As someone who has worked in international assistance in various capacities and for a variety of organizations, I really appreciate this book and some of the hard truths it calls out about this industry (yes, it is an industry). I have long felt that international assistance organizations, especially those in the global north/western world, should have as part of their mandate the goal of closing down because they are no longer needed.
There reality is that these organizations celebrate growing, taking on more projects, hiring more staff (who are often located in the global north) and do little to prepare to transfer capacity, knowledge, resources, etc. to local communities.
Moreover, many organizations don't seek to change the causes of the poverty that they aim to address because the causes are often a result of government policies and decisions. Charities often don't want to engage with governments and lobby for change because they want to be neutral. But poverty isn't neutral.

Really liked this book and have already been recommending it to colleagues and others who work in international assistance.

For someone who is working in the non-profit sector, this book was an interesting take on the need for charities and non-profits to engage in sustainable development- so that in the long run they take a step back and the beneficiaries and communities they were supporting are able to survive without their direct involvement.
The author provides case studies of people in the sector- who were able to step back and it was great reading those in the last part of the book.
I could relate to some factors highlighted in the book, like the non-profit's growth and scale metrics and how this affects impact and efficiency, there was also the bit of getting caught in a hamster wheel of funding, and meeting demands of the funder and the cycle becomes more about keeping the systems running but not the focus or the vision alive.
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.

I wish I could give this book a higher rating, because its message is valuable: many nonprofits would do well to concentrate on sustainable projects and solutions that won't need them after they get going. This is where the name "redundant charities" comes from -- according to Yeoh, nonprofits should aim to become unnecessary.

All well and good, but the book itself is quite flimsy. The first section is largely unsubstantiated, based on stories that Yeoh has supposedly heard about, or based on his own mistakes, which he then assumes are typical. Most of the citations he uses are not about nonprofits, they're about entirely different subjects and he makes big leaps to fit them into his arguments. Things get a little better on the second section, where he uses actual examples of charities that fit his ideal, but this is when the writing gets quite, um, redundant.

Yeoh shares an important message, but he really could've benefited from the help of a strict editor.