These questions will give you an idea of the type of information CAFOD looks for in a proposal or concept

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• management

Informations

• Publié par: Erkyo
• Nombre de lectures: 64
• Langue: English

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PROGRAMME CYCLE MANAGEMENT

#5: ASSESSING YOUR OWN ORGANISATION

A note to all partners

Organisations such as ours work in a rapidly changing context. Opportunities and challenges may

come from within an organisation or from outside it. They may affect the immediate future of an

organisation or constitute a longer term challenge. CAFOD recognizes that for any organisation to

respond well to new opportunities and challenges, the people in it need to stand back and reflect

from time to time. They need to look beyond programmes and projects, and think about how well

they work as an organisation. This is a process of self-assessment, and is in line with CAFOD’s

principles that commit us to avoiding dependency, and to supporting provision of technical

assistance, capacity building and accompaniment.

CAFOD staff will discuss your assessment with

you at the start of a partnership, and on a regular basis thereafter.

A simple way of looking at organisations is described below.

Many organisations are also familiar

with auditors’ reports that suggest improvements to financial systems and procedures.

These too

form part of a self-assessment process.

You may have recently undertaken a self-assessment or

have a recent auditor’s report.

If you wish, these could be the starting point for a joint reflection

with CAFOD.

In addition to these, an increasing number of self-assessment tools exist that may be used to assess

other aspects of the overall health of an organisation. These can help pinpoint areas that may need

attention in coming years, or in the more immediate future (as in the case of the Caritas

Internationalis’ Emergency Response Toolkit (2006)).

Such tools are designed with different types of organisation in mind.

If you have internet access,

you can look at the different materials available on the web, and select one (or more) that best suits

your organisation and the time you are able to devote to self-assessment processes.

Web sources include:

•

Tearfund’s ROOTS series, available in their learning zone in (in English, French, Spanish

and Portuguese)

http://tilz.tearfund.org/Publications/ROOTS/

•

Civicus’ Civil Society Toolkits are another (follow link from “Resources and Services” in

English, French, Spanish)

at

http://www.civicus.org/new/default.asp

•

International HIV/AIDS Alliance NGO Support Toolkit contains material and resources

applicable to many organisations, not just those working in HIV and AIDS

http://www.aidsalliance.org/sw5748.asp

•

Mango’s financial management “health check” (in English, French, Spanish, Arabic,

Russian, Sinhala and Tamil)

http://www.mango.org.uk/guide/resources/healthcheck.aspx

•

A complete financial management toolkit, for emergencies (in English only)

also prepared

by Mango

http://www.fme-online.org/

Note: if you don’t have broadband or reliable internet access, please ask CAFOD programme staff

to forward copies of these or similar, free publications

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Publishers’ catalogues are another useful staring point

The “onion skin model”, one way of looking at organisations

An organisation can be likened to an onion,

with different layers. The outside layer of the

‘onion’ represents the physical and financial

resources that an organisation needs: money,

buildings, vehicles, equipment. Inside that layer

are the staff skills and knowledge required to

implement activities.

Next come the structures

and systems needed to make an organisation

function

Inside that layer come the vision, purpose and

strategy of the organisation: what it wants to

achieve and how.

At the very heart (or soul) of

an organisation lie its identity and values,

culture and world-view: how the organisation

sees and understands the world and its place in

it.

Leadership also plays a key role here.

While the outer layers are generally more tangible and easily assessed, the inner or core elements

are largely intangible.

They may be observed only through the effects they have - on internal

relationships, on programmes of work, and on external relationships.

By their very nature, core

elements are deep-rooted, complex and more difficult to understand. If the ‘core’ of an organisation

is not healthy, the organisation may lose some of its capacity to be effective in the long-term.

CAFOD Guidelines for Partners:

#1: Project Proposals (2007)

#4: Reviews and Evaluations (2007)

#2: Progress Reports (2007)

#5: Assessing your own Organisation (2007)

#3: Financial Reports (2007)

#6: Humanitarian Responses (2007)

Please ask for copies or visit CAFOD’s website

(www.cafod.org.uk)