MAKING CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS (CSOs) WORTH DONOR FUNDING REQUIREMENT

Based upon my experience as grants and compliance expert, I have realized that CSOs overlook evaluating their internal system before applying for grants.

 CSOs most often neither evaluate internal control system nor their mission statement and area(s) of program focus before applying for grants.

 Understanding the time and energy associated with writing proposal for competitive funding opportunity; it is very heartbreaking to fall short of donor funding requirements when one forgets to do self-evaluation of internal system so as to determine lapses and other compliance issues.

 Falling short of donor funding requirements should be considered as lessons learned for CSOs to strengthen an entity’s internal system instead of assuming that donor preselected suitable applicant(s) without vetting.

 Every funding opportunities comes with set objective(s), goal, detail description, eligibility and selection criterion.

 As a newly or existing CSOs to worth donor funding; kindly note the below tips to qualify you;

 1.   Are you a legally registered organization?

Tips:

-        be a fully registered organization with article of incorporation and updated accreditation certificate

-        have a functional board of directors that meets quarterly and annually with written meeting minutes

2.   Do you have written policies?

Tips:

a.   Financial Policy: your financial policy should clearly document but not limited to;

-        cash management (bank reconciliation, cash count, storage, etc)

-        ensure proper division of labor (requester, reviewer, approval)

-        petty cash system with threshold/limit between $100.00 to $500.00usd

-        lockable/mental save

-        custodian of petty cash and cheque book

-        signing authority matrix

-        cash and cheque disbursement schedule

-        set threshold for cash payment and cheque issuance

-        advance clearance timeframe

-        cash disbursement system (wire transfer, direct cash or cheque)

-        do daily cash count

-        do monthly bank reconciliation

-        keep bank reconciliation statement on file

-        financial reporting (monthly, quarterly, midyear and annually)

-         roles and responsibilities of staff

-        have basic templates in place in a booklet form that contain triplicate (white, blue, yellow) such as; payment request form, payment voucher, cash advance request form, cash count sheet, petty cash receipt book, etc)

 

b.   Procurement Policy: a concise document that highlights procurement processes including but not limited to;

-        roles of procurement staff, senior staff and project staff

-        purchase threshold for direct cash purchase

-        threshold for bidding

-        record vehicle movement in a vehicle log

-         have some template or booklet in place (vehicle log, PO, PR, waybill, GRN, store request and release form, etc)

 

c.   Human Resources (HR): a well-defined policy document that guides staff day-to-day work and not limited to;

 

-        organizational chart/management structure

-        recruitment procedures

-        office hour

-        lunch time

-        job description

-        leaves (sick, annual, maternity, paternity, bereavement etc),

-        holidays

-        employees contract categories (full time, consultant, fixed term, open ended, etc)

-        salary categories

-        pay date

-        timesheet

-        staff insurance

-        resignation

-        severance or service gratuity

-        training

-        travel policy (per-diem, accommodation, vehicle policy, etc)

-        ethical code of conduct

 

d.   Property Standard: comprehensive document that safeguards organization properties but not limited to;

-        up-to-date inventories list/database that contain product name, manufacturer, asset number/tag, serial number, funding source, year of purchase, acquisition value, etc

-        disposition procedures

-        etc.

 e.   Which accounting system do you use to record transactions? Explain what you have in place. Don’t make-up.

Tips:

-        Microsoft Excel

-        Quickbooks

-        Other software

-        Etc.

 f.      Do you have record retention policy?

Tips:

-        Don’t keep record by heart

-        Write clear records retention policy

-        Set retention period after end of project between 3-10 years as an institution because your record is your evidence

-        You can also go according to the local law of that country

 g.    Are your project documents (HR, Finance, Procurement, Inventories, Reports and etc) filed properly?

Do a very unique filing system both hard and electronic copies for easy tracing as follows but not limited to;

Tips:

-        open box files that are clearly labelled with appropriate information

-        orderly arrange box files on lockable shelve or office cabinet

-        use file dividers to separates files within a box file

-        always keep on file progress report, financial report, audited financial report, etc

-        save soft and scanned copies files on share-drive (z-drive, google drive, etc)

-        save soft and scanned copies on external hard drive

 h.   Staff Capacity:

It worth having experience between 2years and above for potential staff included in proposal ranging from; project management and leadership, monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL), financial, grants, HR, etc).

 i.      Do you perform annual audit? donors will want to assess whether your organization is credible and accountable.

Tips:  

-        Always ensure that your organization is audited annually by internal or external auditor or auditing firm

-        Project evaluation report

-        If you haven’t received donor funding before, let your accountant prepare a balance sheet

“Don’t try to make-up a story when you don’t have system in place; your sincerity will help provides you capacity building support”.

 I hope the tips help you.