The Book: Bullshit without Borders: Let’s Change the Way We Change the World

Coming August 11 2026!

For the next generation of changemakers who care too much to settle for just good intentions.

The system of “saving the world” is broken—and it’s time to call bullshit. After seeing good intentions lead to bad outcomes in 30 countries, international development veteran Susan M. Davis is challenging the sacred cows of the aid industrial complex. She urges a radical rethink of how Global North outsiders approach social impact, starting with listening to the people closest to the problem.

Drawing from three decades of experience, from a scrappy startup that became Water.org to managing a multi-million-dollar USAID contract, Davis reveals the shocking truth: the system designed to end poverty may be perpetuating it. For example, half of all charitable water projects fail today, just as they did in the 1980s.

Bullshit without Borders is a provocative, self-implicating, and often hilarious exposé of the weird world of global aid. Davis pulls back the curtain on:

The Voluntourists: Why the feel-good fantasy reinforces power imbalances.
The Celebrity Foundations: How vanity projects drain resources from effective grassroot organizations.
The Alphabet-Soup INGOs: How billion-dollar agencies measure success by activities completed rather than lives transformed over time.

With unflinching honesty both endearing and uncomfortable, Davis uncovers the sector’s most oft-repeated mistakes. Each chapter closes with a CRAP (Curious Reflection and Provocation) to encourage a mindset reset. Essential reading for anyone brave enough to question how those with privilege can truly “help” others and those determined enough to do better.

We’ve been trying to change the world for a long time. It’s time to change the way we do it.

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Early praise for Bullshit without Borders

“An eye-opening, informative, and vital read. Susan’s vivid stories, approachable tone, and self-deprecating humor highlight the serious issues of poverty tourism, saviorism, celebrity ego, and other dynamics plaguing international aid work. Illuminating in its exposure of the various absurdities, but also hopeful and offers solutions. Plus a story about a trashcan you will never forget.”
- Vu Le, writer of NonprofitAF.com, author of Reimagining Nonprofits and Philanthropy: Unlocking the Full Potential of a Vital and Complex Sector
“Being a 40-year WASH veteran myself, this was an uncomfortable book for me to read, as I recognize many of the failed projects, unintended consequences and failures to listen that Davis describes. She does so without “naming and shaming”, acknowledging that the stories she describes are all of us, herself included. The value in these stories is Davis’ push for recognizing and acknowledging that we need to do better without falling for easy answers, but asking hard questions instead.”
- Jan Willem Rosenboom, Independent Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Consultant, former Sr. Program Officer Water, WSH, The Gates Foundation
“Good intentions can no longer substitute for success. This book challenges the role many of us have gotten used to playing in international development. I’ve seen firsthand that complex problems aren’t solved by outsiders with prescriptions—they’re solved by people living them every day. Too often, we make compromises that don’t affect us, but have real consequences for the people we claim to serve. Susan Davis doesn’t let us hide from that. With honesty and sharp humor, she shows what actually works and what doesn’t. Read this if you care more about results than being a hero.”
- Marla Smith-Nilson, MS, PE, Founder and Executive Director of Water1st International and winner of Self Magazine’s Woman Doing Good Award and World Citizen Award
“With wry, self-deprecating humor and an easy, non-jargony style, Susan Davis both skewers the international development field and offers ‘sparks of hope’ for its future. Based on her decades of work for government and international non-governmental organizations, Susan critiques and pokes fun at its failings, asks the reader to reflect on how better to do the work, and offers thought experiments that both expose gaps and offer opportunities for improvement. Bullshit without Borders is a must read for those interested in the reality of international development-practitioners, policymakers and students alike.”
- Jerrold Keilson, President, Center for Development History
“Susan Davis has distilled her decades of professional experience into this bracingly honest but truly approachable and often hilarious introduction to the esoteric world of international development. As generous with her insights as she is honest about her own missteps, Davis has provided the next generation of humanitarian workers and young idealists everywhere with the great gift of truth-telling leavened by hope and the sincere belief that we can—and must—do better. And through all the gravity of its subject matter, a wildly entertaining read.”
- Nina Miller, PhD, formerly Director of the Master of Development Practice, Regis University and practitioner for international NGO Water For People
“This book reframes service as humility: listen to those closest to the problem, measure true transformation, and stop rewarding activity over impact. In essence, “Know what you don’t know.” Equal parts hilarious exposé and blunt toolkit, it belongs on every syllabus for social impact students and the instructors who refuse to let good intentions be enough.“
- Dori Pap, PhD, Managing Director, Institute for Leadership and Social Impact, Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology
“Susan Davis’s Bullshit without Borders is a provocative, funny, and deeply self-aware reckoning with an aid industry too willing to mistake good intentions for good outcomes. An early alternative title for Time to Listen was They Have to Live with Your Mistakes. Davis offers candid field notes on how these mistakes happen and how communities are left to manage the wreckage of failed “solutions.” Timely and uncomfortable in all the right ways, this book is essential reading for students, aid workers, funders, and the general public. It pushes all of us to ask when “helping” slips into saviorism and what it would take to build partnerships with humility, accountability, and solidarity instead.”
- Isabella Jean, independent advisor and co-author of Time to Listen: Hearing People on the Receiving End of International Aid
“Through my own international development experience spanning nearly forty years, I experienced the hidden costs of living and caring across continents. In her book, Susan Davis names the system that produces those costs. Bullshit without Borders is by turns a memoir, a takedown, and a practical call to conscience. It is teeming with stories that made me nod, wince, and laugh in equal measure. Its C.R.A.P. prompts leave you unsettled in the best way: ready to listen, to unlearn, and to build something that lasts.”
- Vanessa Tobin, Former UNICEF Representative and Deputy Director, Programs
“I learned that having a “good heart” is not enough to change the world. We must listen to local people because they are the real experts on their own lives. We should not try to be “heroes” who just fix things for a short time. Instead, we should be “sidekicks” who support local leaders for a long time. This talk changed how I think about help and charity. I now understand that respect and dignity are just as important as clean water and clinics.”
- Nikki Shen, Economics major, Stony Brook University