The organization sponsors a series of low-cost micro-development projects with the objective of improving the lives of recipients in an immediate and tangible way.
It is populated primarily by Tamil speaking Hindus (the majority), Muslims, and Christians, although there is also a minority of Sinhalese-speaking Buddhists.
[1] The District has seen over 25 years of inter-ethnic and religious violence and is a major arena of the Sri Lankan civil war.
ABDF.org was first conceived in 2005 when Bennett Hinkley (now ABDF.org's Program Director) traveled to Batticaloa as an independent volunteer in the wake of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami.
After four months of work, Bennett realized three things: first, though the tsunami was devastating, the trauma it caused was dwarfed by the effects of 25 years of civil and ethnic conflict.
Program Director Bennett Hinkley lives in Batticaloa eight months of the year, and thus has the opportunity to understand the community and its needs.
In addition, Bennett’s familiarity with the District and its people allows ABDF.org to avoid the political and ethnic pitfalls that often mire the operations of larger, less integrated aid agencies.
ABDF.org is entirely funded through small individual donations, and the Program Director makes sure that the recipients understand that the help they receive does not fall from the sky from some government or wealthy agency, but rather from the efforts of ordinary Americans who feel the people of Batticaloa are worth caring about.
ABDF.org takes a neutral stance towards the ongoing civil conflict in Sri Lanka; concern is for the people of the District, not whatever political, ethnic or religious group they belong to.
The modest scope of these projects allows Program Director Bennett Hinkley to keep a close eye on the money to ensure it is spent efficiently and with transparency.
The American-Batticaloa Development Fund chooses its projects primarily by keeping its ear to the ground and finding out what the people need, rather than deciding what it will grant the community.
This is done through individual contacts, as well as partnering with local community and grass-roots organizations such as the local Society of St. Vincent de Paul, The Irish-Sri Lankan Friendship Society, the Islamic Women’s Association for Research and Empowerment (IWARE), the Batticaloa Education Development Society, the Jephcott Charitable Trust, Synergy, Eastern University of Sri Lanka, the Muslim Peace Secretariat, local parent-teacher associations, and the community councils of tsunami-resettlement villages.
His extensive contacts and local knowledge allows him to assist other outsiders organize and carry out their own projects within the District.
Recognizing the huge waste of time, energy and money this represented, ABDF.org provided the funds to connect the building to the power grid, thus giving the children a comfortable environment conducive towards their education.
Other projects have included the digging of wells, providing materials for a gravel road in a tsunami resettlement village, donating books to a local girls' school, scholarship money for an impoverished medical student, and repairing the homes of destitute widows with no living relatives.