Mentoring a "team" vs. individuals is critical to buy-in throughout the service.

Mentoring is not just training. It is building a relationship and trust as well as financial investments in building capacity of the mentee, and 2-4 years of solid follow-up.

IEF looks for eye clinics and hospitals that are willing to change and adapt to IEF's sustainability model: Private practices that wish to incorporate services for the poor, NGO and charity hospitals that wish to find creative ways of earning revenue to subsidize the poor, clinics that IEF builds in places where services are lacking for the majority of the population, and fostering a network of like-minded development organizations will create a critical mass of sustainable eye care services that will change how eye care is delivered in the developing world.