that we should really talk to our friends about, because this is one that will make a difference. These are people who would not get our attention if an organization like CAI didn ' t exist."
Asked what gives him hope, Kolker doesn ' t hesitate— first pointing to his own family, and then to something larger: the community of people who keeps this work alive.
" This is the hope. It ' s not just the hopes of the people working in the organization, or one or two founders," he said. " This is the hope of a whole lot of people who have invested themselves in this for the right reasons, and are continuing to do so."
For CAI ' s donors— some of whom have given loyally for 30 years— Kolker ' s message is simple: This work is worth doing, it is achievable, and the people doing it have not given up.
Neither should we. 2026-2027 JOURNEY OF HOPE | 23