Integrity in project design, implementation, reporting
25 every not-for-profit, the donor(s) is arguably the most important entity to which it is accountable. This, owing to the fact that the former entrusts resources for the achievement of agreed-upon programme objectives to the latter. In the process of programme design, a not-for-profit will typically commit to achieving certain outputs and outcomes and will place indicators of how evidence of success or progress will be measured. Over time, the donor community has placed great emphasis on impact. Paucity of resources has put pressure on not-forprofits to demonstrate that resources achieve the goals they are invested into.
This creates competition at the proposal stage and organisations that can demonstrate that they can achieve more with less will most likely be preferred by donors. This competition often leads organisations to over-commit themselves in their proposals and place goals which are patently unachievable. This is due to inaccurate assessment of their capabilities, which is driven by the desire to get the resources at all costs.
As the reader can imagine, this sets the organisation on a road to failure from the very onset. If the funds requested are eventually advanced to the not-for-profit based on a wrong assessment of capacity to deliver, this immediately puts pressure on the outfit and it does not take long to realise that it may, as it were, have bitten more than it can chew.
The rate of burning of funds will immediately alert a vigilant donor that the organisation has capacity issues and this becomes a red flag.
APPLYING
To avoid this, it is important that when applying for funds with a specific purse, a not-for-profit must not be carried away by the possibility of what it can get and be tempted to request for a high amount or the maximum that is available. Good governance and accountability requires that a prudent not-for-profit makes a realistic assessment of its own capacity and commits only to what is pragmatic and achievable within its own strengths.
There is no benefit in being given resources that may have to be returned due to a slow burn rate. That reflects badly on a not-for-profit and may dissuade donors from funding the same organisation in the future.
Sometimes though, it does happen that an organisation is unable to achieve its set project goals due to circumstances that are beyond its control. These could include issues of staff turnover, fundamental changes in the implementing environment and other ‘acts of God’ such as a pandemic, as recently witnessed.
At project design stage, however, these must be properly identified as risks and proper mitigations strategies must be put in place. Often, drafters of proposals do not give due diligence to this part and merely copy and paste. It has become increasingly important for not-for-profits to invest in properly qualified and experienced monitoring and evaluation officers for the purpose of ensuring, first and foremost, that organisations set realistic goals for themselves and have the capacity to measure progress in implementation.
This allows the organisations to know if they are still on track and make the necessary adjustments before implementation goes way off the rails that nothing can be salvaged.
Assessment or monitoring must be continuous and honest. Where a not-for-profit, in the course of implementation, realises that the indicators may have been too ambitious and the goals are unachievable, this must be communicated to the donor so that opportunities of altering them to be realistic are explored.
This saves the organisation the embarrassment, at completion of the project, of failed implementation, which in fact may pose an existential threat to the organisation and harm its credibility.
For such alterations to be made, this requires that an organisation is truthful in its reporting and self-assessment. Any falsifications made may be exposed by processes such as external evaluations.
ORGANISATIONS
Incidence of false reporting is rife within some organisations in the country. This comes in the form of activities that never took place, numbers that were never reached and non-empirical evidence of impact. When reporting periods draw near, it is very common for organisations to frantically organise activities, putting great pressure on staff and systems as they try to burn funds and have something to report on. In this mad rush against time, quality is often placed at the altar of expedience. A lot of box-ticking happens and measurement of impact is seldom the way it is supposed to be.
This goes against the spirit of good governance and accountability. While many organisations get away with it, some are not so lucky and get exposed in the long-run. Unfortunately, this risks some donors painting all not-for-profits in the country with the same brush and reducing appetite to invest resources in the country. The pith of this week’s article is integrity among not-for-profits in project design, implementation and reporting.
To avoid the pitfalls associated with lack of integrity in the areas stated in this article, NGOs need not be greedy to have more funds than they can manage. Growth must be organic and gradually incremental. If not-for-profits focus on delivering on the objectives of the projects they commit to with excellence and attention to detail, they build the capacity to achieve more and manage more. Many organisations have collapsed after handling more funds than they have the resources to handle.
To build sustainability, proper systems must be in place. Monitoring and evaluation must be at the centre of implementation and reporting. If there is an opportunity at design stage, this must be built in and proper budgeting towards it made; either in the form of full-time personnel, expert consultant or upskilling of implementing staff.
Most donors are amenable to altering of projects where there is just cause and this should encourage notfor-profits to be in constant communication with the former so that they always get a true picture of the state of implementation and provide the necessary support where challenges present themselves. Internally, the culture of fabricating or ‘cooking’ of reports must be frowned upon. If this is encouraged, it festers into a culture of dishonesty and dodginess that permeates the entire organisation.
Those God is calling, however, must live and walk with purpose and precision. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God tells us where we need to get our direction in life: “It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” -HUH PLDK He’s telling us that if we count on our own thinking, our own reasoning, our own logic, we’re going to be in trouble.
That’s why we often see sincere efforts to change fail, they leave God out of the picture. If you’re serious about change, you have to make God the centre and goal of the process. You have to believe Him and start doing what He says!
When we look at the world around us and the trouble, heartache and tragedy we see, it would be hard to argue with Paul that ‘the days are evil.’ It’s a simple fact of life that we live in an evil world. All you have to do is turn on the news and see all the terrible things that are going on. Paul isn’t just concerned with knowing that the world is evil.
He points us to something we need to do. We need to realise that the time is now to make the big changes in life. How many times have you felt like your time was taken up with all sorts of pursuits you didn’t even find worthwhile? So often life can turn into busywork and just marking things off our to-do lists. God says we have to buy our way out of that in a spiritual sense and start making better and more productive use of our time.
God is challenging us to grab every opportunity. He’s challenging us to use our time to make the big changes and use every opportunity to grow. We can use our time wisely as we build our families and as we rear our children to know and follow God’s way. So let us Change today and now!