TWENTY
THREE (23) INEXCUSABLE SINS FOR NGO MANAGMENT!
By Frank Julie
1.
NO CLEAR
SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY:
No
comprehensive sustainability strategy is in place to ensure the organization is
able to reproduce itself and achieve its vision. Remember, the final test for any
organization is for it to continue without you. And to continue without you it
requires access to resources. Remember, sustainability does not only mean
having enough funding. It is much more than that. It starts with the
intangibles like vision, mission, strategies and values. And then it is
important to have a plan to recruit new donors, maintaining existing ones and
get them to give more, limit core expenses by developing cost containment
strategies, maximize the contribution by staff, volunteers and the board and
strengthen partnerships with NGO’s in your sector. Remember, you cannot sustain
your organization by default. You must do it by design!
2.
NO
SUCCESION PLANNING
No
succession planning is in place. We never think of succession until it is too
late. No person is fallible and we cannot control what will happen to anyone at
any time. This is why a succession plan is vital. And if you don’t have the
skills inside the organization, then go and look outside. But have a plan in
place. You can either force staff members to take up a position or you can
prepare them for it.
3.
NO RISK MANAGEMENT STRATEGY IN PLACE
No risk
management strategy is in place to protect the organization against the
potential loss of property, accidents, funding gaps, staff retention, etc. We usually
wait for the crisis to first hit us before we think of putting a risk
management strategy in place. Well, will you commit resources to an
organization where nobody is aware of the risks involved in operating the
organization? Surely not? Then why do you expect donors to do it?
4.
THE BOARD
IS REGARDED AS A NECESSARY EVIL
There is no
proper investment in board members. No inductions take place. There is no
proper recruitment strategy. Many organizations don’t even have a board
development budget! The board is seen as rubber stamp. It is what donors
require. As soon as board members start to ask difficult questions then they
become a liability. Then they are set up against the staff and critical
information is kept away from them.
5.
STAFF IS BUSY
BEING BUSY
In most
organizations everybody is so busy being busy! There is either too little time
or no time for proper planning and quality reflection to extract valuable lessons
and learnings from the field. Staff members work for 8 hours a day or more on
structured work and leave no time for responsive work. Then they must take work
home. The result is continuous burn out and stress! Staff members come to work
with no work plan, no clear objectives related to the strategic focus of the
organization and no clear outcomes to be achieved. The result is duplication of
work, confusion, chaos and tension reflected in personality conflicts. Then
people get in each other’s way! Instead
of proper communication the noise levels start to increase!
6.
NO CLEAR
OBJECTIVES
Some
organizations either have no proper objectives or when they have it is too
many. And sometimes the objectives are confused with aims. Remember, an aim is
a general statement of intent or an ideal. It is something you wish for. An
objective is a specific and measurable activity that you engage in to achieve
this ideal. It is the rung on the ladder. The aim always comes first. Unless
the objective is clear then your specific course of action will also be
unclear. Because the way you act is the way you think! Or to put it
differently, the way you attack a problem is the way you conceptualize it. This
is why one can find staff members come after 6 months or more to report work
left undone! They are paralyzed in their thinking and therefore paralyzed in
their actions.
7.
CONDONE
POOR STAFF PERFORMANCE
Most
leaders are not able to get rid of poor performing staff. Now this is a very
serious challenge within many NGO’s. There is a good reason for this. NGO’s are
value based organizations where we work to help people change lives and so we
are very reluctant to let people go when they don’t perform. We feel sorry for
people. Past attachments also influence these decisions. In fact, we will
tolerate poor performing staff and sometimes it will go on and on. But letting
the person go is not an always an option. We may even redeploy the person, change
the job description which is a code word for trying to ignore the problem. This
is dangerous. Condoning the incompetence of one person condemns the whole
organization to mediocrity. It becomes a cancer that will eat away at the whole
organization. Any person who is incompetent and cannot deliver according to
predetermined expectations should be immediately removed for the sake of the
organization and the person her/himself.
8.
NO PROPER
POLICIES IN PLACE OR NO IMPLEMENTATION
There are
no proper policies in place. And where policies exist they are not implemented
or implemented properly according to a procedure. In the absence of policies it
is a free for all. Leaders do as they want. Where policies exist they are
manipulated to suit small elite within the organization. Every decision taken
becomes ad-hoc or just to suit the moment. There is no consistency. It is in
this climate that nepotism or favouratism will rear its ugly head!
9.
NO PROPER
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
There is no
proper financial management from the strategic plan and its strategic
objectives to the annual financial plan, quarterly financial plan, monthly
budget plan to the daily cash flow analysis. Forget about being transparent
about these plans if they exist. Usually a small clique will control all
information related to finances. We swear to transparency but well, when it
comes to finances it goes a bit too far!
10.
REACTIVE
APPROACH TO FUNDING GAPS
There is a
reactive approach to funding gaps. There is no proactive response. Funding gaps
is a reality for all NGO’s. We cannot control donor agendas and processes. We
will always be vulnerable to funding gaps. But we can control our response to
it. Start a reserve or sustainability fund. And don’t wait for the next funding
crisis. Start today if you haven’t acted already. Remember, if you cannot pay
salaries then you must blame yourself, not the funder!
11.
TOLERATING
IRRELEVANT PROJECTS
There is
no organised abandonment of projects that don’t work and don’t produce results.
There is no creative destruction. Some staff members become sentimentally
attached to pet projects. Sometimes we are afraid to state the obvious – that a
project is not working and not producing results. We are afraid of offending
others so we keep on pumping funding into projects that only disappoint. We
invest scarce resources into the past! And this is not all. We will even start
new projects that will consume more and more limited resources on top of the
ones that don’t work. Sometimes these projects are funded driven and
not even driven by need. The worst case scenario is that these new projects are
not even funded at all drawing resources away from other projects threatening
the performance of the projects that work and produce results.
12.
FEAR FOR EXTERNAL EVALUATIONS
How many
organizations are open to external evaluations? How many are prepared to put
themselves on trial? We always find excuses to open ourselves up for scrutiny.
We only want to hear what we want to hear. In the process we perpetuate internal
deformities by not only allowing external evaluations. There is always not
enough funding to do this, forget about requesting others to give us an opinion
about our development practices. We fear the critical voice always becoming
defensive and not open to critique. Remember, development is about being open
and not closed!
13.
OVERUSE OF CONSULTANTS
The new
trend amongst the well funded NGO’s is to call in a consultant for every little
problem. Sometimes this degenerates into only jobs for pals and it fails to
develop internal capacity in the organization and the hence the ability to deal
with its own challenges in future. Sometimes it is just sheer laziness amongst some
leaders. Remember, the solution to any problem lies inside the organization and
not with consultants. The role of the consultant is to bring this awareness to
the client and to create an environment conducive for solutions to emerge collectively
and not imposed arbitrarily by so-called experts.
14.
NO OR LITTLE SHARING OF INFORMATION
There is
no regular sharing of financial information and knowing how much the other
person is earning is sacrilege! This is a typical corporate practice. Why
should you be ashamed of what you earn if you know you deserve it? Why should
it be a secret what you work for? You can only be ashamed if you know you don’t
deserve what you are earning; if you know you are underperforming. Sometimes
staff will not even know who their donors are and how much they are funding.
Once again a small clique will monopolize this information, creating the space
for corruption and mismanagement of funds.
15.
NO COMPREHENSIVE COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
You cannot
create continuous interest in your organization without a clearly formulated
communication and marketing strategy. I must still find a NGO who can convince
me that they have one and more importantly, that it is implemented. Trapped in
survival mode, many NGO’s forget to raise visibility about their work in the
form of newsletters (print and electronic), websites, blogspots, articles in
newspapers, brochures, pamphlets, letters, faxes, block e-mails, etc. So
trapped in survival mode, they forget their work is about changing human lives
and that they need to celebrate their successes. And don’t hide your
challenges! Let others know about it! And tell them what you are doing about
it.
16.
STAFF DEVELOPMENT REGARDED AS A LUXURY
Staff
development is considered a luxury instead of a necessity. And where there is
staff development it is usually not focused and planned. Some staff members are sent to workshops just
to fill up places. And the aim is only for the staff member to perform better
in her/his work, i.e. it is only task focus and not also person focused.
Remember, you employ a whole human being not just half a human being!
17.
IMAGE NOT CONGRUENT WITH TRUE IDENTITY
The image (what
you stand for in public) and true identity (what you actually do in practice) of
the organization are not the same. What we write in our proposals, brochures,
reports, not the same as what actually happens in reality. They preach
accountability but provide each other with secret loans, salary increases,
distorting reports, etc to secure the next funding tranche. And then they get
the auditors to hide this. Some preach gender equality only to make life
difficult for females in the organization. Remember, the proper balance between
image and true identity leads to organizational integrity!
18.
PROBLEM FOCUSED APPROACH
Many NGO’s
have a problem focused approach in their work. They do not celebrate successes
enough. They like to flog themselves unnecessarily. When donors commit funding
to projects, nobody celebrates. It is seen as just another donor! So what? The
same thing happens when we hear success of stories of beneficiary, .g. a person
who is healed, reintegrated into a family and community, someone starting a
successful business or accessing sustainable employment, or a policy change
effected after pressure by the organizations, etc. Instead we are looking for
the next problem.
19.
NO LEARNING ORGANISATION
We pay lip
service to a learning organization. It is more rhetoric than substance. Instead
of seeing the learning organization as a means to an end it is approached more
as an end in itself like some renowned American academics do. Learning is
viewed as a neutral construct and not a process influenced by power relations.
The learning organization is not viewed in the context of a world of
globalization, etc. and as a tool to end social and economic relations based on
inequality and injustice.
20.
TOO MANY MEETINGS
Now here
is a common illness. Too many meetings leading to analysis paralysis, i.e. we
analyze so much that we become paralyzed. More time is spent inside instead of outside
the organization where the need and opportunities are. Remember, sometimes you may not only have too
many meetings but you may sit with the wrong people attending meetings. The
first question to ask when organizing a meeting is not who should attend but
who should NOT attend! Remember, you cannot work and meet at the same time!
21.
NO SOCIAL ACCOUNTING
Financial
accounting may be fine. But this is not enough. You need to account socially as
well. This is about accountability to the vision and mission of the
organization. That means keeping all relevant stakeholders informed about both
your challenges and successes. It is your duty to do this. Failure to do this
will slowly but surely cause your organization to become irrelevant and
degenerate into job creation for a few individuals. Whilst funding last of
course!
22.
NO TRACKING OF BENEFICIARIES
There is no
tracking of beneficiaries to check the impact of their work. If you want to
establish the impact of your work then they are the best people to tell you
what worked and what did not work. But we forget about them due to crisis
management and losing focus on the real reason why we exist. For e.g. it is
rare to find education centres who track children when they reach primary or
high school or youth development centers who track youth accessing employment,
etc. We simply don’t care. It is too much of a cost! It takes too much time! And
we are always busy being busy…
23.
SECRECY AND NEPOTISM IN THE SECTOR
There is no
sharing or little sharing of information and other resources within the sector
itself. Most of the time we are governed by a scarcity mentality, i.e. that
there is always not enough for everyone! We fall into the mindless corporate
trap of competing with each other instead of cooperating. And even where forums
or networks exist to promote sharing of resources, these will descend into private
clubs to keep others out and not bring new ones in.
Please
note: This list is far from exhausted. So feel free to add other sins. We can
only learn what to do and do it right if we know what not to do and what is
simply just wrong and unacceptable!
“Remember, the task
of a true leader is to create more leaders not followers!” (John Maxwell)
“A manager is paid to
be uncomfortable. If you are comfortable then it is a sure sign that you are doing
something wrong.” (Peter Drucker)
Written by: Frank
Julie, independent development consultant and author of “The Art of Leadership
and Management on the Ground” (A practical guide for leaders and managers to
develop sustainable organizations for permanent social change)
To
read more about the book, view its detailed contents and comments from
community leaders and academics around the world, please go to HYPERLINK
"http://www.frankjulieblogspot.com" www.frankjulieblogspot.com
To order the book and
get a free list of donors in South
Africa
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