Organisational capacity assessment

An introduction to a tool

mwiya mundia (2009)

kepan taustaselvitykset n:o 26 kepa’s working papers n:o 26

kepa’s working papers 26, 2009

ISSN 1796-6469 ISBN 978-952-200-122-1 (pdf)

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supported by official development aid by the ministry for foreign affairs of finland. opinions presented herein are personal and may not represent the official position of kepa.

mwiya mundia has a Master’s in Development Studies (MDS). He has been involved in organisational development and institutional strengthening for more than ten years, working closely with CBOs and NGOs that are engaged in the prevention and mitigation of HIV and AIDS in the Southern African region. His experience in the OCA process spans from developing the OCA tool (with International HIV/AIDS Alliance Zambia and Pact Zambia) to the actual facilitation of the OCA processes as well as action planning for capacity strengthening. He has also facilitated several capacity-strengthening sessions. He can be contacted on mwiyamu@yahoo.com.

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Contents

ForewordList of abbreviations

Introduction to organisational capacity assessment

OCA processSTEP 1: Defining need and objectives for OCASTEP 2: Planning of OCA process: resources and toolsSTEP 3: Defining capacity areas of the organisationSTEP 4: Defining indicators for each capacity areaSTEP 5: Preparation of assessment tools and methodsSTEP 6: Defining the organisation’s stages of growth

From assessment to action

Case study: Pact’s Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool

Reflections on OCA and capacity building

References

Annex I: Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool (OCAT)Annex II: Stages of growth of an organisation based on the OCA tool (OCAT)

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Foreword

One of the central issues in the current development practice is the strengthening of Southern civil societies. One part of civil society is formed by formal non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the support of which has become an important aspect in NGO development co-operation. NGOs’ develop-ment projects increasingly include activities for the organisational development and capacity-build-ing of Southern NGOs. Capacity-building aims at smooth internal functioning of organisations, ef-ficient performance in order to reach organisational objectives and well-organised networking with other actors.

How do we know if we have been succesful in capacity building? How can we assess organisations and their development? This paper introduces some ideas for Organisational Capacity Assessment (OCA) tools. OCAs enable the assessment of what stage an organisation is at and of the types of needs it has in order to plan suitable capacity-building interventions.

The tools introduced in this KEPA Working Paper give examples of ways to assess organisations. Each organisation and situation is unique. Therefore the tools should be taken as a source of inspira-tion when tailoring the individual assessment tools. In addition to being a tool for assessment, the OCA tool provides a method of communicating the basic elements of an organisation as we under-stand them in the North. We should also remember in the context of capacity-building efforts that many organisations in the South face major challenges in becoming modern and mature organisa-tions with well-functioning financial management and democratic decision-making systems.

This working paper is based on training provided by Zambian expert Mwiya Mundia at KEPA Helsinki in September 2007. The material presented is compiled on the basis of the work of many organisations, especially Pact (www.pactworld.org), an international organisation specialised in or-ganisational development. The training and this working paper are examples of how tools and shared expertise can be recycled globally, from the USA to Zambia and from Zambia to Finland.

This paper focuses on assessment and describes six basic steps in organisational analysis from defining the need to identifying the organisation’s stage of development. What is most important, however, is what kinds of development and capacity-building efforts will follow once the analysis is completed.

Tiina KontinenTraining coordinator, KepaAugust 2009

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List of abbreviations

CBO Community-Based OrganisationDOSA Discussion-Oriented Self-AssessmentHIV/AIDS Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immunodeficiency SyndromeNGO Non-Governmental OrganisationOCA Organisational Capacity AssessmentOCAT Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool (created by Pact Zambia)OD Organisational Development SAT Southern African AIDS Trust SOCAT SAT Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool USAID United States Agency for International Development

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Introduction to organisational capacity assessment (OCA)

Organisational capacity can be seen as a func-tion of many different factors that exist within an organisation. Individual capabilities, ways of organising, cultural norms and physical assets all combine to enable an organisation to work to-wards its mission. It refers to the ability of the or-ganisation to effectively manage its programmes to achieve the stated goals and objectives with minimum external assistance.

An Organisational Capacity Assessment (OCA) process encompasses a set of methods and tools that are designed to measure the capacity of an organisation or a specific unit of the organi-sation. Although there are variations of the indi-vidual tools used and varying approaches used in administering the OCA processes, all OCA proc-esses are similar with respect to their focus: the focus is on the internal components of an organi-sation although service delivery and external re-lations might also be dealt with.

Organisational capacity assessments can be externally driven by Northern organisations to back up funding decisions, plan capacity-build-ing activities or serve as tools for monitoring and evaluation. Internally driven OCAs are conduct-ed by organisations who realise that ongoing self-assessment is an integral part in remaining a healthy organisation. Organisational Develop-ment (OD) practitioners and capacity-building agents use capacity assessment for evaluating organisational growth over time.

This paper has been written from the point of view of a Southern non-governmental organi-sation (NGO) and therefore focuses more on the internally driven OCA processes. From the self-assessment perspective, the main purpose of ca-pacity assessment is to identify the root causes, not the symptoms, of issues that affect the per-formance of an organisation. Organisations, donors and consultants who conduct OCA regu-larly, have developed variations of OCA to suit their own needs, so there is a number of different toolkits developed for OCA. In this paper, the OCA tool of one organisation, Pact Zambia, is taken as

a case study. The process is followed from the be-ginning till the end to help visualise the different steps that are included in the assessment proc-ess.

Organisational capacity is a complex and context-specific issue. Strengthening of capac-ity takes time and needs a long-term strategy. Capacity assessment merely measures the sta-tus quo of an organisation’s capacity and as such does not strengthen organisational capacity. Ca-pacity assessment should therefore be followed by the creation of a strategy and a detailed work plan outlining the capacity-strengthening activi-ties and be used to monitor the organisation’s ca-pacity development over time. But, interestingly, the mere process of organisational assessment is enough to stimulate capacity development indi-rectly. Organisations involved in an OCA process are already engaged in organisational learning by bringing members from diverse areas of the organisation together for a facilitated discussion on key organisational capacities of the organisa-tion. Assessment leads the organisation to pay attention to strategically important capacity ar-eas that it might have ignored in the past.

Most OCA tools use participatory approaches in collecting capacity-related data in order to get the clearest possible picture of the organisation as a whole or the specific unit in question. There are also other methods for collecting useful data, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups and direct observation. A combination of methods is usually the best way to obtain robust data that provides diverse perspectives for full analysis of performance issues.

Some kind of ranking is used in all OCA proc-esses to place an organisation at a certain specific stage of growth. The scores help users visualise the stage of the organisation and identify areas where change efforts are most likely to succeed.

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OCA process

An organisational analysis always meets some needs and has to be planned and implemented according to the needs and situation. The OCA process can be divided into six basic steps:

defining the need and objectives;planning the OCA process;defining the capacity areas of the organisa-tion;defining indicators for each capacity area;preparing the assessment tools and methods;defining the organisation’s stages of growth.

The contents and action points for each step will be described in the following sections. The case example from Pact Zambia will illustrate step by step how OCAT can be employed in practice.

STEP 1: Defining need and objectives for OCAOCA is a tool for measuring the capacity of an or-ganisation. There are a number of different rea-sons to measure the capacity of an organisation, depending on the client and preferred outcome of the assessment. The first step in the OCA proc-ess is therefore to determine the specific objec-tives of the assessment. With clear objectives set in the first stage, the whole assessment can be modified to bring the most valuable outcome for the defined need.

The reasons behind OCA being conducted vary. For a funding agency, OCA can serve as a baseline. In this case periodic assessments are later conducted to monitor the progress being made with respect to capacity-building efforts. OCA can also be conducted for the purpose of identifying the specific capacity-building needs of an organisation, with a view of strengthening any weak capacities. Sometimes OCA is conduct-ed to assist the decision whether a partner or-ganisation should be excluded from the partner portfolio, i.e. to determine if the capacity is high enough or not developing enough.

In the last case, OCA is conducted to select the organisations to support. This works in both directions; some funding agencies prefer to sup-port organisations that have reached at least a certain minimum level of capacity, while others

1.2.3.

4.5.6.

use capacity assessment to pick the organisa-tions with the lowest capacity for strengthening. It should be noted here, however, that OCA is not well suited as an intake assessment tool; other, cruder tools like the rapid assessment tool could and should be used instead.

On the other hand, OCAs can be used for self-assessment within an organisation. Such OCAs are conducted for the purpose of learning. This is considered to be a healthy thing to do occasion-ally, so that any weaknesses can be addressed. In this case the need for capacity assessment is internally generated. OCA can be conducted to identify the organisation’s strengths and weak-nesses, to prioritise the areas of improvement and to identify concrete steps that could be taken to help the organisation to mature. The organisa-tion can conduct a self-assessment to serve as a baseline, with the information used to examine capacity improvement over time.

STEP 2: Planning of OCA process: resources and toolsAs with all work, planning is crucial for the suc-cess of the assessment process. The successful completion of OCA requires commitment and adequeate resources from every sector of the or-ganisation. Moreover, emphasis should be put on the selection of suitable tools.

Ensuring commitment

Once the objectives for the assessment are clear, the organisation has to be convinced that there is a real advantage to conducting OCA. The or-ganisation, especially the senior management, has to be committed to go through the process and follow its recommendations. Otherwise OCA has no real value. This should be taken into con-sideration, particularly when OCA is conducted to serve the needs of an external client (donor). To strengthen commitment, the management of the organisation should be involved in develop-ing the tool from the beginning.

Selecting a facilitator

Every organisational capacity assessment needs a facilitator. Often the facilitator is an external consultant but could also be an employee of the organisation or the client’s representative.

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The facilitator needs to understand that each organisation should be treated individually and that the OCA process should be tailored to suit the organisation. The facilitator makes sure that the assessment runs in its course, while involv-ing members of the organisation in planning as much as possible.

Resource analysis and continuity

To make the OCA realistic, a resource analysis is needed: how much time and money does the organisation have available for the assessment? Especially in case of self-assessment it should be noted that the assessment should not be a one-off activity but rather part of an ongoing proc-ess of capacity building, and resources should be allocated accordingly. If the assessment will be repeated later to measure the organisation’s capacity development over time, the assessment tool should be planned in such a way that it will not need to be altered later as changes in the tool will alter the score and make time comparisons impossible.

Selecting the right OCA tool

Depending on the objectives of and resources for the assessment, the facilitator helps the organi-sation choose a suitable OCA tool. There is a large number of different tools used and constantly de-veloped by consultants and organisations but, in general, the tools have a lot of similarities. They might differ in terms and approaches used but the core composition and underlying principles are the same.

The case study in this paper follows the OCAT method used in Pact Zambia, which is a rather heavy and time-consuming assessment process. It is, however, a good case study since it gives a glimpse into the details of an organisation’s structures and helps the reader understand the depth of the analysis if performed thoroughly. For a quick assessment, the Octagon method, also used by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), is quite suitable.

Selecting the OCA group

Organisational capacity assessment is usually conducted using participatory methods, i.e. in-

volving as many parts of the organisation as pos-sible. When planning the assessment, it is im-portant that the selection of participants to the OCA group ensures that the group comprises of a cross-section of the organisation’s bodies, such as board members, volunteers and secretariat. The ideal group has 8 to 15 members, with repre-sentatives from all the departments and all the structures of the organisation.

Each organisation should be treated individ-ually while deciding on the composition of the OCA group. If the facilitator notices that combin-ing employees from several hierarchical levels in one session would be explosive and suppressive for the organisation and would hinder the out-come of the assessment, then separate sessions for different groupings should be organised.

STEP 3: Defining capacity areas of the organisationOnce the need, resources and assessment tool for OCA have been identified, it is time to define the components of the organisation and, out of these components, define the capacity areas that are important for the specific organisation. An organisation can be defined in general as a com-plex of people and/or groups that, according to commonly agreed rules and procedures, strive to realise one or more pre-set objectives. In order to understand the complex nature of organisations, a simplified model, referred to as the Integrated Organisational Model (IOM), can be used. The IOM model distinguishes seven internal compo-nents and five external components of an organi-sation.

Seven internal components of an organisation:Strategy – a long-term plan of action or the most important goals in the coming years Structure – division of tasks and responsibili-ties, departments and units and coordination of activitiesSystems – the way things are done, flows of main activities, processes, procedures, ap-proaches and methodologiesManagement style – behaviour of the man-agement and decision-making systemHuman resources – incentive systems, staff satisfaction, staff development, sanctions and bonusesCulture – a set of shared values and norms Finances

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.7.

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Five external components of an organisation:

FactorsActorsMissionOutputInput

Defining the organisation’s capacity areasDepending on the preferred outcome of the OCA, the organisation’s capacity areas might vary but a common division is to distinguish six capacity areas:

strategic focus (vision, mission etc.);management practices;human resources (employment policies, training etc.);financial component (funding, self-funding, assets etc.);target group relations (service delivery); and external relations (stakeholders).

If, due to a lack of resources (money and/or time), an organisation cannot assessed as a whole, one or two capacity areas that are regarded as prob-lematic can be assessed instead, with the aim being to come up with specific capacity develop-ment actions for those areas. For small NGOs and CBOs it is better to conduct the whole OCA be-cause several capacity areas are in development stages and need to be assessed and strengthened along the way.

STEP 4: Defining indicators for each capacity areaOnce the organisation’s capacity areas have been defined, it is time to examine what constitutes each capacity area within the organisation. To do this, the sub-sections within each capacity area need to be defined. These can be formulated by the facilitator and the senior management of the organisation or by a bigger group. They can be general or problem-oriented, listed in bullet points or worked into a narrative. The main point is to define the characteristics of the assessed or-ganisation’s capacity areas, the processes and qualities that affect the particular capacity area.

1.2.3.4.5.

1.2.3.

4.

5.6.

The table below is an extract from the DOSA (Discussion Oriented Self-Assessment) tool’s chart for capacity areas:

Table 1. DOSA capacity area chart

Capacity Area Sub-sections

Organisational Learning

Horizontal and vertical flow of information: quantity, quality and timeliness. Utility of shared information: the degree to which information is used a) to improve organisational performance, b) to support effective teamwork. Participatory management prac-tices and staff meeting practices.

What is an indicator?

Indicators are used to measure current capacity and track the progress of an organisation, capac-ity area or sub-section. Working upwards from sub-section level to capacity area level and fi-nally to overall organisational level, it is possible to define the stages of organisational growth for the organisation as a whole.

More important than the indicators them-selves is the process of developing the indicators. The developing process teaches the organisation a lot about the status quo of each capacity area and helps the organisation identify areas which might have been neglected completely so far. It should also be noted that indicators are bound by time and place and cannot be replicated without risk. This is another reason to spend enough ef-fort on developing the indicators separately for each organisation. While developing indicators, it is essential to bear in mind the objectives of the assessment.

In self-assessment, indicators are best devel-oped with participants from all levels of the or-ganisation, assisted by a consultant if needed.

Developing indicators for capacity assessmentOnce the sub-sections within each capacity area have been defined, the next step is to create the above-described indicators that help specify the desired state of the focus points and see the dis-tance between the status quo and the desired lev-

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el. Indicators are formed, depending on the tool used, in the form of statements or questions.

Using the above example of DOSA chart as an example, the desired state for sub-section ‘Quan-tity, quality and timeliness of vertical informa-tion’ could be described through the following indicators (here in the form of statements):

Statement 1: The management passes on suffi-cient information to staff.

Statement 2: The information shared by the man-agement is relevant to staff members.

Statement 3: The management gives clear in-structions for the use of information.

Statement 4: The management passes on infor-mation without unnecessary delay.

Statement 5: Staff is given sufficient time to re-act to information passed on by the manage-ment.

As in the DOSA example, there can be several statements or questions within each sub-section of each capacity area.

Qualitative and quantitative indicatorsAll statements in the DOSA example above are “qualitative indicators”: instead of being meas-urable, they are results of subjective assessment. Qualitative indicators are therefore reliable only if the statements are formed carefully and analysis and interpretation take place in an open process. That is why participation of a larger group is very important for the actual assessment workshop.

Quantitative indicators, on the other hand, are measurable and more or less non-negotiable. For example: At least 70% of staff attend weekly office meetings. This can be numerically verified with attendance lists.

Rating scalesEach OCA tool uses a slightly different rating sys-tem created for the particular OCA tool. In the above DOSA example the following rating sys-tem is used:

1 Strongly disagree2 Disagree3 Neutral4 Agree5 Strongly agree

STEP 5: Preparation of assessment tools and methodsBy Step 5, the organisation and its functions will have been divided up into fairly small units: sub-sections within each capacity area of the or-ganisation. Up to this point all steps have been preparation for the actual assessment work that begins now.

Participatory approach

Until this step, the assessment preparations might have been conducted by a smaller group consisting of senior management, some key em-ployees and a facilitator who often is a consultant. But for the actual assessment part – measuring the organisation’s capacity – the participation of a cross-section of the organisation is compulsory. The ideal number of participants is between 8 and 15 people. See STEP 2 for more details on the selection of participants to OCA.

Practical setup for the assessment

On average, an OCA process can take between five and eight hours to finish: the bigger the group, the slower the process. The assessment session is followed by three to five hours of ac-tion planning.

If there are noticeable divisions within the organisation, it is better to divide the organisa-tion into homogenous groups, with these groups brought together later on to share their outputs and debate as groups in order to eliminate the in-dividualisation.

Participants should be free to express them-selves and listen to different views attentively. The most vocal persons should be controlled (us-ing participatory ways) in order to give room for those less vocal to be heard as well.

The external facilitator should create a safe environment for those participating in the self-assessment. This could include off-site assess-ment, discussion of ground rules that emphasise mutual respect, a commitment to confidentiality and so on.

Assessment workshop

The OCA workshop starts with an introductory session explaining the following points to the participants:

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Motives: Why the organisational capacity as-sessment is being conducted – for self-devel-opment, for targeted capacity building or for measuring built capacity over time.Timeline: The assessment aims to measure current capacity rather than that of the past.Assessment process: Explaining the practi-calities and the ranking system. Reminding the participants that low scoring is not bad: it just illustrates areas which need support and should be focused on in the future.Follow up: What will happen after the as-sessment; explaining the process of develop-ing and finalising the report and work plan. Rules: There is a need for participants to be as honest and as realistic as possible and bear in mind that this is a baseline assessment and there is commitment to build on strengths and strengthen weak areas.

Implementation of the tool

After the introduction, the participants’ version of the assessment tool should be handed out to all. Depending on the chosen tool (or method), the participants are given handouts that contain several positive (desirable characteristics) state-ments or – alternatively – questions about the desired level for each capacity area (see Annex I).

In the following, three different methods of undertaking the assessment are described in brief.

a) Group consensus through scores and flat percentage calculations

Statements in this tool are put in a positive de-sirable end point. The process begins by reading the first statement under the first sub-section. Participants are requested to hold up the scoring card with the appropriate symbol (e.g. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5), with everyone showing their score at the same time. The co-facilitator writes the individu-al scores where everyone can see them, and the facilitator then asks the participants to discuss and agree on a group score for the statement. The facilitator writes down the main points of the discussions in a notebook.

Next, the second statement under the sub-section is read and the process is repeated all over. This process is repeated for all the sub-sec-tions and then an overall cumulative score is giv-en for the section. This is then repeated for all the sections in the handout.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

The participants are not involved in deciding the overall score of the capacity areas. The level of each specific capacity is arrived at by using a flat percentage calculation. The maximum score for each statement is 5, and the total scores for each section is therefore 5 multiplied by the to-tal number of statements. The actual scores for the particular section are added up to get the per-centage based on the total score.

This tool was developed by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Zambia Country Office, a ca-pacity-building organisation for organisations involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

b) Group consensus through questions and discussion

The statements for this tool are presented as questions. Several questions are asked for each capacity area regarding the desirable end point. For example, under the capacity area of human resources, one of the questions is ‘Does the or-ganisation conduct performance appraisals at least annually?’

The group is allowed to discuss and eventu-ally reach consensus on the score for the ques-tion, choosing from the following: Yes, Yes Needs Improvement or No. This is repeated for all the questions under that capacity area. Finally, the group is facilitated to agree on the capacity level for that particular capacity: emerging, estab-lished or mature. In this case there are no math-ematical calculations. The process is repeated for all capacity areas.

This is a method used by Southern African AIDS Trust (SAT), a regional NGO focusing on fi-nancial and capacity development assistance to CBOs and NGOs that are engaged in the preven-tion and mitigation of HIV/AIDS in Southern Af-rica. The tool is known as the SAT Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool (SOCAT).

c) Octagon - visualising an organisation’s capacity

Eight variables form an octagon. A self-assess-ment workshop begins with the presentation of the Octagon’s eight variables. Next, the par-ticipants individually apply the Octagon to their own organisation and rate the eight variables. Each dimension is ranked by assessment of two statements on a seven-point scale. When all the variables have been analysed and ranked, the average points are transferred to an Excel docu-

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ment that produces the organisation’s develop-ment profile. The rating process is used as an aid for a group discussion on the organisation’s cur-rent strengths and weaknesses, and changes that will be necessary in the future.

This method is used by the Swedish Inter-national Development Agency (SIDA). As can be seen from the examples above, there are vari-

ous methods for placing a capacity area at one of the stages of growth. For some capacity areas or organisations a subjective consensus brings the best results, while others might profit from a more mathematical method where percent-ages are used to pinpoint the stage. The method or mixture of methods employed should always suit what is being measured.

Stage 1: IncipientIn the initial stage a group of persons starts to organise itself around a common purpose out of necessity, personal initiative or visionary motives. The organisational structure tends to be under-developed, and the activities are loosely structured around some ideas on what should be done and how resources could be mobilised. Direction is normally lacking and functions and roles unclear. Administrative issues are normally dealt with in a personal and ad-hoc manner. The organisation is founded but it is not yet clear in which direction it is going to develop. Most incipient organisations are short-lived and never develop to the second stage.

Stage 2: EmergingAt this level the organisation has somewhat risen above the surface and developed into a more structured body that still operates within the setup of volunteer work but is beginning to put a number of organisational systems in place. The organisation also develops more focused organi-sational objectives and facilitates development processes on a small scale. The organisation ad-ministers planned activities, develops a system with outlined roles and starts following a certain direction. The main challenge at this stage is to develop proper organisational structures as well as a planning and administration system that allows the organisation to build up a set of development activities that are more or less focused and successful, although on a small scale. Organisational capacity-building normally covers clarifying the vision and objectives of the organisation, helping itself to organise itself and manage a set of activities on a small but significant scale and mobilise staff and resources properly for this purpose.

Stage 3: MaturingFew of the emerging organisations will graduate to this level. At this stage the organisation consoli-dates into an organisation that can expand its coverage and become a major agent in its own sector of specialisation. The organisation is able to plan its activities on a wider scale, attract more profes-sional full-time staff and make strategic plans for the future. It is at this stage that visualisation of the outputs of the organisation begins to gain a paramount role in organisational management. The organisation starts to become more output- than input-oriented. This implies that the organisa-tion starts rethinking about their service delivery processes in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, putting more sophisticated operational planning tools in place and attempting to attract donors on the basis of achievements rather than intentions. In terms of personnel, there will be an influx of staff and a professionalisation of employees at the outlet level, while management procedures tend to become more formalised. The other major change that takes place at this stage is that the organisation becomes more aware of its target group and will introduce consultation structures and procedures that give the target groups the possibility to influence the organisation’s policy direction and decision-making. The main challenge is to make the shift from a volunteer organisation to a more professional organisation that takes strategic decisions and is responsive to end users. Capac-ity-building normally covers the areas of strategic organisational planning, performance-oriented project cycle management, adequate information systems, human resources management and improving efficiency at outlet level.

Table 2. Stages of Growth of a typical Southern NGO

continues on page 12

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Stage 4: MatureThis level comprises of organisations that have developed from maturing organisations. An organi-sation at the mature stage is responsive to its end users and organises its activities in such a way that the recipients of its services are satisfied, things are done in an efficient way and management decisions are made strategically. The organisation’s relationship with the target groups is becoming mature and the organisation is putting measures in place for sustainability of its operations at the end user level. The organisation is becoming a reputable development agent with a stable financial background consisting of a mix of long-term sponsors and internal resource mobilisation endeav-our. Human resource management styles are more oriented to motivating and supervising work-ing teams of experts. The main challenge now is to maintain the organisation in the market and develop sufficient new skills and knowledge to adequately continue to serve the clients and to make the shift to a client-oriented management style through the steering of flexible professional teams. Capacity-building for these organisations focuses on creating specific innovative fields and putting professional management systems in place.

Stage 5: Self–sustainedThis is the ultimate goal for all organisations. A self-sustained organisation has developed from a mature one into a self-sustained professional body that can defend itself as a development agent without requiring any external technical assistance or, in case technical assistance is needed, the organisation is able to hire expertise using its own resources. The organisation can reasonably be expected to survive on its own and can therefore be weaned from capacity-building services.

STEP 6: Defining the organisation’s stages of growthThe assessment workshop that has, by this step, been conducted using participatory methods has produced a lot of data about the state of the or-ganisation. Whichever the assessment tool used, the results are similar: it is easy to see how each capacity area relates to one another, i.e. which ar-eas have the organisation’s strengths and which are weaker than average.

This analysis of capacities can be used to de-fine the stage of growth of the capacity areas and, finally, the organisation as a whole. Growth patterns commonly define five stages of growth although there may be slight differences in the terms used. These stages are incipient (or embry-onic), emerging, maturing (or growing), mature (or well-developed) and self-sustained (or mature).

The example in Table 2 refers to a typical growth pattern of a Southern NGO. See Annex II for a detailed example of the stages for each ca-pacity area.

By placing each capacity in its respective stage of growth, it is possible to see which capaci-ties lag behind others and focus capacity-building efforts on those areas that need strengthening.

The tree analogy of an organisation

The Southern African AIDS Trust (SAT), a Zam-bian NGO, has developed a useful tool for turning the negative tone of assessment into positive. Instead of referring to an organisation as being poor in governance, the organisation is described as being emerging in governance capacity. Called the tree analogy, the tool associates the stages in the growth of an organisation with the growth of a tree as described in Table 3 below.

Table 5. Definitions of capacity areas

Stage State

1 EmbryonicThe tree is a vulnerable seed trying to penetrate the soil.

� Emerging

The seed has penetrated the soil to benefit from sunlight but is still vulnerable, with the roots not yet deep enough.

� GrowingThe tree is becoming stronger and developing deeper roots.

�Well- developed

The roots are now strong and deep, with fruit production beginning and the tree able to withstand most threats.

� Mature

The tree continually bears lar-ge quantities of fruit and has become a viable and perma-nent part of the landscape.

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From assessment to action

Capacity assessment is of little use if the infor-mation it produces is not worked into an action plan for capacity-building activities. Capacity building can be understood as an explicit effort to improve an organisation’s performance in relation to its purpose, context, resources and sustainability. The aim is to develop a more ef-fective, viable, autonomous and legitimate local organisation by creating the conditions in which change can take place from within the group or organisation.

Organisational capacity assessment is just one step in the ongoing process of organisational capacity building that includes, besides capac-ity assessment sessions, components related to organisational learning, benchmarking, action planning and continuous organisational im-provement.

Capacity-building programmes are intended to strengthen an organisation’s ability to provide quality and effective services while being viable as an institution:

Supporting an organisation so that it can be programmatically sustainable (providing needed and effective services),and organisationally sustainable (with strong leadership and having the necessary man-agement systems and procedures),while ensuring that it has sufficient resources (human, financial, and material) that are uti-lised well. Finally, capacity-building activities must help the organisation understand the exter-nal environment (political, economic, and social) it operates in and to develop a rela-tionship with it that is sufficiently stable and predictable.

Action planning is a formal method for deter-mining how and when the OD interventions will be implemented. To create a useful action plan, facilitators must work closely with the organi-sation’s decision-makers and intervention par-ticipants. Facilitators need to make sure there is clear agreement about the goals of the selected interventions. A question to be asked is: What

•

•

•

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do we want to see accomplished at the comple-tion of the interventions? Answers to this ques-tion will not only be helpful for action planning — they will also prove useful for the monitoring and evaluating the interventions. Other issues to consider are:

clarifying the roles and responsibilities;establishing timelines for interventions and monitoring procedures;determining necessary resources.

Assessment report as a baseline

At the end of the assessment process, an as-sessment report is produced, normally by the facilitating team. The assessment report should capture the main organisational strengths and weaknesses identified during the assessment process. The assessment report is meant for the organisation as a reference document for plan-ning of future capacity-building activities and as a baseline for monitoring progress.

The results of the assessment, which can be presented in different forms (graphs, charts or narratives), should be shared with the members of the organisation that participated in the as-sessment process and the senior staff of the or-ganisation for comments and validation.

Prioritising change targets

With help of the OCA it is relatively easy to spot areas that should be prioritised when planning capacity-building activities. The data and feed-back collected during the assessment phase can be used to select appropriate interventions for change targets (e.g. capacity areas, processes, learning needs, organisational culture issues or organisational behavioural patterns).

Planning organisational development interventionsIn the planning stage, the OCA facilitator collabo-rates with decision-makers and relevant person-nel to design comprehensive and detailed plans for implementing, monitoring and evaluating the chosen organisational development (OD) in-terventions.

••

•

1�

The skill of an organisational development specialist (OCA facilitator) lies in helping an or-ganisation correctly identify what combination of systems, structures, styles or environmental factors is limiting the organisation’s perform-ance, and helping the organisation to select the right mix of tools, methods and strategies to bring about the required changes. Further, the OCA fa-cilitator will assist the organisation to learn from the experiences of the assessment so that it may become more self-regulating in future.

Five general forms of capacity-building can be identified: training, expert consulting, pair-of-hands consulting, collaborative consulting and funding. Organisational development is often thought to equal only training and human re-source development, which is a very limited way of understanding the organisational capacity is-sue. Training and human resource development can merely tackle a limited number of systems in just one type of way: through the knowledge and skills of individuals and groups. As can be seen in Table 4, the other forms of capacity building are equally important for organisational devel-opment.

Underlying principles for effective capacity buildingAll outside interventions have an impact on the capacity of an organisation. Capacity build-ing should not be a set of discrete activities but a process designed to influence complex human and organisational systems.

Capacity-building interventions are designed to improve the services and sustainability of the client organisation, not to achieve some out-side concept of an “ideal” organisation. Capacity building respects the organisational independ-ence of the client organisation receiving assist-ance. The client organisation is responsible for its own development. It is solely responsible for deciding on, implementing or participating in capacity building activities. Managerial preroga-tives for projects, programmes and the organisa-tion rest solely with the client organisation. Ca-pacity-building providers cannot force clients to adopt strategies, tactics, managerial systems or financial systems.

The role of the consulting organisation (do-nor, Northern NGO) is to help the client organi-sation (NGO) more effectively achieve its own

mission and vision, not the mission/vision of the consulting organisation.

Capacity building is a collaborative process between an external helper (OCA facilitator/con-sultant) and an organisation asking for help (cli-ent) designed to help the client organisation im-prove its performance in relation to its mission, context, resources, and sustainability. Interven-tions can be regarded as capacity building only when both parties, the consultant and client, freely enter into an agreement with the purpose of improving the client’s services and sustain-ability.

Capacity building is a collaborative process based on feedback and action research. Here ac-tion research is defined as a research process which integrates members of the system under study into the research team. The consulting and client organisations work collaboratively (50/50) to define the problem, collect data, analyse the data and develop possible solutions. The client organisation (NGO) then takes full responsibility for implementing the solutions chosen.

Evaluation of the impacts of capacity build-ing should focus on results that demonstrate an improvement of the client’s ability to fulfil its mission and provide the services it says it provides as well as results which demonstrate increased survivability (or sustainability) of the organisation.

All information collected during capacity building assessments belong to the client, which has the right to keep the information private or publicise it as it sees fit. In particular, donors have no a priori rights to that information.

Recommendations to make capacity building effectiveIf capacity building efforts are to be made effec-tive for strengthening Southern NGOs, the fol-lowing issues must be observed and addressed:

Capacity building should be an ongoing proc-ess that employs different approaches de-pending on the situation and capacity area that needs strengthening.Capacity assessment should be the begin-ning of capacity building, in fact the assess-ment itself is capacity building.Peer mentoring should be supported as a form of capacity building as much as possible.

•

•

•

1�

Funding alone is not a very effective form of capacity building; it should be accompanied by other forms of capacity building.Capacity building should not only focus on people (skills and knowledge), it should focus on other aspects of organisation such as cul-ture, processes and systems, depending on which have come up as priority areas.

•

•

Table 4. Ways to improve the capacity of an organisation

NGO provides improved services to customers and stronger influence

with stakeholders

Improved capacity

Skills

trainingExpert

consulting (expert tells)

Funding (give money)

Pair-of-hands consulting (client tells)

Collaborative consulting (decide

together)What

Technical skills

Manage-ment skills

Traditional evaluations & technical

advisors

Interns, vo-lunteers &

consultants

Action Research based OD (con-sultant & client

define problems & solutions together)

Grants

Need for capacity building

Capacity building imposed by funder

Capacity building requested by organisation

How

1�

Case study: Pact’s Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool (OCAT)

STEP 1: Defining objectives for the assessmentOrganisation x, a Southern NGO has realised the need for capacity strengthening in the area of or-ganisational development. The NGO has grown rapidly as an organisation and its projects are growing in size. To avoid a situation where the or-ganisation’s project management needs outgrow its capacity to run the projects, the organisation applies to Pact Zambia for financial support to con-duct an organisational capacity assessment and subsequent capacity-development activities. The NGO contracts a consultant to conduct the OCA. The consultant, who uses Pact’s Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool (OCAT), has called a preparatory meeting with the senior manage-ment (board members and/or members of secre-tariat) of the organisation. During the preparato-ry meeting, the consultant helps the organisation define the objectives of the assessment.

In the long run the Organisational Capacity Assessment is aimed at strengthening the capac-ity of the organisation to be able to deliver bet-ter services to its target groups efficiently and effectively. Specifically, the assessment aims to achieve the following objectives:

To identify the main capacity-building needs of the organisation, and how these needs can be fulfilled.To develop a detailed work plan that ad-dresses the above needs (time and resources needed, i.e. human, technical, financial).

STEP 2: Planning of OCA processThe initiative for the assessment came from the organisation itself. This sign for real commit-ment of the senior management of the NGO for

1.

2.

the process is further strengthened in in-depth discussions during the prepatory meeting. The consultant will adopt the role of a facilitator. In a process meeting with the same senior manage-ment, the participants nail down the resources available for the assessment and formulate a ten-tative timetable. Since the organisation is ready to invest time in the assessment, the consult-ant decides to use the OCA tool (Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool, or OCAT), which is commonly used to diagnose existing abilities for efficiency and effective service delivery of an or-ganisation.

The OCAT is designed to be a process that includes a number of interventions such as a two-day workshop and a following session for creating an action plan for capacity-building ac-tivities. Key board members or executive com-mittee members, some staff members from the secretariat and representatives of beneficiaries and volunteers attend a two-day workshop to use the tool and to discuss the organisational strengths and weaknesses. Input from key exter-nal stakeholders can be included through sepa-rate interviews to triangulate and validate cer-tain information. This is useful in order to reflect the external perception that the stakeholders have with regard to the capacities of the organi-sation.

Based on a facilitated process of self-assess-ment, the OCAT serves to determine a score for a range of capacity areas. The results of the as-sessment lay the foundation for a targeted action plan for provision of capacity-building activities for the organisation.

The tool has the following features:The tool measures core organisational capac-ity.The tool is flexible enough to allow partici-pants to focus on areas which are most rel-evant to them.The tool generates a composite score of ca-pacity which can be used for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) purposes both for the or-ganisation itself as well as those supporting it in capacity building.The scoring system is deliberately non-judg-mental concerning the need for future capac-ity building — it simply calls for a judgment of the current situation.

•

•

•

•

1�

STEPS 3 AND 4: Defining capacity areas and indicatorsThe facilitator of the OCA process calls in a meet-ing with the senior management of the organi-sation. They discuss the organisation’s internal components and areas that would need special attention during the assessment. It is decided that the following organisational capacity areas will be assessed using the OCAT:

GovernanceManagementHuman ResourcesFinancial systemsService deliveryExternal relationsSustainability

Since the objective of the assessment is to find out the organisation’s ability for effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery, special emphasis is put on that particular area. Sustainability is in-cluded as a separate capacity area to give special visibility to factors that distinguish the organisa-tion’s ability to face the challenges of the future.

Once the capacity areas have been defined, the components of each capacity area are listed:

Table 5. Definitions of capacity areas

Capacity Area Sub-section

GovernanceBoard, mission/goal, constituency, leadership, legal status

Management practices

Organisational structure, informa-tion management, administration procedures, personnel, planning, programme development, pro-gramme reporting

Financial resources

Accounting, budgeting, finan-cial/inventory controls, financial reporting

Human resources

Human resources development, staff roles, work organisation, diversity issues, supervisory practi-ces, salary and benefits

Service deli-very

Sectoral expertise, constituency, impact assessment

External relations

Constituency relations, inter-NGO collaboration, public relations, local resources, media

Sustainability

Programme/benefit sustainabili-ty, organisational sustainability, financial sustainability, resource base sustainability

•••••••

For each sub-section, indicators are created in the form of statements. Here we take the capacity area Service Delivery as an example:

Capacity Area: Service delivery

Sub-section 1: Sectoral expertise

Statement a: The organisation has the experi-ence necessary to accomplish its mission.

Statement b: Relevant expertise exists within the organisation.

Statement c: Expertise is recognised by all stake-holders.

Statement d: The organisation is capable of adapting programmes and service delivery to changing needs of stakeholders and/or target groups.

Sub-section 2: Constituency through stakeholder commitment and ownership

Statement a: Programme priorities are based on actual needs of target groups.

Statement b: Programme priorities and services are defined in collaboration with stakeholders.

Statement c: Programmes are efficient, adequate, cost-effective and timely.

Sub-section 3: Impact assessment through monitoring and evaluation systems

Statement a: A clearly documented monitoring and evaluation system exists.

Statement b: Project implementation is moni-tored against benchmarks.

Statement c: Indicators have been identified for each programme objective.

Statement d: Baseline and impact data are col-lected and analysed regularly.

Statement e: Results of evaluations are used to make adjustments to the programme.

Rating scale:

0 Not applicable or information not avail-able to assess the element

1 Needs urgent and immediate attention2 Needs major improvement3 Needs improvement in limited aspects4 Statement true, room for some improve-

ment5 Statement true, needs maintaining

1�

STEP 5: Assessment tools and methodsThe actual assessment workshop using the OCA tool mixes capacity score and consensus scoring systems. The session begins with several partici-patory exercises to elicit discussion around each particular capacity area. After discussion, the fa-cilitator of the exercise:

gives each participant six scoring cards with the following numbers on them: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; explains the rating and underlines that if some statements are not applicable, they should be left unrated; introduces all capacity areas that are to be assessed by the exercise; begins by reading the first statement under the first sub-section;asks the participants to rank the statement by holding up the scoring cards with the number that reflects their score for that statement (they should all do this at the same time);asks the co-facilitator to write the individual scores on a flip chart for everyone to see;asks the participants to discuss and agree on one group score for that statement. The group score, or consensus score, reflects the level of agreement on capacity perceptions among assessment team members by meas-uring how closely their capacity scores clus-ter together;writes the main points of the discussions down in a notebook;repeats the process for all statements under the same sub-section and similarly for other sections;collects all participants’ handouts containing the individual scores and summarises the scores for the following day’s session.

The facilitator analyses the collected information by averaging all the responses in each capacity area and then summing them up. Next, the raw scores are standardised for each capacity area so that they can be compared across capacity areas, regardless of the number of items contributing to the raw score. Finally, the scores are indexed on a scale of 100 so that they can be conveniently displayed and graphed. A computer program is used to generate the analysis.

Let’s take an example: There are six partici-pants in the case study assessment workshop: two representatives of senior management, two

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

persons from the project office, one from the field office and one volunteer.

The following questions are asked to gener-ate discussion about Constituency through stake-holder commitment and ownership (sub-section 2 of the Service delivery capacity area).

Which three projects are representative in our current programme portfolio and who are the stakeholders in these projects?For the three projects identified, what are some concrete examples of stakeholder in-volvement in each of the processes listed be-low?

Once the discussion is finished and the exercise setting clear, the facilitator reads the first state-ment:

Statement a: Programme priorities are based on actual needs of target groups.

Rating scale:0 Not applicable or information not avail-

able to assess the element1 Needs urgent and immediate attention2 Needs major improvement3 Needs improvement in limited aspects4 Statement true, room for some improve-

ment5 Statement true, needs maintaining

The six participants give the following scores:

Participant 1: 3Participant 2: 3Participant 3: 2Participant 4: 4Participant 5: 2Participant 6: 1

The total score for the statement a is 17, which di-vided by 6 gives the average of 2.83.

The total score for statement b (Programme priorities and services are defined in collabora-tion with stakeholders) gives the average of 2.23 and for statement c (Programmes are efficient, adequate, cost effective and timely) the average is 3.09.

By taking the sum of the three averages (2.83 + 2.23 + 3.09) and then dividing the sum by 3, the average score for sub-section 2 Constituency through stakeholder commitment and owner-ship is 2.72.

1.

2.

1�

Before this detailed calculation is done, how-ever, the individual scores are written down on a whiteboard and a consensus score is decided upon by discussion. The consensus score, 3, is slightly above the numerical score, which could indicate that persons with a less rosy picture of participation felt uneasy about expressing their dissatisfaction in open discussion with middle management present.

The same process is applied to each capacity area until all the statements have been covered.

STEP 6: Defining an organisation’s stages of growth and planning capacity-building activitiesThe first day of the OCA exercise was spent by producing data for analysis. The second day is spent on analysing the data and, based on the analysis, prioritising the capacities that need urgent strengthening and developing capacity-building action plans.

The assessment report, which serves as a baseline for capacity building activity planning, includes the following elements:

background to the assessment and overview of the findings;description of the prioritised capacity-build-ing areas;detailed summary of findings for each capac-ity area;the OCA tool with scores (as annex);list of participants by name and position (as annex).

A graph capturing the self-assessment results for each of the seven capacities will be plotted as shown below.

1.

2.

3.

4.5.

Table 6. Case study OCA results in a graph form (OCAT method)

1 2 3 4 5

Governance

Management Practices

Human Rsources

Financial Management

Service Delivery

External Relations

Sustainability

Incipient Emerging Expanding Mature

�0

Reflections on OCA and capacity building

Strengths and weaknesses of OCA

The mere process of going through the organi-sational capacity assessment is in a way capac-ity-building of the organisation. In many cases organisations are made to realise that certain is-sues that they may not have even thought about are needed and important for their organisation to grow. The findings of a single assessment can be used for a variety of purposes including as a baseline for measuring organisational develop-ment over time, as a basis for selecting areas that need to be developed or as a tool for donors to se-lect candidates for project funding.

Organisational capacity assessment does also have its weaknesses. The scoring in all the tools can be very subjective. Personal perspec-tives rather than the actual situation may influ-ence the scoring. It should be noted that the OCA methodology relies on organisational self-assess-ment. Findings are valid only to the degree that team members are objective, candid and knowl-edgeable about their organisation.

Using numbers to represent capacity can be helpful when recognised as relative and not abso-lute measures. Many tools for measuring organi-sational capacity rely on ordinal scales. Ordinal scales are scales in which values can be ranked from high to low or more to less in relation to each other. They are useful for ordering by rank along a continuum but they can also be mislead-ing. Despite the use of scoring criteria and guide-lines, one person’s 3 may be someone else’s 4. In addition, ordinal scales do not indicate how far apart one score is from another. (For example, is the distance between ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree’ the same as the distance between ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’?) Qualitative descriptions of an organisation’s capacity level are a good com-plement to ordinal scales.

Critique of current capacity-building practices of many Northern NGOs

A lot of Southern NGOs and CBOs benefit from the support they receive from the Northern NGO in the form of capacity building or other ways. This is a very valuable input and contributes to the Southern NGOs’ sustainability and growth. However, certain practices render themselves in-effective in accelerating organisational growth in many Southern NGOs. Some of these condi-tions and practices are discussed below.

Capacity strengthening is a complex and long-term process that involves client organisa-tion participation in the interventions. However, Northern donors tend to have short-term sup-port and simplistic training approaches. Most Northern capacity-building organisations tend to focus on quantity instead of quality in capac-ity building. Much of the capacity building takes place through mass training with limited budg-ets. Many organisations are included but only one representative from each organisation is in-vited. This may not be very effective as the indi-viduals do not have the support of the organisa-tion to put into practice what they learnt during the training.

Much of the support given to client NGOs tends to be hardware, meaning tangible things like office equipment as opposed to software-type of support that includes support for changes in organisational culture, values etc. The same goes for recipient NGOs that tend to value the “fish” more than the “fishing net”. Southern NGOs also tend to see hardware more appealing than sup-port for organisational change.

Some experiences of OCA-based capacity building of Southern NGOs

The following are some of the observations and lessons learned from capacity building of South-ern NGOs.

Some organisations go through the process mechanically, “as long as the donor says so”. This might lead to a situation where some organisa-tions have been trained in the same “capacity area” yet they are not developing in that capac-ity.

�1

Training that targets single representatives from organisations is not very useful. The trans-fer and sharing of the knowledge gained with the rest of the staff and members of the organisation is not very effective or does not even take place in many cases.

Most organisations have a simplistic attitude of “we don’t have money, that’s why we’re not growing” without really looking at themselves straight in the eye.

Mentoring by a relatively similar organisa-tion is far more effective in strengthening capac-ity than the other forms of capacity building.

��

References

Human Sciences Research Council (1���) A guide for the assessment of organisational Capacity. http://www.usaid.gov/pubs/sourcebook/usgov/orgcap.pdf

International HIV/AIDS Alliance (�00�) CBO capacity analysis toolkit. http://www.aidsalliance.org/cus-tom_asp/publications/view.asp?publication_id=11�&language=en

National Environmental Education Advancement Project (�00�) Organisational Assessment Tool. http://www.uwsp.edu/cnr/neeap/publications/oat/oatintro.htm

NGO Manager (�00�) Organisational Assessment Tool. http://www.ngomanager.org/tools.htmNGO Manager (�00�) Organisational Development: Organisational Assessment. http://www.ngoman-

ager.org/dcd/�_Organisational_Development/Organisational_Assessment/Reflect and Learn (�00�) Organisational Assessment Tools. http://reflectlearn.org/tools.phpThe DOSA page (�001) New directions in Organisational Capacity Building. http://www.edc.org/GLG/Cap-

Dev/dosapage.htmUNDP (�00�) Participatory Organisational Evaluation Tool. http://www.comminit.com/pdf/POET_Users-

Manual.pdf

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Annex I: Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool (OCAT)

Scoring system

0Not applicable or information not available to assess the element

1 Needs urgent and immediate attention� Needs major improvement� Needs improvement in limited aspects� Statement true, room for some improvement� Statement true, needs maintaining

A. GOVERNANCE

1. Boarda. The board or executive committee (this governing structure will be referred to as the board throug-

hout this assessment) provides overall policy direction and oversight.b. The board provides accountability and credibility.c. The board is capable of carrying out key roles such as policy formulation (for the organisation),

fundraising, public relations, financial oversight and lobbying.d. The board is composed of committed members who represent the varied interests of the stakehol-

ders.e. At least �0% of board members attend all meetings.f. The board has clearly documented terms of reference and tenure of office.

2. Mission/Goals a. The organisation has clearly articulated mission/goalsb. All the stakeholders understand the organisation’s mission.c. The development of the mission, goals and objectives are based on research and analysis of the

external and internal environment.d. The organisation has performance indicators to measure progress towards the achievement of the

goals and objectives.e. The organisation has a written strategic plan with a clear timeframe.f. Implementation plans are jointly developed by all the appropriate stakeholders.

3. Stakeholdersa. The organisation is able to identify key stakeholders.b. The results of stakeholder needs assessments are integrated into the planning process.c. Stakeholders are involved in the review of the organisation’s mission and strategies.

4. Leadership and organisational culturea. The board leadership has a clear vision of the organisation’s mission.b. Every board member knows the organisation’s values, vision and mission.

��

c. The leadership style is participatory.d. The management has the skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles effectively.e. The management is accountable to key stakeholders.f. The management encourages mutual respect among the staff/volunteers.g. Information is shared freely among the members.

B. MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

1. Organisational structure a. The organisation has an organisational structure with clearly defined lines of authority and respon-

sibilities.b. The organisation has an organisational structure which is well-designed and relevant to the missi-

on/goal.c. The positions within the organisational structure are filled.d. Systems are in place to ensure appropriate involvement of all levels of volunteers in decision-ma-

king.e. Regular assessments of the organisational structure are carried out and relevant updates made.

2. Planninga. Inputs from appropriate stakeholders are taken into account during planning.b. Implementation plans reflect a strategic plan.c. Implementation plans are reviewed regularly and updated when necessary.d. Resources are planned for and allocated properly.e. Flexibility exists to adjust plans as a result of the monitoring process.

3. Programme developmenta. Stakeholders and staff/volunteers are involved in programme design, implementation, monitoring

and evaluation.b. Programme design incorporates monitoring, evaluation and reporting activities.c. Programme modifications reflect the use of monitoring, evaluation and reporting findings.

4. Administrative proceduresa. The organisation is registered according to relevant legislation.b. Administrative procedure manual exist.c. Administrative procedures are adhered to.d. Procedures and operating manuals are updated.e. The organisation conforms to standard tax and labour regulations and requirements.

5. Risk managementa. Systems are in place to minimise organisational abuses.b. Regular audits of inventory are conducted.c. Annual external audit reports include a review of management practices.d. Recommendations of management practices in external annual audit reports are implemented.6. Information systemsa. Systems exist to collect, analyse and report data and information.b. Trained personnel are in place to analyse data.c. Systems are used to process, disseminate and solicit feedback of information.

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7. Programme reportinga. The organisation has the ability to produce appropriate reports.b. The organisation regularly prepares activity reports.c. The organisation regularly prepares evaluation reports.d. The organisation publishes and disseminates information on its operations to appropriate stakehol-

ders.C. HUMAN RESOURCES

1. Human resources developmenta. A human resource development plan is in place.b. Staff/volunteer training is based on capacity needs and strategic objectives.c. Opportunities exist to integrate skills acquired in training into the work environment.d. Job performance appraisals are held periodically.e. Job promotions are based on performance.

2. Human resources managementa. Selection criteria for volunteers are in place.b. Recruitment process for staff is clearly defined, transparent and competitive.c. Job descriptions are clearly defined, adhered to and updated.d. Staff/board board meetings are held regularly.e. A simple and accessible Human Resource Manual exists and is followed (including procedures for

the board, volunteers and staff).f. Work of staff/volunteers is regularly internally monitored and evaluated and feedback given.g. Grievances and conflict resolution procedures are documented well.h. Grievances and conflict resolution procedures are understood well by the staff/volunteers and are

used when necessary.i. The workplace environment is appropriate in terms of health and safety.

3. Salaries and benefitsa. Salaries/benefits are clearly structured and competitive.b. A benefits policy is documented, disseminated and implemented, clearly stating the benefits for the

board, staff and volunteers.D. FINANCIAL RESOURCES

1. Accountinga. Financial procedures and reporting systems are in place.b. Account categories exist to separate project funds.2. Budgetinga. Budgeting is part of the annual implementation plan development process.b. Responsibilities for the preparation, management and implementation of the annual budget plans

are clearly defined.c. Actual expenses are regularly monitored against the budget and variances are investigated.

3. Financial/inventory controlsa. Stock control systems exist.b. Stock controls are followed.c. Procurement systems are in place.

��

d. Procurement systems are being used.e. Internal audits are conducted on a regular basis.f. Annual external audits are conducted and include reviews of management practice.g. Recommendations made in audits are implemented.

4. Financial reportinga. Financial reporting is timely.b. Reports include a balance sheetc. All financial transactions are recorded with relevant supporting documentation.d. Reports are reviewed by the financial committee of the board.E. SERVICE DELIVERY

1. Sectoral expertisea. The organisation has the experience necessary to accomplish its mission.b. Relevant expertise exists within the organisationc. The expertise is recognised by the full range of stakeholders.d. The organisation is capable of adapting programme and service delivery to stakeholder/target

groups’ changing needs.

2. Stakeholder commitment/ownershipa. Programme priorities are based on the actual needs of target groups.b. Programme priorities and services are defined in collaboration with stakeholders.c. Programmes are efficient, adequate, cost-effective and timely.

3. Monitoring and evaluation systemsa. A clearly documented monitoring and evaluation system exists.b. Project implementation is monitored against benchmarks.c. Indicators have been identified for each programme objectived. Baseline and impact data are collected and analysed regularly.e. Results of evaluation are used to make adjustments to the programme.F. EXTERNAL RELATIONS

1. Stakeholder relationsa. The organisation is seen as credible by the stakeholders.b. The organisation is seen as a valuable resource by the stakeholdersc. The organisation regards its stakeholders as full partners.d. The organisation has relations with the private sector for technical expertise, material and human

resources.2. Inter-organisational collaborationa. The organisation networks and shares resources with national and international organisations.b. The organisation plays a role in promoting coalitions/networks.c. The organisation participates in advocacy activities.

3. Government collaborationa. The organisation has mechanisms in place to influence relevant government policies.b. The organisation has contacts with government decision-makers.c. The organisation is able to engage policy-makers in dialogue.

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d. Exchange of resources occurs between the Organisation and government.e. The organisation’s activities and recommendations are integrated into government development

plans.

4. Donor collaborationa. The organisation has practices and procedures for recognising donors.b. The organisation has diversified contacts within the funding community.c. The organisation is seen as credible by funders.d. The organisation is seen as a valuable resource by funders.

5. Public relationsa. The organisation engages in public relations.b. The organisation’s objectives and goals are understood by the stakeholders.c. The organisation has a positive image among the stakeholders.

6. Media relationsa. The organisation maintains diverse contacts with media outlets.b. The organisation has a strategy to work with the media.c. The media consults the organisation on relevant issues.G. SUSTAINABILITY

1. Programme/benefit sustainability a. Programmes are supported by those being served.b. There is sense of ownership of benefits by the beneficiaries.c. The organisation ensures that local level skills transfer takes place.

2. Organisational sustainabilitya. The organisation has a shared vision of its role in society.b. The organisation is a member of key NGO networksc. The organisation reviews its structures in response to organisational development needs.d. The organisation has linkages with international NGOs, educational institutions, government enti-

ties, research institutes, civil institutions and the private sector.3. Financial sustainabilitya. The organisation has the ability to access diversified resources to contribute to its activities.b. The organisation has more than one funder.c. Funds for short-term expenses are available.d. The organisation has a long-term business/funding/resource development plan for the needed

finances.e. The organisation has an immediate fundraising strategy.f. The organisation has the capacity to implement the fundraising strategy.g. Local fundraising opportunities have been identified.h. The organisation has the capacity to write proposals and win tenders.

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Annex II: Stages of growth of an organisation based on the OCA tool (OCAT)

OCA

T ca

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ages

of o

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or

inde

pend

ent b

ody h

ave

been

id

entifi

ed b

ut h

ave

not y

et

assu

med

a le

ader

ship

role

.

The

boar

d is

atte

mpt

ing

to

mic

ro-m

anag

e ra

ther

than

pr

ovid

e ov

ersig

ht.

The

boar

d is

not i

nflue

ncin

g pu

blic

opi

nion

or l

egisl

ator

s.

The

boar

d is

not a

war

e of

the

need

s of s

take

hold

ers o

r the

ro

le th

ey co

uld

play

.

The

boar

d’s m

embe

rshi

p is

st

able

and

func

tioni

ng.

The

boar

d is

able

to d

iffer

en-

tiate

bet

wee

n its

role

and

th

at o

f man

agem

ent.

The

boar

d ha

s som

e m

em-

bers

who

are

lead

ers i

n re

leva

nt fi

elds

but

it la

cks

broa

der r

epre

sent

atio

n.

The

boar

d is

awar

e of

its

resp

onsib

ility

to p

rovi

de

over

sight

and

repr

esen

t the

in

tere

sts o

f sta

keho

lder

s but

is

not c

onsis

tent

ly d

oing

so.

Mec

hani

sms f

or o

btai

ning

in

put f

rom

stak

ehol

ders

are

in

pla

ce b

ut n

ot b

eing

use

d co

nsist

ently

.

The

boar

d pr

ovid

es o

vera

ll po

li-cy

dire

ctio

n an

d ov

ersig

ht.

The

boar

d pr

ovid

es a

ccou

ntab

i-lit

y and

cred

ibili

ty.

The

boar

d’s c

ompo

sitio

n in

clud

es le

ader

s in

the

field

of

the

NGO

’ s m

issio

n w

ho a

re ca

-pa

ble

of ca

rryi

ng o

ut su

ch ro

les

as p

olic

y dire

ctio

n, fu

ndra

ising

, pu

blic

rela

tions

, fina

ncia

l ove

r-sig

ht a

nd lo

bbyi

ng.

The

boar

d is

com

pose

d of

com

-m

itted

mem

bers

who

repr

e-se

nt th

e va

ried

inte

rest

s of t

he

stak

ehol

ders

.M

echa

nism

s are

in p

lace

to

obta

in a

ppro

pria

te in

put f

rom

st

akeh

olde

rs.

The

boar

d ex

ecut

es it

s rol

e of

ad

voca

te fo

r the

com

mun

ity.

Miss

ion/

goal

The

NGO

has

a v

ague

idea

of i

ts

miss

ion

and

the

cont

ribut

ion

it is

atte

mpt

ing

to m

ake.

The

miss

ion

is un

ders

tood

by

only

one

or a

few

mem

bers

of t

he

boar

d or

seni

or m

anag

emen

t.Th

e ac

tiviti

es ca

rrie

d ou

t by s

take

-ho

lder

s may

hav

e lit

tle re

latio

n-sh

ip to

the

miss

ion

of th

e N

GO.

Impl

emen

tatio

n pl

ans a

re d

e-ve

lope

d by

seni

or m

anag

emen

t w

ithou

t inp

ut fr

om st

aff o

r sta

ke-

hold

ers.

The

miss

ion

may

be

clar

ified

in

tern

ally

but

it is

not

wid

ely

unde

rsto

od b

y the

pub

lic.

The

miss

ion

is no

t refl

ecte

d in

pl

anni

ng o

r job

func

tions

.

Plan

ning

is d

one

by se

nior

man

agem

ent w

ith li

ttle

inpu

t fr

om st

aff a

nd st

akeh

olde

rs.

The

visio

n an

d m

issio

n ar

e cl

ear t

o st

aff,

stak

ehol

ders

an

d ou

tsid

ers.

Stra

tegi

es a

nd o

bjec

tives

are

al

igne

d w

ith th

e m

issio

n.

Impl

emen

tatio

n pl

anni

ng

may

be

cond

ucte

d by

seni

or

man

agem

ent a

nd li

nked

to

the

budg

etin

g pr

oces

s with

so

me

inpu

t fro

m st

aff o

r st

akeh

olde

rs.

The

NGO

has

clea

rly a

rtic

ulat

ed

miss

ion/

goal

s whi

ch a

re u

nder

-st

ood

by a

ll st

akeh

olde

rs.

Stra

tegi

es a

re a

ligne

d w

ith th

e m

issio

n, re

alist

ic a

nd ta

ke th

e fo

rm o

f cle

ar o

bjec

tive

stat

e-m

ents

as t

o ho

w th

ey ca

n be

ac

hiev

ed.

Impl

emen

tatio

n pl

ans a

re

join

tly d

evel

oped

by s

enio

r m

anag

emen

t, st

aff a

nd o

ther

ap

prop

riate

stak

ehol

ders

.

��

Nas

cent

org

anisa

tions

Emer

ging

org

anisa

tions

Expa

ndin

g or

gani

satio

nsM

atur

e or

gani

satio

nsLe

gal s

tatu

sTh

e N

GO m

ay o

r may

not

be

le-

gally

regi

ster

ed a

ccor

ding

to lo

cal

regu

latio

ns.

The

NGO

doe

s not

ben

efit f

rom

w

hate

ver fi

duci

ary a

nd ta

xatio

n st

atus

is p

erm

issib

le u

nder

loca

l la

w.

The

NGO

is re

gist

ered

but

has

no

t yet

inte

grat

ed fi

nanc

ial

and

lega

l adv

ice

into

pla

nnin

g an

d m

anag

emen

t dec

ision

s.

The

NGO

is n

ot in

com

plia

nce

with

som

e lo

cal r

epor

ting

and

labo

ur re

quire

men

ts.

The

NGO

has

inte

grat

ed a

p-pr

opria

te e

xper

t adv

ice

into

pl

anni

ng a

nd m

anag

emen

t sy

stem

s.

The

NGO

is g

ener

ally

in

com

plia

nce

with

loca

l rep

or-

ting,

tax

and

labo

ur re

quire

-m

ents

.

The

NGO

is p

rope

rly re

gist

ered

ac

cord

ing

to lo

cal r

egul

atio

ns.

The

NGO

ben

efits

from

the

finan

cial

and

lega

l sta

tus p

er-

miss

ible

und

er lo

cal l

aw.

Stak

ehol

ders

The

NGO

’s lin

ks w

ith th

e st

akeh

ol-

ders

are

wea

k.

The

NGO

vie

ws i

ts co

mm

unity

as

pass

ive

bene

ficia

ries r

athe

r tha

n po

tent

ial p

artn

ers.

The

NGO

doe

s not

serv

e as

an

advo

cate

for t

he co

mm

unity

.

The

NGO

is u

nabl

e to

iden

tify k

ey

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

NGO

’s ou

trea

ch to

stak

e-ho

lder

s is i

mpr

ovin

g.

Cert

ain

influ

entia

l mem

-be

rs o

f the

com

mun

ity m

ay

be co

nsul

ted

or in

vite

d to

pa

rtic

ipat

e in

som

e de

cisio

ns

beca

use

they

are

seen

to h

ave

a st

ake

in th

e ou

tcom

e.

Som

e aw

aren

ess e

xist

s of t

he

poss

ible

role

of t

he N

GO a

s an

advo

cate

for t

he co

mm

unity

.

The

NGO

’s st

akeh

olde

rs a

re

defin

ed w

ell a

nd th

eir n

eeds

an

d vi

ews a

re co

nsid

ered

in

plan

ning

and

dec

ision

-ma-

king

.Th

e N

GO is

invo

lved

in

lobb

ying

and

oth

er a

dvoc

acy

func

tions

on

beha

lf of

the

com

mun

ity.

The

NGO

is co

min

g to

vie

w

the

com

mun

ity a

nd o

ther

st

akeh

olde

rs a

s par

tner

s.

The

NGO

’s st

akeh

olde

rs a

re

defin

ed w

ell.

The

NGO

reco

gnise

s the

com

-m

unity

and

oth

er st

akeh

olde

rs

as p

artn

ers.

Resu

lts o

f com

mun

ity n

eeds

as

sess

men

ts a

re in

tegr

ated

into

th

e pl

anni

ng p

roce

ss.

The

NGO

’s m

issio

n an

d st

rate

-gi

es a

re re

view

ed b

y sta

keho

l-de

rs.

Lead

ersh

ipTh

ere

is an

indi

vidu

al o

r a fe

w in

-di

vidu

als i

n th

e N

GO w

ho co

ntro

l m

ost f

unct

ions

.

Man

agem

ent s

tyle

is d

irect

ive

and

staf

f mem

bers

or v

olun

teer

s pr

imar

ily p

rovi

de te

chni

cal i

nput

.

Man

agem

ent d

oes n

ot a

rtic

ulat

e th

e N

GO’s

purp

ose

to st

aff c

lear

ly.

The

boar

d an

d se

nior

man

age-

men

t lac

k a

clea

r und

erst

andi

ng

of th

eir r

espe

ctiv

e ro

les.

Mem

bers

of l

eade

rshi

p la

ck u

n-de

rsta

ndin

g of

thei

r res

pons

ibili

ty

to st

akeh

olde

rs.

Mos

t dec

ision

s are

mad

e by

th

e bo

ard,

som

etim

es w

ith

inpu

t fro

m o

ne o

r tw

o st

aff

mem

bers

.St

aff h

as li

ttle

und

erst

andi

ng

of h

ow m

anag

emen

t mak

es

deci

sions

.Le

ader

ship

is st

ill se

en p

rima-

rily a

s dire

ctiv

e an

d co

ntro

l-lin

g, ra

ther

than

ena

blin

g se

lf-di

rect

ion

to e

mpl

oyee

s an

d m

onito

ring

thei

r per

for-

man

ce.

Mem

bers

of l

eade

rshi

p ar

e aw

are

of st

akeh

olde

rs b

ut d

o no

t mak

e th

emse

lves

ava

i-la

ble.

Seni

or m

anag

emen

t’s re

la-

tions

hip

to st

aff i

s mor

e co

n-su

ltativ

e an

d m

anag

emen

t de

cisio

ns a

re d

eleg

ated

.

Staf

f inc

reas

ingl

y und

erst

and

deci

sion-

mak

ing

but a

re n

ot

syst

emat

ical

ly in

volv

ed in

it.

Mem

bers

of l

eade

rshi

p un

ders

tand

that

one

of t

heir

prim

ary r

oles

is to

pro

vide

ov

eral

l dire

ctio

n an

d m

oni-

tor p

erfo

rman

ce b

ut a

re st

ill

conc

erne

d w

ith co

ntro

l.

Mor

e ef

fort

is m

ade

by

lead

ersh

ip to

cont

act a

nd

invo

lve

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

boar

d an

d se

nior

man

age-

men

t hav

e a

clea

r und

erst

an-

ding

of t

heir

role

s and

resp

on-

sibili

ties a

s pro

vide

rs o

f ove

rall

dire

ctio

n.

The

lead

ersh

ip st

yle

of se

nior

m

anag

emen

t is p

artic

ipat

ory.

Seni

or m

anag

emen

t is r

espo

n-sib

le to

all

stak

ehol

ders

.

Mem

bers

of l

eade

rshi

p ar

e ac

cess

ible

to a

ll st

akeh

olde

rs.

�0

MAN

AGEM

ENT

PRAC

TICE

SO

rgan

i-sa

tiona

l st

ruct

ure

and

cultu

re

The

NGO

has

no

clea

rly d

efine

d or

gani

satio

nal s

truc

ture

, and

line

s of

aut

horit

y and

resp

onsib

ility

are

no

t cle

arly

defi

ned.

The

NGO

has

no

man

agem

ent

polic

ies.

The

NGO

has

no

syst

ems t

o m

e-as

ure

cong

ruen

ce b

etw

een

stat

ed

miss

ion

and

oper

atio

nal c

ultu

re.

The

NGO

has

no

syst

em to

ens

ure

appr

opria

te in

volv

emen

t of s

taff

in

dec

ision

-mak

ing.

The

NGO

has

no

oper

atio

nal

syst

ems t

o en

sure

mut

ual a

ccou

n-ta

bilit

y.

The

NGO

has

a d

efine

d or

ga-

nisa

tiona

l str

uctu

re b

ut li

nes

of a

utho

rity r

emai

n un

clea

r an

d au

thor

ity te

nds t

o be

ex

erci

sed

by a

n in

divi

dual

or a

fe

w in

divi

dual

s.

The

NGO

has

dev

elop

ed sy

s-te

ms a

nd p

olic

ies b

ut th

ey a

re

not i

mpl

emen

ted,

regu

larly

fo

llow

ed o

r rev

iew

ed.

The

NGO

has

a d

efine

d or

gani

satio

nal s

truc

ture

with

cl

ear l

ines

of a

utho

rity a

nd

resp

onsib

ility

.Th

e N

GO’s

adm

inist

ratio

n pl

aces

em

phas

is on

the

area

s of

resp

onsib

ility

but

doe

s not

co

nfer

the

nece

ssar

y aut

ho-

rity o

n in

divi

dual

s to

perm

it th

em to

ope

rate

eff

ectiv

ely.

The

NGO

is n

ot e

ffec

tivel

y in

corp

orat

ing

the

orga

nisa

-tio

nal s

truc

ture

into

ass

igne

d ta

sks o

r usin

g it

to a

sses

s or

gani

satio

nal d

evel

opm

ent

or e

nsur

e ac

coun

tabi

lity.

Man

agem

ent p

olic

ies e

nsur

e re

gula

r aud

its o

f org

anisa

tio-

nal d

evel

opm

ent.

The

NGO

has

a d

efine

d or

ga-

nisa

tiona

l str

uctu

re w

ith cl

ear

lines

of a

utho

rity a

nd re

spon

-sib

ility

.

Man

agem

ent p

olic

ies t

o en

sure

re

gula

r aud

its o

f org

anisa

tiona

l de

velo

pmen

t are

in p

lace

.

Syst

ems a

re in

pla

ce to

re-

gula

rly m

easu

re co

ngru

ence

be

twee

n st

ated

miss

ion

and

oper

atin

g cu

lture

.

Syst

ems a

re in

pla

ce to

ens

ure

appr

opria

te in

volv

emen

t of a

ll le

vels

of st

aff i

n de

cisio

n-m

a-ki

ng.

The

NGO

has

ope

ratio

nal s

ys-

tem

s to

ensu

re m

utua

l acc

oun-

tabi

lity.

Plan

ning

The

NGO

carr

ies o

ut so

me

plan

-ni

ng b

ut w

ith li

ttle

or n

o in

put

from

staf

f and

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

NGO

mak

es d

ecisi

ons a

nd

plan

s act

iviti

es w

ithou

t ref

eren

ce

to th

e ag

reed

stra

tegi

es to

ach

ieve

th

e m

issio

n.

Ther

e is

little

ass

essm

ent o

f the

re

sour

ces r

equi

red

to u

nder

take

ac

tiviti

es.

Plan

s, on

ce im

plem

ente

d, a

re n

eit-

her r

evie

wed

nor

mod

ified

.

Reso

urce

s are

not

pla

nned

for o

r al

loca

ted

prop

erly

.

Annu

al o

pera

ting

plan

s are

de

velo

ped

and

revi

ewed

pri-

mar

ily b

y sen

ior s

taff

with

out

refe

renc

e to

the

prev

ious

ye

ar’s

plan

ning

, ana

lysis

of

reso

urce

ava

ilabi

lity o

r oth

er

fact

ors w

hich

coul

d af

fect

im

plem

enta

tion.

Annu

al p

lans

are

dev

elop

ed

with

lim

ited

inpu

t fro

m st

ake-

hold

ers o

r sta

ff.

Mon

itorin

g is

not t

akin

g pl

ace

and

plan

s, on

ce im

plem

ente

d,

are

not b

eing

revi

sed.

Plan

ning

cont

inue

s to

be

shor

t-te

rm a

nd is

bas

ed o

n av

aila

ble

reso

urce

s.

Stra

tegi

c and

shor

t-te

rm

plan

ning

is co

nduc

ted

prim

a-ril

y by s

enio

r man

agem

ent.

Staf

f and

stak

ehol

ders

may

ha

ve so

me

inpu

t in

the

plan

-ni

ng b

ut th

ey a

re n

ot in

vol-

ved

in d

ecisi

on-m

akin

g.

Ther

e ar

e oc

casio

nal r

evie

ws

and

revi

sions

of i

mpl

emen

ta-

tion

plan

s.

Som

e at

tem

pt is

bei

ng m

ade

to id

entif

y and

allo

cate

add

i-tio

nal r

esou

rces

.

Inpu

ts fr

om a

ppro

pria

te st

ake-

hold

ers a

re ta

ken

into

acc

ount

du

ring

plan

ning

.

Impl

emen

tatio

n pl

ans r

eflec

t a

stra

tegi

c pla

n.

Impl

emen

tatio

n pl

ans a

re

upda

ted.

Reso

urce

s are

pla

nned

for a

nd

allo

cate

d pr

oper

ly.

Flex

ibili

ty e

xist

s to

adju

st p

lans

as

a re

sult

of th

e m

onito

ring

proc

ess.

�1

Nas

cent

org

anisa

tions

Emer

ging

org

anisa

tions

Expa

ndin

g or

gani

satio

nsM

atur

e or

gani

satio

nsPe

rson

nel

Ther

e ar

e no

form

al p

erso

nnel

pr

oced

ures

to a

dmin

ister

sala

ries

and

bene

fits o

r to

reco

rd p

erso

n-ne

l dat

a.

Form

al e

mpl

oym

ent p

roce

dure

s do

not

exi

st.

Recr

uitm

ent p

roce

sses

are

not

de-

fined

, tra

nspa

rent

or c

ompe

titiv

e.

Man

agem

ent d

oes n

ot a

ctiv

ely

enco

urag

e m

utua

l res

pect

am

ong

staf

f.

Reco

urse

pro

cedu

res d

o no

t exi

st.

Basic

per

sonn

el a

dmin

istra

ti-on

syst

ems e

xist

but

info

r-m

al e

mpl

oym

ent p

ract

ices

co

ntin

ue.

Posit

ions

are

not

adv

ertis

ed

exte

rnal

ly a

nd th

ere

are

no

com

mon

pro

cedu

res f

or

dete

rmin

ing

qual

ifica

tions

fo

r em

ploy

men

t, re

crui

tmen

t, hi

ring

and

term

inat

ion.

Reco

urse

pro

cedu

res a

nd

mut

ual r

espe

ct h

ave

not y

et

been

inte

grat

ed in

to th

e or

ga-

nisa

tiona

l cul

ture

.

The

stra

tegi

c val

ue o

f hum

an

reso

urce

s and

the

need

to

inte

grat

e pe

rson

nel p

ract

ices

in

to th

e st

rate

gic p

lann

ing

proc

ess a

re n

ot fu

lly u

nder

-st

ood.

All n

eces

sary

per

sonn

el

syst

ems a

re fo

rmal

ised

and

impl

emen

ted

alth

ough

in-

form

al m

echa

nism

s are

use

d oc

casio

nally

.

Reco

urse

pro

cedu

res a

nd

mut

ual r

espe

ct h

ave

been

in

tegr

ated

into

the

orga

nisa

-tio

nal c

ultu

re.

Sele

ctio

n cr

iteria

for s

taff

are

in

plac

e.

The

recr

uitm

ent p

roce

ss is

cl

early

defi

ned.

Recr

uitm

ent p

roce

sses

are

tran

-sp

aren

t and

com

petit

ive.

Job

desc

riptio

ns a

re cl

early

de

fined

.

Staf

f is d

eplo

yed

acco

rdin

g to

jo

b de

scrip

tions

.

Man

agem

ent e

ncou

rage

s mu-

tual

resp

ect a

mon

g st

aff.

Staf

f are

aw

are

that

reco

urse

pr

oced

ures

for s

taff

exi

st.

Prog

ram

me

deve

lopm

ent

Prog

ram

me

deve

lopm

ent i

s lar

ge-

ly fu

nder

or s

taff

-driv

en, w

ith li

ttle

in

put f

rom

stak

ehol

ders

, and

is

man

aged

on

a pr

ojec

t-by

-pro

ject

ba

sis.

Prog

ram

me

desig

n, im

plem

enta

-tio

n, m

onito

ring

and

eval

uatio

n,

if do

ne, a

re ca

rrie

d ou

t bas

ed o

n fu

nder

requ

irem

ents

.

Oft

en th

e fu

nder

’s sy

stem

is n

ot

unde

rsto

od w

ell a

nd is

poo

rly

impl

emen

ted

and

badl

y man

aged

.

Mon

itorin

g, e

valu

atio

n an

d re

por-

ting

activ

ities

are

not

incl

uded

in

prog

ram

me

desig

n.

Indi

vidu

al p

roje

cts a

re d

evel

o-pe

d w

ithin

an

over

all p

ro-

gram

mat

ic fr

amew

ork.

Occ

asio

nal e

valu

atio

ns

cond

ucte

d at

the

requ

est o

f fu

nder

s are

und

erta

ken

by

outs

ider

s.

Stak

ehol

ders

are

invo

lved

on

ly a

s pro

gram

me

reci

pien

ts.

No

com

preh

ensiv

e sy

stem

ex

ists f

or d

eter

min

ing

the

purp

ose

and

obje

ctiv

es o

f pr

ogra

mm

es/p

roje

cts o

r for

m

onito

ring

and

eval

uatio

n.

A co

mpr

ehen

sive

syst

em

exist

s for

pro

gram

me

deve

-lo

pmen

t and

impl

emen

ta-

tion.

This

syst

em is

som

etim

es o

ne

impo

sed

by a

fund

er o

r may

ha

ve b

een

deve

lope

d by

the

NGO

itse

lf.

Eith

er sy

stem

can

prov

ide

the

info

rmat

ion

requ

ired

by th

e fu

nder

and

allo

ws f

or m

oni-

torin

g an

d ev

alua

tion

to b

e ca

rrie

d ou

t by t

he st

aff.

Stak

ehol

ders

are

cons

ulte

d on

pro

gram

me

desig

n an

d in

volv

ed in

impl

emen

tatio

n an

d ev

alua

tion.

Stak

ehol

ders

and

staf

f are

in

volv

ed in

pro

gram

me

desig

n,

impl

emen

tatio

n, m

onito

ring,

an

d ev

alua

tion.

Prog

ram

me

desig

n in

corp

ora-

tes m

onito

ring,

eva

luat

ion,

and

re

port

ing

activ

ities

.

Prog

ram

me

mod

ifica

tions

ref-

lect

mon

itorin

g, e

valu

atio

n, a

nd

repo

rtin

g fin

ding

s.

��

Adm

in-

istra

tive

pr

oced

ures

No

adm

inist

rativ

e pr

oced

ures

or

man

uals

exist

.

Adm

inist

rativ

e pr

oced

ures

are

in

form

al a

nd N

GO st

aff l

ack

a co

mm

on u

nder

stan

ding

of t

hem

.

Adm

inist

rativ

e pr

oced

ures

are

in

crea

singl

y for

mal

ised.

Adm

inist

rativ

e pr

oced

ures

are

no

t bei

ng fu

lly u

tilise

d.

No

adm

inist

rativ

e pr

oced

ures

or

man

uals

exist

.

Adm

inist

rativ

e sy

stem

s are

fo

rmal

ised

and

func

tioni

ng.

Adm

inist

rativ

e pr

oced

ures

an

d m

anua

ls ex

ist b

ut a

re

not r

efer

red

to re

gula

rly.

Adm

inist

rativ

e pr

oced

ures

and

m

anua

ls ex

ist.

Adm

inist

rativ

e pr

oced

ures

are

ad

here

d to

.

Proc

edur

es a

nd o

pera

ting

ma-

nual

s are

upd

ated

regu

larly

.Ri

sk

man

agem

ent

No

syst

ems e

xist

to p

rote

ct th

e N

GO a

gain

st o

rgan

isatio

nal

abus

es.

Audi

ts a

nd st

ock-

taki

ng, if

con-

duct

ed, a

re ir

regu

lar.

No

exte

rnal

aud

its a

re ca

rrie

d ou

t.

Syst

ems a

re in

pla

ce to

pro

-te

ct a

gain

st o

rgan

isatio

nal

abus

es b

ut h

ave

not b

een

impl

emen

ted.

Audi

ts a

nd st

ock-

taki

ng co

nti-

nue

to b

e sp

orad

ic.

Exte

rnal

aud

its ca

rrie

d ou

t at

fund

ers’

requ

est.

Syst

ems a

re in

pla

ce b

ut

cont

inue

to b

e us

ed o

n an

irr

egul

ar b

asis.

Audi

ts a

nd st

ock-

taki

ng a

re

now

inte

grat

ed in

to p

lan-

ning

.

Exte

rnal

aud

its a

re ca

rrie

d ou

t ann

ually

.

Syst

ems a

re in

pla

ce to

min

imi-

se o

rgan

isatio

nal a

buse

s.

Regu

lar a

udits

of i

nven

tory

are

co

nduc

ted.

Annu

al e

xter

nal a

udit

repo

rts

incl

ude

a re

view

of m

anag

e-m

ent p

ract

ices

.

Reco

mm

enda

tions

on

man

a-ge

men

t pra

ctic

es in

ann

ual

exte

rnal

aud

it re

port

s are

im

plem

ente

d.In

form

atio

n sy

stem

sN

o sy

stem

exi

sts w

ithin

the

NGO

to

colle

ct, a

naly

se o

r diss

emin

ate

data

.

Info

rmat

ion

is co

llect

ed ra

ndom

ly

and

man

ually

.

Info

rmat

ion

is no

t sha

red

amon

g st

akeh

olde

rs.

Data

util

isatio

n po

tent

ial i

s no

t und

erst

ood.

A ru

dim

enta

ry e

lect

roni

c in

form

atio

n sy

stem

is in

pla

ce

but i

s not

acc

essib

le to

all

staf

f.

Com

pute

rs a

re u

sed

prim

a-ril

y for

wor

d-pr

oces

sing

and

book

keep

ing.

An in

form

atio

n sy

stem

is

oper

atio

nal a

nd m

ost s

taff

ha

ve a

cces

s to

it.

The

info

rmat

ion

syst

em is

st

ill p

rimar

ily u

sed

for w

ord-

proc

essin

g an

d bo

okke

epin

g bu

t ind

ivid

ual s

taff

und

er-

stan

ds a

nd u

se d

ata

on a

n ad

ho

c bas

is.

Ther

e is

no m

echa

nism

for

inte

grat

ing

info

rmat

ion

from

th

e sy

stem

into

the

NGO

’s pl

anni

ng p

roce

ss.

Ther

e is

no m

echa

nism

to

diss

emin

ate

or so

licit

feed

-ba

ck.

Syst

ems e

xist

to co

llect

, ana

ly-

se, a

nd re

port

dat

a an

d in

for-

mat

ion.

Trai

ned

pers

onne

l are

in p

lace

to

man

age

info

rmat

ion

sys-

tem

s.

Syst

ems a

re u

sed

to p

roce

ss,

diss

emin

ate,

and

solic

it fe

ed-

back

of i

nfor

mat

ion.

��

Nas

cent

org

anisa

tions

Emer

ging

org

anisa

tions

Expa

ndin

g or

gani

satio

nsM

atur

e or

gani

satio

nsPr

ogra

mm

e re

port

ing

The

NGO

doe

s not

repo

rt o

n th

e re

sults

of a

ctiv

ities

or e

valu

atio

ns

to st

akeh

olde

rs.

The

NGO

is n

ot sh

arin

g in

form

ati-

on b

ased

on

less

ons l

earn

ed fr

om

activ

ities

and

eva

luat

ions

.

The

NGO

doe

s not

hav

e th

e ab

ility

to

pre

pare

regu

lar a

ctiv

ity o

r eva

-lu

atio

n re

port

s.

The

NGO

pro

vide

s inf

orm

a-tio

n on

act

iviti

es a

nd e

valu

a-tio

ns o

nly w

hen

requ

este

d or

re

quire

d by

a fu

nder

.

The

NGO

shar

es in

form

atio

n on

act

iviti

es o

nly a

s req

uire

d.

Repo

rt fo

rmat

s refl

ect f

unde

r ne

eds.

The

NGO

doe

s not

yet h

ave

an e

ffec

tive

syst

em th

roug

h w

hich

to sh

are

info

rmat

ion

on le

sson

s lea

rned

from

its

expe

rienc

e.

The

NGO

occ

asio

nally

pub

lis-

hes t

he re

sults

of i

ts a

ctiv

ities

an

d ev

alua

tions

but

it d

oes

not h

ave

a st

rate

gy fo

r diss

e-m

inat

ion.

The

NGO

has

dev

elop

ed

som

e fle

xibl

e re

port

form

ats

to re

flect

the

need

s of d

iffe-

rent

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

NGO

has

the

abili

ty to

pro

-du

ce a

ppro

pria

te re

port

s.

The

NGO

regu

larly

pre

pare

s ac

tivity

repo

rts.

The

NGO

regu

larly

pre

pare

s ev

alua

tion

repo

rts.

The

NGO

pub

lishe

s and

dis-

sem

inat

es in

form

atio

n on

its

oper

atio

ns.

Repo

rtin

g fo

rmat

s are

flex

ible

, va

ried

and

resp

ond

to st

akeh

ol-

der i

nfor

mat

ion

requ

irem

ents

.

HU

MAN

RES

OU

RCES

Hum

an

reso

urce

s de

velo

pmen

t

The

NGO

doe

s not

cond

uct

syst

emat

ic a

ppra

isals

of st

aff

perf

orm

ance

on

whi

ch to

pla

n fo

r ch

ange

s or i

mpr

ovem

ents

.

The

NGO

is u

nabl

e to

pla

n fo

r ch

ange

to im

prov

e th

e pe

rfor

man

-ce

of i

ndiv

idua

ls th

roug

h be

tter

w

ork

plan

ning

, tra

inin

g, d

evel

op-

men

t and

pro

mot

ion.

Ther

e is

little

or n

o un

ders

tand

ing

of th

e re

latio

nshi

p be

twee

n st

aff

perf

orm

ance

and

the

achi

eve-

men

t of N

GO o

bjec

tives

.

Ther

e is

a go

od m

atch

bet

-w

een

staf

f res

pons

ibili

ties

and

skill

requ

irem

ents

.

A st

aff a

ppra

isal s

yste

m m

ay

exist

but

it is

not

nec

essa

rily

base

d on

job

perf

orm

ance

.

The

NGO

has

iden

tified

re

sour

ces w

ith w

hich

to co

n-du

ct a

d ho

c tra

inin

g of

staf

f.

Pers

onne

l pol

icie

s are

not

de

fined

.

The

NGO

has

a p

erfo

rman

-ce

-bas

ed a

ppra

isal s

yste

m

in p

lace

, but

it is

not

alw

ays

appl

ied

or e

quita

ble.

Staf

f are

som

etim

es a

ssig

ned

and

prom

oted

acc

ordi

ng to

th

eir j

ob p

erfo

rman

ce.

Staf

f dev

elop

men

t nee

ds a

re

asse

ssed

and

use

d to

dev

elop

tr

aini

ng p

lans

.

A hu

man

reso

urce

s dev

elop

-m

ent p

lan

is in

pla

ce.

Staf

f tra

inin

g is

base

d on

capa

-ci

ty, n

eeds

and

obj

ectiv

es.

Opp

ortu

nitie

s exi

st to

inte

grat

e sk

ills a

cqui

red

in tr

aini

ng in

to

the

wor

k en

viro

nmen

t.

Job

appr

aisa

ls an

d pr

omot

ions

ar

e pe

rfor

man

ce-b

ased

and

eq

uita

ble.

��

Hum

an

reso

urce

s m

anag

emen

t

The

NGO

has

no

part

icul

ar p

roce

ss

to d

eter

min

e th

e re

latio

nshi

p be

t-w

een

hum

an re

sour

ce n

eeds

and

pr

ogra

mm

e ob

ject

ives

.Th

e ro

les a

nd jo

b re

spon

sibili

ties

of e

xist

ing

staf

f are

unc

lear

and

ch

ange

able

.Th

e lim

ited

staf

f are

exp

ecte

d to

ca

rry o

ut re

spon

sibili

ties b

eyon

d th

eir e

xper

tise

and

som

e es

sent

ial

task

s are

not

don

e by

any

one.

Job

desc

riptio

ns a

nd w

ork

resp

on-

sibili

ties a

re n

ot d

ocum

ente

d.Jo

b pe

rfor

man

ce is

not

ass

esse

d an

d th

ere

is no

pla

n to

impr

ove

staf

f per

form

ance

.Th

e re

latio

nshi

p be

twee

n st

aff

perf

orm

ance

and

the

achi

eve-

men

t of N

GO p

rogr

amm

e ob

ject

i-ve

s is n

ot u

nder

stoo

d.Sa

larie

s are

not

com

petit

ive

and

bene

fits d

o no

t exi

st.

Stan

dard

tax

and

labo

ur re

gula

-tio

ns a

re n

ot b

eing

resp

ecte

d.N

o m

echa

nism

s exi

st fo

r grie

van-

ce o

r con

flict

reso

lutio

n.

The

NGO

has

no

proc

ess t

o an

alys

e or

to id

entif

y wor

k re

-qu

irem

ents

and

job

func

tions

.Th

ere

is th

e be

ginn

ing

of a

lin

k be

twee

n se

nior

staf

f res

-po

nsib

ilitie

s and

exp

ertis

e bu

t so

me

gaps

cont

inue

to e

xist

in

skill

requ

irem

ents

.Jo

b de

scrip

tions

do

exist

, ba

sed

on a

supe

rviso

r’s id

ea

of th

e w

ork

to b

e ac

com

plis-

hed.

A jo

b pe

rfor

man

ce sy

stem

m

ay e

xist

but

it is

not

nec

es-

saril

y bas

ed o

n pe

rfor

man

ce

as d

efine

d in

a jo

b de

scrip

tion.

The

NGO

has

iden

tified

som

e re

sour

ces f

or a

d ho

c tra

inin

g of

staf

f.So

me

bene

fits e

xist

but

sala

-rie

s are

not

com

petit

ive.

The

NGO

resp

ects

som

e ex

is-tin

g ta

x an

d la

bour

regu

la-

tions

.Pr

oced

ures

for g

rieva

nce

or

confl

ict r

esol

utio

n ar

e in

pla

ce

but n

ot u

tilise

d.

Jobs

are

wel

l-defi

ned

and

do-

cum

ente

d in

job

desc

riptio

ns

and

wor

k as

signm

ents

.Al

l cor

e sk

ills r

equi

red

to

perf

orm

job

func

tions

exi

st

with

in th

e N

GO.

A pe

rfor

man

ce-b

ased

ap

prai

sal s

yste

m is

in p

lace

an

d st

aff a

re a

ssig

ned

and

prom

oted

acc

ordi

ng to

per

-fo

rman

ce.

Som

e hu

man

reso

urce

pla

n-ni

ng d

oes t

ake

plac

e bu

t is

still

not

inte

grat

ed w

ith jo

b pe

rfor

man

ce o

r the

stra

tegi

c pl

anni

ng p

roce

ss.

A tr

aini

ng p

lan

exist

s and

is

base

d on

an

asse

ssm

ent o

f st

aff d

evel

opm

ent n

eeds

.Sa

larie

s and

ben

efits

are

st

ruct

ured

but

not

fully

com

-pe

titiv

e.Ta

x an

d la

bour

regu

latio

ns

and

requ

irem

ents

are

gen

e-ra

lly re

spec

ted.

Grie

vanc

e an

d co

nflic

t pr

oced

ures

are

rand

omly

fo

llow

ed.

Job

desc

riptio

ns a

re d

ocu-

men

ted

and

upda

ted.

Job

desc

riptio

ns a

re re

spec

ted.

Clea

rly e

stab

lishe

d lin

ks e

xist

be

twee

n st

aff c

apac

ity a

nd th

e N

GO m

issio

n.Sa

larie

s are

clea

rly st

ruct

ured

an

d co

mpe

titiv

e.Th

e be

nefit

s pol

icy i

s doc

u-m

ente

d an

d im

plem

ente

d.Th

e N

GO co

nfor

ms t

o st

anda

rd

tax

and

labo

ur re

gula

tions

and

re

quire

men

ts.

Supe

rvisi

on o

ccur

s on

a re

gula

r ba

sis.

Grie

vanc

e an

d co

nflic

t res

olu-

tion

proc

edur

es a

re u

sed

whe

n ne

cess

ary.

A he

alth

and

safe

ty p

olic

y is i

n pl

ace

Dive

rsity

The

staf

f and

boa

rd d

o no

t rep

re-

sent

the

dive

rsity

of t

he co

mm

uni-

ty o

r the

inte

rest

s of s

take

hold

ers.

No

polic

y exi

sts b

ut a

mon

g so

me

leve

ls of

the

NGO

ther

e is

som

e aw

aren

ess o

f and

in

tere

st in

the

valu

e an

d ne

ed fo

r rep

rese

ntat

ion

from

th

e va

rious

mem

bers

of t

he

com

mun

ity.

Polic

ies e

xist

to d

iver

sify t

he

boar

d an

d st

aff b

ut th

eir

com

posit

ion

does

not

yet

fully

refle

ct th

at o

f the

com

-m

unity

.

The

dive

rsity

of t

he co

mm

unity

is

refle

cted

in th

e co

mpo

sitio

n of

the

boar

d an

d st

aff.

��

Nas

cent

org

anisa

tions

Emer

ging

org

anisa

tions

Expa

ndin

g or

gani

satio

nsM

atur

e or

gani

satio

nsW

ork

orga

nisa

tion

Ther

e is

little

und

erst

andi

ng o

f th

e ne

ed to

org

anise

wor

k be

yond

iss

uing

dire

ctiv

es.

No

mec

hani

sms a

re in

pla

ce to

co

ordi

nate

wor

k ac

tiviti

es o

f diff

e-re

nt st

aff.

Ther

e is

little

und

erst

andi

ng o

f w

hat i

t mea

ns to

wor

k as

a te

am.

Mee

tings

are

irre

gula

r, do

not

ha

ve a

pre

-det

erm

ined

pur

pose

an

d ag

enda

, are

dom

inat

ed b

y in-

tere

sts o

f a fe

w, a

nd d

o no

t rea

ch

conc

rete

conc

lusio

ns.

Staf

f pro

vide

tech

nica

l inp

ut o

nly

and

are

not i

nvol

ved

in o

r inf

or-

med

of d

ecisi

ons.

No

form

ally

reco

gnise

d lin

es o

r m

echa

nism

s exi

st fo

r int

ra-N

GO

com

mun

icat

ion.

Wor

k is

orga

nise

d by

supe

r-vi

sors

.

Little

att

entio

n is

paid

to w

ork

flow

or t

o co

nsci

ously

org

ani-

sing

wor

k be

yond

wor

k pl

ans.

Indi

vidu

al, u

nit o

r pro

ject

w

ork

plan

s are

dev

elop

ed b

ut

thes

e pl

ans a

re n

ot co

coor

di-

nate

d ac

ross

func

tions

.

Regu

lar m

eetin

gs o

f sta

ff

are

cond

ucte

d ac

cord

ing

to

know

n pr

oced

ures

.

Sele

cted

staf

f are

cons

ulte

d on

som

e de

cisio

ns.

Intr

a-N

GO co

mm

unic

atio

n is

cond

ucte

d on

an

info

rmal

ba

sis.

Cons

ciou

snes

s is d

evel

opin

g on

the

part

of s

taff

and

man

a-ge

men

t tha

t com

mun

icat

ion

brea

kdow

ns a

nd o

verla

ps

occu

r.

A to

p-do

wn

men

talit

y con

ti-nu

es to

dom

inat

e an

d se

nior

m

anag

emen

t mak

e m

ost

maj

or d

ecisi

ons.

A va

riety

of w

ork

met

hods

ar

e ut

ilise

d.

Staf

f are

reco

gnise

d as

bei

ng

able

to m

ake

usef

ul su

gges

-tio

ns a

bout

how

thei

r ow

n w

ork

shou

ld b

e or

gani

sed.

Team

wor

k is

enco

urag

ed

and

wor

k pl

ans a

re sh

ared

ac

ross

uni

ts a

nd w

ork

sites

.

Com

mun

icat

ion

is op

en a

nd

inte

r-hie

rarc

hica

l and

link

s or

gani

satio

nal u

nit/

proj

ect

stru

ctur

es.

Staf

f kno

w h

ow to

par

ticip

a-te

in m

eetin

gs a

nd a

re a

war

e of

how

dec

ision

s are

mad

e.

Staf

f mee

tings

are

hel

d re

gu-

larly

.

Staf

f par

ticip

ate

in m

anag

e-m

ent d

ecisi

ons.

Team

wor

k is

enco

urag

ed.

Info

rmat

ion

is sh

ared

free

ly

amon

g al

l sta

ff m

embe

rs.

Staf

f tea

ms a

re e

ncou

rage

d to

ta

ke in

itiat

ive

and

be se

lf-m

o-tiv

ated

.

FIN

ANCI

AL R

ESO

URC

ESAc

coun

ting

The

NGO

’s fin

anci

al p

roce

dure

s ar

e in

com

plet

e.

The

NGO

’s ac

coun

ts a

re n

ot ye

t se

t up

for i

ndiv

idua

l pro

ject

s, an

d op

erat

ing

fund

s are

not

sepa

ra-

ted.

Basic

fina

ncia

l rec

ordi

ng sy

s-te

ms a

re in

pla

ce.

Acco

unt c

ateg

orie

s exi

st a

nd

proj

ect f

unds

are

sepa

rate

d bu

t som

e cr

oss-

proj

ect f

un-

ding

take

s pla

ce.

Mos

t of t

he N

GO’s

fund

s are

se

para

ted

and

it ge

nera

lly

trie

s to

avoi

d cr

oss-

pro

ject

fu

ndin

g.

Fina

ncia

l pro

cedu

res a

nd re

-po

rtin

g sy

stem

s are

in p

lace

an

d fu

nctio

n pa

rtia

lly.

Fina

ncia

l pro

cedu

res a

nd

repo

rtin

g sy

stem

s are

in p

lace

an

d fu

nctio

n fu

lly.

Acco

unt c

ateg

orie

s exi

st fo

r se

para

ting

proj

ect f

unds

.

��

Budg

etin

gBu

dget

s are

inad

equa

te a

nd if

th

ey d

o ex

ist a

re p

rodu

ced

due

to

fund

er re

quire

men

ts.

The

use

of b

udge

ts a

s a m

anag

e-m

ent t

ool i

s not

und

erst

ood

and

the

relia

bilit

y of p

roje

ctio

ns is

qu

estio

nabl

e.

The

NGO

has

no

budg

et co

ntro

ls in

pla

ce.

The

NGO

has

no

finan

cial

uni

t to

prep

are

and

man

age

budg

ets.

Budg

ets a

re d

evel

oped

for

proj

ect a

ctiv

ities

but

are

oft

en

over

- or u

nder

-spe

nt.

The

exec

utiv

e di

rect

or o

r ac

coun

tant

is th

e on

ly st

aff

mem

ber w

ho k

now

s and

un

ders

tand

s bud

get i

nfor

ma-

tion.

Budg

et co

ntro

ls ar

e no

t in

plac

e.

Tota

l exp

endi

ture

s oft

en

dive

rge

from

bud

get p

roje

c-tio

ns.

Depa

rtm

ent a

nd o

rgan

isatio

-na

l uni

t hea

ds a

re co

nsul

ted

by fi

nanc

ial m

anag

er(s

) ab

out b

udge

t pla

nnin

g an

d ex

pend

iture

s.

The

budg

et re

flect

s pro

gram

-m

e pl

ans.

The

budg

et is

cont

rolle

d on

an

ong

oing

bas

is.

The

budg

etin

g pr

oces

s is i

nteg

-ra

ted

into

ann

ual i

mpl

emen

ta-

tion

plan

s.

A fin

anci

al u

nit r

espo

nsib

le fo

r th

e pr

epar

atio

n, m

anag

emen

t an

d im

plem

enta

tion

of th

e an

nual

bud

get e

xist

s.

Annu

al fi

nanc

ial p

roje

ctio

ns a

re

mad

e.

The

annu

al b

udge

t is i

mpl

e-m

ente

d.

The

budg

et is

cont

rolle

d on

an

ongo

ing

basis

.St

ock

cont

rols/

au

dit

The

NGO

has

no

clea

r pro

cedu

res

for h

andl

ing

paya

bles

and

rece

i-va

bles

, and

pro

cure

men

t or s

tock

co

ntro

ls do

not

exi

st.

No

audi

ts o

r ext

erna

l fina

ncia

l re

view

s are

per

form

ed.

The

NGO

has

est

ablis

hed

finan

cial

cont

rols

but h

as n

ot

yet i

mpl

emen

ted

proc

edur

es.

Inde

pend

ent a

udits

or e

xter

-na

l fina

ncia

l rev

iew

s are

rare

-ly

per

form

ed a

nd th

en o

nly a

t th

e re

ques

t of a

fund

er.

Stoc

k co

ntro

ls ha

ve n

ot b

een

esta

blish

ed n

or im

plem

ente

d.

The

NGO

has

ade

quat

e fin

anci

al a

nd st

ock

cont

rol

syst

ems.

Inde

pend

ent a

udits

or e

x-te

rnal

fina

ncia

l rev

iew

s are

pe

rfor

med

per

iodi

cally

at

fund

er’s

requ

est.

Inte

rnal

aud

its a

re co

nduc

ted

on a

n ad

hoc

bas

is.

Stoc

k co

ntro

l sys

tem

s exi

st.

Stoc

k co

ntro

ls ar

e fo

llow

ed.

Proc

urem

ent s

yste

ms a

re in

pl

ace.

Proc

urem

ent s

yste

ms a

re u

sed.

Inte

rnal

aud

its a

re co

nduc

ted

on a

regu

lar b

asis.

Exte

rnal

aud

its a

re co

nduc

ted

on a

regu

lar b

asis.

Expe

nses

are

cont

rolle

d by

pr

ojec

t allo

catio

ns.

Fina

ncia

l re

port

ing

The

NGO

has

no

syst

em fo

r rep

or-

ting

on it

s fina

ncia

l sta

tus.

If fin

anci

al re

port

s are

pro

duce

d,

they

are

don

or-d

riven

.Fi

nanc

ial r

epor

ts a

re in

accu

ra-

te, in

com

plet

e an

d di

fficu

lt to

un

ders

tand

and

not

pro

duce

d in

a

timel

y fas

hion

.If

finan

cial

repo

rts e

xist

, the

y are

no

t use

d fo

r pla

nnin

g or

revi

ew

purp

oses

.

The

NGO

has

a sy

stem

in p

la-

ce to

pro

duce

fina

ncia

l rep

orts

bu

t the

se a

re st

ill p

rodu

ced

in

resp

onse

to fu

nder

dem

and.

Fina

ncia

l rep

orts

are

not

tim

e-ly

or c

ompl

ete

enou

gh to

be

used

in lo

ng-t

erm

pla

nnin

g.

Fina

ncia

l rep

orts

are

not

re

view

ed b

y the

fisc

al co

m-

mitt

ee o

f the

boa

rd.

The

NGO

occ

asio

nally

pro

du-

ces a

ccur

ate

and

com

plet

e fin

anci

al re

port

s whi

ch it

m

akes

ava

ilabl

e to

the

boar

d an

d m

anag

emen

t.

The

NGO

use

s fina

ncia

l re

port

s, w

hen

avai

labl

e, in

lo

ng-t

erm

pla

nnin

g.

Annu

al fi

nanc

ial r

epor

ts a

re

prep

ared

by e

xter

nal a

udito

rs

and

diss

emin

ated

.

Annu

al fi

nanc

ial r

epor

ts a

re

prep

ared

by a

regi

ster

ed fi

rm

of a

udito

rs a

nd p

ublis

hed

and

diss

emin

ated

.

Repo

rts i

nclu

de b

alan

ce sh

eet

and

atta

chm

ents

.

Repo

rts a

re re

view

ed b

y the

fis

cal c

omm

ittee

of t

he b

oard

.

Repo

rts a

re u

sed

for p

lann

ing

and

revi

ew p

urpo

ses.

��

Nas

cent

org

anisa

tions

Emer

ging

org

anisa

tions

Expa

ndin

g or

gani

satio

nsM

atur

e or

gani

satio

nsDi

vers

ifica

tion

of in

com

e ba

se

The

NGO

is d

epen

dent

on

one

fund

ing

sour

ce.

The

NGO

lack

s cap

acity

to d

iver

si-fy

the

fund

ing

base

or t

ende

r for

co

ntra

cts.

The

NGO

has

no

cost

reco

very

or

inco

me

gene

ratio

n ac

tiviti

es.

The

NGO

is a

war

e of

the

need

to

div

ersif

y its

fund

ing

base

bu

t has

not

yet d

evel

oped

a

plan

or s

trat

egy t

o do

so.

The

NGO

has

not

yet d

evel

o-pe

d th

e ca

paci

ty to

tend

er fo

r co

ntra

cts.

The

NGO

has

iden

tified

m

ore

than

one

inte

rnat

iona

l fu

nder

but

has

yet t

o de

velo

p lo

cal c

onta

cts.

The

NGO

has

dev

elop

ed a

pl

an fo

r cos

t-re

cove

ry a

nd

inco

me

gene

ratin

g ac

tiviti

es

but h

as ye

t to

impl

emen

t ac

tiviti

es.

The

NGO

has

skill

s to

tend

er

for c

ontr

acts

but

has

yet t

o w

in a

ny b

ids.

The

NGO

has

mul

tiple

fund

ers.

A co

st-re

cove

ry/in

com

e ge

nera

-tio

n pl

an is

in p

lace

.

The

NGO

has

the

abili

ty to

ten-

der f

or, a

nd h

as w

on, c

ontr

acts

.

The

NGO

has

a st

rate

gy to

di

vers

ify fu

ndin

g so

urce

s.

SERV

ICE

DELIV

ERY

Sect

oral

ex

pert

iseTh

e N

GO h

as so

me

good

idea

s ab

out h

ow to

mee

t the

nee

ds o

f its

targ

et g

roup

s.

The

NGO

has

litt

le o

pera

tiona

l or

prog

ram

me

expe

rienc

e.

The

NGO

has

no

sect

oral

exp

ertis

e or

trac

k re

cord

.

The

NGO

has

incr

easin

g ex

pert

ise in

a ta

rget

ed se

ctor

bu

t is n

ot ye

t rec

ogni

sed

as a

n ex

pert

.

The

NGO

has

the

capa

city

to

acce

ss a

dditi

onal

exp

ertis

e as

re

quire

d in

a ta

rget

ed se

ctor

.

The

NGO

cont

inue

s to

deliv

er

serv

ices

whi

ch d

o no

t alw

ays

refle

ct th

e ch

angi

ng n

eeds

of

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

NGO

is re

cogn

ised

as

havi

ng si

gnifi

cant

exp

ertis

e in

its t

arge

ted

sect

or a

nd is

be

ing

invi

ted

to co

ntrib

ute

to

sect

oral

disc

ussio

ns.

The

NGO

is a

ble

to d

eliv

er

effe

ctiv

e an

d ap

prop

riate

se

rvic

es to

stak

ehol

ders

.Th

e N

GO is

beg

inni

ng to

bu

ild se

rvic

e fe

es a

nd o

ther

co

st re

cove

ry m

echa

nism

s in

to it

s ser

vice

del

iver

y.

The

NGO

has

rele

vant

sect

oral

ex

pert

ise.

Its e

xper

tise

is re

cogn

ised

by

the

full

rang

e of

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

NGO

is ca

pabl

e of

ada

ptin

g pr

ogra

mm

e an

d se

rvic

e de

liver

y to

the

evol

ving

nee

ds o

f sta

ke-

hold

ers.

��

Stak

ehol

der

com

mitm

ent/

owne

rshi

p

The

NGO

’s se

rvic

es a

re d

efine

d by

fund

ers o

r man

ager

s with

no

invo

lvem

ent f

rom

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

NGO

’s pr

ogra

mm

es (s

ince

th

ey d

o no

t refl

ect a

ctua

l nee

ds)

are

not e

ffici

ent,

adeq

uate

, cos

t-ef

fect

ive

nor t

imel

y.

The

NGO

is n

ot p

rovi

ding

capa

-ci

ty-b

uild

ing

trai

ning

/tec

hnic

al

assis

tanc

e to

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

NGO

seek

s sta

keho

lder

in

put i

nto

defin

ing

serv

i-ce

s but

doe

s not

do

so in

a

syst

emat

ic o

r com

preh

ensiv

e m

anne

r.Th

e N

GO h

as id

entifi

ed

reso

urce

s for

ad

hoc t

rain

ing

of st

akeh

olde

rs in

pro

gram

me

and

tech

nica

l are

as.

The

NGO

’s pr

ogra

mm

es a

re

not e

ffici

ent,

adeq

uate

, cos

t-ef

fect

ive

or ti

mel

y.Th

e N

GO h

as n

ot id

entifi

ed

reso

urce

s to

supp

ort t

he o

rga-

nisa

tiona

l cap

acity

-bui

ldin

g of

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

NGO

has

mec

hani

sms i

n pl

ace

to in

volv

e its

stak

ehol

-de

rs in

pro

ject

pla

nnin

g an

d im

plem

enta

tion

and

mon

ito-

ring

and

eval

uatio

n.

The

NGO

has

pla

ns to

tran

s-fe

r man

agem

ent r

espo

n-sib

ilitie

s to

stak

ehol

ders

an

d to

pro

vide

trai

ning

and

or

gani

satio

nal d

evel

opm

ent

supp

ort t

o bu

ild it

s cap

acity

.

Prog

ram

mes

are

bec

omin

g m

ore

effic

ient

, ade

quat

e,

cost

-eff

ectiv

e an

d tim

ely.

Prog

ram

me

prio

ritie

s are

bas

ed

on a

ctua

l nee

d.

Prog

ram

me

prio

ritie

s and

serv

i-ce

s are

defi

ned

in co

llabo

ratio

n w

ith st

akeh

olde

rs.

Prog

ram

mes

are

effi

cien

t, ad

e-qu

ate,

cost

-eff

ectiv

e an

d tim

ely.

Asse

ssm

ent

The

NGO

doe

s not

hav

e a

syst

em

to m

onito

r and

eva

luat

e its

pro

-gr

amm

e/pr

ojec

t ach

ieve

men

ts.

The

NGO

has

no

mec

hani

sm

with

whi

ch to

det

erm

ine

impa

ct

indi

cato

rs, e

stab

lish

base

line

mea

sure

s or a

sses

s the

impa

ct o

f its

act

iviti

es

The

NGO

is a

ble

to a

sses

s in

divi

dual

pro

ject

s to

dete

r-m

ine

if pr

ojec

ted

activ

ities

to

ok p

lace

as p

lann

ed a

nd

if sp

ecifi

c pro

ject

obj

ectiv

es

wer

e ac

hiev

ed, b

ut th

e re

sults

ar

e no

t use

d fo

r pro

gram

me

adju

stm

ent.

The

NGO

has

no

base

line

data

or s

yste

m to

mon

itor i

ts

activ

ities

.

Resu

lts a

nd in

dica

tors

wer

e de

velo

ped

at th

e re

ques

t of

fund

ers.

The

NGO

has

iden

tified

indi

-ca

tors

with

out s

take

hold

er

invo

lvem

ent a

nd co

llect

ed

base

line

data

with

whi

ch to

m

onito

r pro

ject

act

iviti

es,

but i

s not

usin

g th

e co

llect

ed

data

for p

roje

ct m

odifi

catio

n.

The

NGO

is a

war

e of

the

need

to d

evel

op a

sses

smen

t ca

paci

ty to

mea

sure

impa

ct

but h

as n

ot e

stab

lishe

d a

syst

em.

Colla

bora

tive

deve

lopm

ent o

f in

dica

tors

.

Indi

cato

rs h

ave

been

iden

tified

fo

r eac

h pr

ogra

mm

e ob

ject

ive.

Base

line

and

impa

ct d

ata

are

anal

ysed

regu

larly

.

Resu

lts o

f im

pact

eva

luat

ions

ar

e us

ed to

mak

e ad

just

men

ts

to th

e pr

ogra

mm

e.

Resu

lts a

re d

issem

inat

ed a

s ap

prop

riate

/rel

evan

t.

Mar

ketin

g an

d aw

aren

ess

build

ing

The

NGO

mak

es n

o ef

fort

to m

ar-

ket p

rogr

amm

es to

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

NGO

doe

s not

edu

cate

or

build

aw

aren

ess a

mon

g st

akeh

ol-

ders

.

The

NGO

has

no

awar

enes

s of

the

need

to m

arke

t pro

gram

-m

es.

The

NGO

is e

duca

ting

and

build

ing

awar

enes

s on

an a

d ho

c bas

is ba

sed

on a

vaila

ble

reso

urce

s, no

t sta

keho

lder

ne

ed.

The

NGO

has

und

erta

ken

mar

ketin

g ac

tiviti

es b

ut st

ill

lack

s a st

rate

gy.

The

NGO

has

a p

lan

to b

uild

aw

aren

ess a

nd e

duca

te st

a-ke

hold

ers.

Prog

ram

mes

are

act

ivel

y mar

-ke

ted

to st

akeh

olde

rs.

The

NGO

act

ivel

y edu

cate

s an

d bu

ilds a

war

enes

s am

ong

stak

ehol

ders

.

��

Nas

cent

org

anisa

tions

Emer

ging

org

anisa

tions

Expa

ndin

g or

gani

satio

nsM

atur

e or

gani

satio

nsEX

TERN

AL R

ELAT

ION

SSt

akeh

olde

r re

latio

nsTh

e N

GO’s

agen

da is

larg

ely

fund

er-a

nd m

anag

emen

t-dr

iven

, w

ith li

ttle

or n

o in

put f

rom

stak

e-ho

lder

s.

The

NGO

is lo

cate

d in

an

urba

n ce

ntre

and

its h

eadq

uart

ers a

re

a lo

ng d

istan

ce fr

om w

here

it

carr

ies o

ut a

ctiv

ities

, mak

ing

it

diffi

cult

to in

volv

e st

akeh

olde

rs

effe

ctiv

ely.

The

NGO

dev

elop

s sys

tem

s and

pr

ogra

mm

es in

a to

p-do

wn

man

-ne

r.

The

NGO

’s w

ork

is fo

cuse

d in

th

e fie

ld a

nd it

is v

iew

ed a

s an

ally

by s

take

hold

ers.

The

NGO

has

gro

win

g cr

edi-

bilit

y with

its t

arge

t sta

keho

l-de

rs a

nd w

ith fu

nder

s int

ere-

sted

in th

e sa

me

prog

ram

me

sect

ors.

The

NGO

is n

ot ye

t vie

wed

as

a pa

rtne

r by s

take

hold

ers.

The

NGO

ope

rate

s fro

m a

fie

ld p

roje

ct si

te.

The

NGO

invo

lves

stak

ehol

-de

rs in

dec

ision

-mak

ing.

The

NGO

vie

ws s

take

hold

ers

as b

eing

resp

onsib

le fo

r pro

-vi

ding

coun

terp

art r

esou

rces

.

The

NGO

pro

vide

s res

ourc

es

to e

nabl

e ta

rget

com

mun

i-tie

s to

deve

lop

orga

nisa

tiona

l ca

paci

ty.

The

NGO

is se

en a

s cre

dibl

e by

st

akeh

olde

rs.

The

NGO

is se

en a

s a v

alua

ble

reso

urce

by s

take

hold

ers.

The

NGO

-sta

keho

lder

rela

tion-

ship

is o

ne o

f par

tner

ship

for a

co

mm

on p

urpo

se.

Inte

r-NGO

co

llabo

ratio

nTh

e N

GO d

oes n

ot h

ave

expe

rien-

ce in

wor

king

with

oth

er N

GOs,

eith

er lo

cal o

r int

erna

tiona

l.Th

e N

GO is

not

kno

wn

or tr

uste

d by

the

NGO

com

mun

ity.

The

NGO

has

no

plan

s to

wor

k in

co

llabo

ratio

n w

ith o

ther

NGO

s ac

tive

in th

e sa

me

regi

on o

r sam

e se

ctor

.Th

e N

GO h

as li

ttle

und

erst

andi

ng

of it

s rol

e in

adv

ocac

y or d

evel

op-

men

t of p

ublic

pol

icy.

The

NGO

is in

crea

singl

y kn

own

and

trus

ted

by o

ther

s in

the

NGO

com

mun

ity b

ut

as ye

t has

litt

le e

xper

ienc

e in

w

orki

ng co

llabo

rativ

ely w

ith

othe

rs.

The

NGO

wor

ks w

ith in

tern

a-tio

nal o

r oth

er lo

cal N

GOs.

The

NGO

par

ticip

ates

in a

nd

supp

orts

NGO

net

wor

ks,

but a

s yet

doe

s not

pla

y a

lead

ersh

ip ro

le in

any

NGO

co

aliti

ons.

The

NGO

has

und

erta

ken

rand

om a

dvoc

acy a

ctiv

ities

.

The

NGO

net

wor

ks a

nd sh

ares

re

sour

ces w

ith n

atio

nal a

nd

inte

rnat

iona

l NGO

s.

The

NGO

pla

ys a

role

in p

rom

o-tin

g co

aliti

ons/

netw

orks

.

The

NGO

par

ticip

ates

in a

dvo-

cacy

act

iviti

es.

Gove

rnm

ent

colla

bora

tion

The

NGO

doe

s not

colla

bora

te

with

gov

ernm

ent a

genc

ies w

or-

king

in th

e sa

me

sect

or o

r geo

-gr

aphi

cal a

rea.

The

NGO

’s re

latio

nshi

p w

ith th

e go

vern

men

t is a

dver

saria

l.

The

NGO

has

iden

tified

com

-m

on in

tere

sts w

hich

it sh

ares

w

ith th

e go

vern

men

t and

re

latio

ns a

re fr

iend

ly.

The

NGO

colla

bora

tes w

ith

diff

eren

t gov

ernm

ent a

gen-

cies

or r

epre

sent

ativ

es o

n iss

ues o

r act

iviti

es in

spec

ific

sect

ors.

The

NGO

’s re

latio

nshi

p w

ith

the

gove

rnm

ent i

s frie

ndly

an

d of

ten

info

rmal

.

The

NGO

is so

met

imes

calle

d up

on b

y the

gov

ernm

ent t

o ca

rry o

ut sp

ecifi

c pro

ject

s or

colla

bora

te o

n se

ctor

al is

sues

.

The

NGO

has

cont

acts

with

de

cisio

n-m

aker

s.Th

e N

GO is

abl

e to

eng

age

in

dial

ogue

with

pol

icy-

mak

ers.

The

NGO

and

the

gove

rnm

ent

exch

ange

reso

urce

s.Th

e N

GO’s

activ

ities

and

reco

m-

men

datio

ns a

re in

tegr

ated

into

th

e go

vern

men

t’ s d

evel

opm

ent

plan

s.

�0

Fund

er

colla

bora

tion

The

NGO

sees

fund

ers a

s a re

sour

-ce

to fi

nanc

e ac

tiviti

es a

nd h

as

not y

et d

evel

oped

a re

latio

nshi

p or

mad

e co

ntrib

utio

ns to

fund

er

foru

ms o

r age

ndas

.

The

NGO

has

rece

ived

fun-

ding

but

has

yet t

o es

tabl

ish

a tr

ack

reco

rd o

r to

acqu

ire

suffi

cien

t cre

dibi

lity t

o be

invi

-te

d to

par

ticip

ate

in fu

nder

fo

rum

s.

The

NGO

has

a p

rove

n tr

ack

reco

rd, h

as e

stab

lishe

d its

cr

edib

ility

and

is in

vite

d by

fu

nder

s to

cont

ribut

e to

dis-

cuss

ions

on

sect

oral

issu

es.

The

NGO

has

div

ersifi

ed

cont

acts

with

in th

e fu

ndin

g co

mm

unity

.

The

NGO

is se

en a

s a cr

edib

le

and

valu

able

reso

urce

by f

un-

ders

.

The

NGO

has

opp

ortu

nity

to

enga

ge in

ope

n an

d fr

ank

dial

o-gu

e w

ith fu

nder

s.Pu

blic

re

latio

nsTh

e N

GO is

not

wel

l kno

wn

out-

side

the

rang

e of

its a

ctiv

ities

or

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

NGO

has

no

clea

r im

age

whi

ch it

art

icul

ates

or p

rese

nts t

o th

e pu

blic

.

The

NGO

has

not

pre

pare

d a

docu

men

t for

diss

emin

atio

n th

at

prov

ides

info

rmat

ion

abou

t its

ob

ject

ives

or a

ctiv

ities

.

The

NGO

is k

now

n in

its o

wn

com

mun

ity, b

ut d

oes l

ittle

to

pro

mot

e its

act

iviti

es w

ith

the

publ

ic o

r with

key

gov

ern-

men

tal d

ecisi

on-m

aker

s.

The

NGO

und

erst

ands

that

pu

blic

rela

tions

are

impo

rtan

t bu

t has

no

abili

ty to

carr

y out

PR

act

iviti

es.

The

NGO

has

lim

ited

cont

act

with

key

dec

ision

-mak

ers a

nd

has l

imite

d lin

es o

f com

mu-

nica

tion

with

the

publ

ic.

The

NGO

has

clea

r ide

as o

n iss

ues b

ut h

as ye

t to

deve

lop

them

into

a p

olic

y pla

tfor

m.

The

NGO

eng

ages

in p

ublic

re-

latio

ns a

nd h

as a

pos

itive

imag

e am

ong

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

NGO

’s ob

ject

ives

and

goa

ls

are

unde

rsto

od b

y sta

keho

lder

s.

Info

rmat

ion

is di

ssem

inat

ed o

n th

e N

GO’s

activ

ities

.

Loca

l re

sour

ces

The

NGO

tend

s to

view

the

priv

ate

busin

ess s

ecto

r with

susp

icio

n an

d di

stru

st.

The

NGO

doe

s not

wor

k in

coop

e-ra

tion

with

any

par

t of t

he p

rivat

e se

ctor

to d

raw

on

reso

urce

s, te

chni

cal e

xper

tise

or in

fluen

ce.

The

NGO

’s pr

ogra

mm

es a

re n

ot

base

d on

loca

l res

ourc

e av

aila

bi-

lity.

The

NGO

is n

ot a

n ac

tive

part

ici-

pant

in ci

vil s

ocie

ty a

ctiv

ities

.

The

NGO

has

beg

un to

iden

-tif

y loc

al su

ppor

t in

addi

tion

to th

at w

hich

it re

ceiv

es fr

om

stak

ehol

ders

.

The

NGO

seek

s tec

hnic

al

assis

tanc

e fr

om so

me

priv

ate

sect

or a

nd g

over

nmen

t re

sour

ces.

The

NGO

pur

chas

es g

oods

an

d se

rvic

es fr

om th

e pr

ivat

e se

ctor

a.

The

NGO

dra

ws s

uppo

rt fr

om

the

loca

l priv

ate

sect

or a

nd

gove

rnm

ent a

genc

ies b

ut

proj

ects

still

dep

end

on co

n-tin

ued

supp

ort f

rom

ext

erna

l fu

nder

s.

The

NGO

has

recr

uite

d in

divi

dual

s fro

m th

e pr

ivat

e bu

sines

s sec

tor t

o se

rve

on it

s bo

ard

or a

s tec

hnic

al a

dvi-

sors

.

The

NGO

is a

ctiv

ely e

ngag

ed

with

oth

er ci

vil s

ocie

ty o

rga-

nisa

tions

.

The

NGO

has

rela

tions

with

the

priv

ate

sect

or fo

r tec

hnic

al e

x-pe

rtise

, mat

eria

l and

/or h

uman

re

sour

ces.

The

NGO

par

ticip

ates

in co

m-

mun

ity p

artn

ersh

ips.

The

NGO

has

stru

ctur

es in

pla

ce

to fa

cilit

ate

wor

king

rela

tions

w

ith ci

vil s

ocie

ty.

�1

Nas

cent

org

anisa

tions

Emer

ging

org

anisa

tions

Expa

ndin

g or

gani

satio

nsM

atur

e or

gani

satio

nsM

edia

The

NGO

has

no

rela

tions

hip

with

th

e m

edia

, and

its w

ork

is no

t kn

own

to th

em.

The

NGO

’s ac

tiviti

es a

re n

ot

know

n ou

tsid

e of

its c

omm

u-ni

ty. T

he N

GO d

oes n

ot ye

t kn

ow h

ow to

acc

ess o

r use

m

edia

to in

form

the

publ

ic

abou

t its

wor

k.

The

NGO

has

cont

acts

in th

e m

edia

whi

ch it

use

s whe

n it

wish

es to

info

rm th

e pu

blic

ab

out a

n im

port

ant i

ssue

.

The

NGO

has

rece

ived

som

e at

tent

ion

and

has b

een

cons

ulte

d by

the

med

ia o

n re

leva

nt is

sues

.

The

NGO

has

a st

rate

gy to

wor

k w

ith th

e m

edia

.

The

NGO

has

rece

ived

pos

itive

m

edia

att

entio

n.

The

med

ia co

nsul

ts w

ith th

e N

GO o

n re

leva

nt is

sues

.

SUST

AIN

ABILI

TYPr

ogra

mm

e/

bene

fit

sust

aina

bilit

y

The

NGO

stak

ehol

ders

do

not

see

or fe

el th

at th

ey b

enefi

t fro

m

serv

ices

or p

rogr

amm

es.

The

NGO

has

no

unde

rsta

ndin

g or

pl

an fo

r con

tinui

ty.

The

NGO

is n

ot w

orki

ng w

ith lo

cal

inst

itutio

ns.

The

NGO

is n

ot in

volv

ed in

skill

s-tr

ansf

er a

ctiv

ities

.

The

NGO

stak

ehol

ders

re

cogn

ise th

e be

nefit

s fro

m

serv

ices

and

pro

gram

mes

but

do

not

yet h

ave

the

mea

ns to

co

ntin

ue th

em w

ithou

t ass

is-ta

nce

from

the

NGO

.

The

NGO

has

yet t

o de

velo

p re

latio

nshi

ps w

ith, a

nd is

not

pr

ovid

ing

capa

city

bui

ldin

g as

sista

nce

to, lo

cal o

rgan

isa-

tions

.

The

NGO

stak

ehol

ders

reco

g-ni

se th

e be

nefit

s of,

and

are

invo

lved

in, d

ecisi

on-m

akin

g fo

r ser

vice

s and

pro

gram

mes

bu

t con

tinue

to re

ly o

n as

sis-

tanc

e fr

om th

e N

GO.

The

NGO

has

dev

elop

ed

rela

tions

hips

with

loca

l or

gani

satio

ns a

nd is

pro

vi-

ding

trai

ning

and

tech

nica

l as

sista

nce

to b

uild

capa

city

bu

t as y

et h

as n

o ph

asin

g-ou

t st

rate

gies

.

The

NGO

’s pr

ogra

mm

es a

re

supp

orte

d by

thos

e be

ing

serv

ed.

Ther

e is

a se

nse

of o

wne

rshi

p of

be

nefit

s by t

he co

mm

unity

.

The

NGO

has

dev

elop

ed

syst

ems f

or th

e co

ntin

uatio

n of

its p

rogr

amm

e ac

tiviti

es in

ac

cord

ance

with

chan

ges i

n th

e co

mm

unity

.

The

NGO

has

dev

elop

ed sy

s-te

ms f

or co

ntin

uatio

n of

its

prog

ram

me

in th

e m

ediu

m a

nd

long

term

.

The

NGO

has

dev

elop

ed

prog

ram

mat

ic p

hasin

g-ou

t st

rate

gies

.

The

NGO

ens

ures

that

loca

l-le-

vel s

kills

tran

sfer

take

s pla

ce.

��

Nas

cent

org

anisa

tions

Emer

ging

org

anisa

tions

Expa

ndin

g or

gani

satio

nsM

atur

e or

gani

satio

nsO

rgan

i-sa

tiona

l su

stai

nabi

lity

The

NGO

lack

s a sh

ared

visi

on a

nd

skill

s to

inte

ract

with

oth

er d

eve-

lopm

ent p

artn

ers i

n ci

vil s

ocie

ty

The

NGO

has

no

unde

rsta

ndin

g of

its r

ole

as a

par

tner

in d

evel

op-

men

t.

The

NGO

is n

ot in

volv

ed in

coal

i-tio

ns a

nd n

etw

orks

.

The

NGO

has

a sh

ared

visi

on

but a

s yet

lack

s the

und

er-

stan

ding

and

skill

s to

inte

ract

w

ith o

ther

dev

elop

men

t pa

rtne

rs.

The

NGO

is a

mem

ber o

f co

aliti

ons a

nd n

etw

orks

but

is

not y

et a

ble

to p

rovi

de

lead

ersh

ip.

The

NGO

has

a cl

ear v

ision

of

its ro

le a

nd th

e sk

ills n

eces

sa-

ry to

par

ticip

ate

in d

evel

op-

men

t act

iviti

es.

The

NGO

par

ticip

ates

in N

GO

netw

orks

and

coal

ition

s but

is

not y

et p

layi

ng a

lead

ersh

ip

role

in th

e N

GO co

mm

unity

.

The

NGO

is a

ckno

wle

dged

to

have

exp

ertis

e in

a se

ctor

but

is

not r

ecog

nise

d as

a le

ader

or

cons

ulte

d by

fund

ers o

r go

vern

men

t.

The

NGO

has

a sh

ared

visi

on o

f its

role

in so

ciet

y.

The

NGO

is a

mem

ber o

f key

N

GO n

etw

orks

.

The

NGO

shar

es in

form

atio

n in

a

proa

ctiv

e m

anne

r.

The

NGO

is a

par

ticip

ant i

n a

dyna

mic

dev

elop

men

t are

na.

The

NGO

has

link

ages

with

in

tern

atio

nal N

GOs,

educ

ati-

on in

stitu

tions

, gov

ernm

ent

entit

ies,

rese

arch

inst

itute

s, pa

rast

atal

s, ci

vic i

nstit

utio

ns

and

the

priv

ate

sect

or.

The

NGO

has

capa

city

to re

view

its

stru

ctur

es in

resp

onse

to

orga

nisa

tiona

l dev

elop

men

t ne

eds.

The

NGO

is a

war

e of

legi

slatio

n af

fect

ing

the

NGO

sect

or.

The

NGO

cont

ribut

es to

the

deve

lopm

ent o

f an

enab

ling

en-

viro

nmen

t for

the

deve

lopm

ent

of th

e N

GO se

ctor

.

��

Nas

cent

org

anisa

tions

Emer

ging

org

anisa

tions

Expa

ndin

g or

gani

satio

nsM

atur

e or

gani

satio

nsFi

nanc

ial

sust

aina

bilit

yTh

e N

GO h

as li

mite

d ca

paci

ty

to a

cces

s fun

ding

and

doe

s not

re

cogn

ise th

e ne

ed to

div

ersif

y its

re

sour

ce b

ase.

The

NGO

has

lim

ited

capa

city

to

deve

lop

proj

ect f

undi

ng p

ropo

sals

or re

spon

d to

tend

ers.

The

NGO

has

not

dev

elop

ed

cont

acts

or r

elat

ions

hips

with

the

loca

l res

ourc

e ba

se.

The

NGO

has

beg

un to

un-

ders

tand

the

need

to d

evel

op

alte

rnat

ive

reso

urce

s but

has

no

conc

rete

dire

ctio

n or

pla

n.

The

NGO

has

no

rela

tions

w

ith lo

cal g

over

nmen

t or

priv

ate

busin

ess s

ecto

r org

a-ni

satio

ns.

The

NGO

is a

ble

to d

evel

op

proj

ect f

undi

ng p

ropo

sals

but

does

not

hav

e re

ady a

cces

s to

the

fund

er co

mm

unity

.

The

NGO

doe

s not

hav

e th

e sk

ills r

equi

red

to te

nder

.

The

NGO

has

beg

un to

ex

plor

e al

tern

ativ

e re

sour

ces

thro

ugh

deve

lopi

ng re

latio

n-sh

ips w

ith th

e go

vern

men

t an

d th

e pr

ivat

e bu

sines

s se

ctor

.Th

e N

GO h

as se

cure

d al

tern

ativ

e re

sour

ces s

uch

as in

-kin

d an

d co

mm

oditi

es

dona

tions

and

mem

bers

hip

fees

.Th

e N

GO h

as b

egun

to

dive

rsify

its f

undi

ng b

ase

and

to d

evel

op co

st-re

cove

ry

mec

hani

sms a

nd p

rogr

am-

mes

.Th

e N

GO h

as te

nder

ed fo

r co

ntra

cts b

ut h

as w

on v

ery

few

bid

s.

The

NGO

has

, whe

re a

p-pr

opria

te, f

ee-fo

r-ser

vice

an

d/or

oth

er co

st re

cove

ry

mec

hani

sms b

uilt

into

serv

ice

deliv

ery.

The

NGO

has

a fu

ndra

ising

st

rate

gy a

nd h

as th

e ca

paci

ty to

im

plem

ent t

his s

trat

egy.

Loca

l fun

drai

sing

oppo

rtun

ities

ha

ve b

een

iden

tified

.

The

NGO

has

capa

city

to d

eve-

lop

prop

osal

s and

resp

ond

to

tend

ers a

nd w

ins m

any b

ids.

Reso

urce

bas

e su

stai

nabi

lity

The

NGO

’s op

erat

ing

fund

s com

e fr

om o

nly o

ne so

urce

and

are

ra

ised

for o

ne sh

ort-

term

pro

ject

at

a ti

me.

The

NGO

has

litt

le u

nder

stan

ding

of

the

need

to e

vent

ually

bec

ome

self-

supp

ortin

g an

d ha

s not

yet

atte

mpt

ed to

iden

tify l

ocal

reso

ur-

ces.

The

NGO

’s fu

ndin

g is

insu

ffici

ent

to m

eet p

lans

or t

o pr

ovid

e pr

ojec

t se

rvic

es.

The

NGO

has

fund

ing

to co

ver

shor

t-te

rm p

roje

ct co

sts a

nd

over

head

cost

s.

The

NGO

can

prep

are

a m

ulti-

year

pro

gram

me

budg

et b

ut

is st

ill d

epen

dent

on

a sin

gle

fund

er.

The

NGO

is b

egin

ning

to b

e-co

me

awar

e of

loca

l res

ourc

e ge

nera

tion

poss

ibili

ties b

ut

has n

ot ye

t ide

ntifi

ed o

r mob

i-lis

ed th

em.

The

NGO

has

fund

s for

shor

t-te

rm e

xpen

ses b

ut h

as a

lso

deve

lope

d a

med

ium

-ter

m

fund

ing

plan

and

stra

tegi

es.

The

NGO

is n

ot d

epen

dent

ei

ther

for o

verh

ead

or fo

r pr

ogra

mm

e ex

pens

es o

n a

singl

e fu

nder

.Th

e N

GO is

abl

e to

reco

ver

a pe

rcen

tage

of c

ore

cost

s th

roug

h lo

cally

gen

erat

ed

reso

urce

s mem

bers

hip

dues

, fe

e-fo

r-ser

vice

s, re

gula

r fu

ndra

ising

, etc

.).Th

e N

GO h

as id

entifi

ed a

nd

acce

sses

loca

l res

ourc

es fr

om

the

gove

rnm

ent a

nd th

e pr

ivat

e se

ctor

.

The

NGO

has

iden

tified

a lo

cal

reso

urce

bas

e.

The

NGO

has

impl

emen

ted

a re

sour

ce d

iver

sifica

tion

plan

.

The

NGO

has

pla

ns to

acc

ess

addi

tiona

l res

ourc

es to

fina

nce

exist

ing

activ

ities

.

��

��

Organisational capacity assessmentAn introduction to a tool

One of the central issues in the current development practice is the strengthening of Southern civil societies. NGOs’ development projects increasingly include activi-ties for the organisational development and capacity-building of Southern NGOs. Capacity building aims at smooth internal functioning of the organisations, effi-cient performance in order to reach organisational objectives and well-organised networking with other actors.

This KEPA Working Paper focuses on the assessment of organisational capacity and describes six basic steps in organisational analysis from defining the need to iden-tifying the organisation’s stage of development. What is most important, however, is what kinds of development and capacity-building efforts will follow once the analysis is completed.

KEPA’s Working PapersKEPA’s Working Papers series offers information on development issues. Studies, seminar memos, and articles produced or commissioned by KEPA are published in the series. The papers cover e.g. topics of Southern civil societies, development work and political advocacy work of civil society organisations, development cooperation, impact assesment and international trade issues. The papers will be published in several languages.

The papers are available at KEPA’s web site: http://www.kepa.fi/taustaselvitykset