Conference Notes: Strengthening NGO Effectiveness
Strengthening NGO Effectiveness
Presenting the BOND Effectiveness Programme
Thursday 16 July 2009
London
CONFERENCE NOTES
Introduction and overview
There is nothing new in suggesting that it is difficult to assess NGO effectiveness or in listing the
pitfalls implicit in trying to prove long-term impact. It also seems to be well accepted that NGOs are
diverse, values driven organisations which are hard to classify and group. It is difficult, therefore, to
find agreed standards and elements of practice that can apply across all types. However, now more
than ever, NGOs face increasing pressure to prove how well they have used funds with external
pressure from government and donors, and growing consensus internally that they often fail to
consistently meet the standards of transparency and accountability that are espoused in their
organisational values.
In March 2009, BOND embarked on the inception phase of the Effectiveness Programme. The halfday conference was an opportunity to present the Programme to BOND members and key
stakeholders. Leaders from the sector challenged participants and headed up discussion on the
challenges of NGO effectiveness with a view to agreeing tangible steps to bring about necessary
change in organisations and the sector more broadly.
Session 1: Key note speech and presentation of the BOND Programme
Richard Hawkes, International Programmes Director for VSO, gave a challenging presentation in
which he argued that the time for discussions about effectiveness had passed and that it was action
rather than words that was now needed. He suggested that it was external actors that are currently
leading the effectiveness agenda to which NGOs are responding, rather than NGOs themselves proactively setting the agenda and unless the NGOs can go beyond ‘knowing’ and start ‘proving’ their
worth, there are very real risks. He illustrated this with powerful quotes from both the recent White
Paper and the Green Paper, and BOND’s own documents. BOND is well-placed to lead collective
action on behalf of its members, to improve practice and share knowledge and this could and should
be considered an unmissable opportunity.
Nick Roseveare, Chief Executive of BOND provided an overview of the role BOND has played in the
effectiveness agenda both in the UK sector and as part of a broader coalition of European and global
NGO platforms. He outlined the approach that BOND was taking, as an insider, with important links
into the most senior parts of UK NGOs and through a multi-dimensional approach which focused
both on hardware (systems and approaches) and software (values, culture and attitudes) issues.
Nick discussed the progress made in building momentum through the inception phase and the
current situation with regard to funding. He ended by underscoring the need for ownership of this
initiative by BOND members themselves as the programme moves from inception phase to launch.
Session 2: Panel presentations
Alex Jacobs, Research Director for Keystone Accountability gave a compelling account of the
importance of the quality of participation and partnerships to successfully achieving development
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Conference Notes: Strengthening NGO Effectiveness
goals; how current management systems tended not to value relationships; and provided guidance
on how relationships could be more systematically managed as a central part of NGO effectiveness.
He closed with a challenge to the conference participants; ‘if as NGOs, we believe in empowerment
and accountability, how can we not judge our success based on what local people think about our
work.’
Marie Staunton, CEO of Plan UK, spoke on the topic of ‘Senior Management – the barrier to
development effectiveness?’ and provided a case study of how Plan has approached the issue of
strengthening its organisational and development effectiveness. Central to this was an
understanding of the influence that senior staff personality types had on organisational ways of
working and in challenging the views and attitudes of frontline staff on issues of programme design,
monitoring and accountability.
Michael Hammer, Executive Director of One World Trust, provided a practical overview of how
frameworks can be used to strengthen accountability and performance in the sector. He first looked
at the elements that could contribute to an effectiveness framework and issues that were required
for it to deliver results. He closed by giving an overview of self-regulation initiatives already being
used in the sector which might provide lessons for the BOND programme.
Session 3: Breakout gGroups
"A Framework approach to effectiveness - what should we measure, and how?" Managing and
Reporting NGO Effectiveness – towards an effectiveness framework. Led by Michael Hammer
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There are extremely diverse practices by UK NGOs in how they manage and report their
effectiveness which reflect the diversity and vibrancy of the sector. Rather than seeing the
limitations that diversity might present for an effectiveness framework, BOND should look for
the opportunities provided by this.
In trying to determine what to measure, it’s clear there are numerous competing priorities. One
of the key challenges will be to find a system that can find an appropriate balance between
quantitative and qualitative measurement.
"Relationships, partnership and participation in development: so what's new ?" The important
contribution made by quality relationships to NGO Effectiveness. Led by Alex Jacobs.
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There was general agreement from participants that relationships should be at the heart of the
effectiveness framework but that there are also other important components of effectiveness.
Relationships require careful planning and management; it’s important to recognise the
complexities in getting feedback & measuring aspects of relationships.
Eliciting feedback from project participants & measuring aspects of relationships is a complex
task but there are examples of good practice which can be further developed.
We should define relationships in ways that are general enough to be widely applicable across
different circumstances, but narrow enough to maintain focus - for instance, we should
recognise different purposes of relationships (e.g. between sub-contracting, capacity building
and long term equality
We need to work with donors, to create conditions that allow for, encourage & reward INGO
staff to build effective relationships.
We should draw on related work done in other sectors (such as Investors in People and local
government etc).
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Conference Notes: Strengthening NGO Effectiveness
"Our organisational cultures: do we reward managerialism or long term development
effectiveness ?" Establishing an organisational culture which supports NGO Effectiveness. Led by
Marie Staunton.
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It is important to strike an appropriate balance between the establishment of organisational
systems and the promotion of agency core values for NGOs to be effective. Perhaps at present,
the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of managerialism and systems that more
strongly reflect organisational values (such as learning and participation) need to be developed
as part of a strategy to redefine professionalism in NGO’s.
In this, the role of NGO leaders is essential in modelling good behaviour. Organisational culture
is significantly influenced by senior leaders and through positive role-modelling and challenging
attitudes, there is significant potential to make change.
Frontline staff tends to look towards management for cues on values and attitudes. This
provides an important opportunity to promote behaviour that reflects core values and that is
open, honest and self-critical.
Session 4: Summary and next steps
Participants were encouraged to provide succinct feedback on either what they’d heard during the
conference or a steer to BOND as it moves forward with the programme. Key messages included the
following;
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The programme is ambitious – BOND should consider analysing the parts of it which will have
the most impact and to focus on these.
There is an urgent need to progress the programme swiftly – the challenge for BOND is to start
delivering results. In doing this, it will be important to communicate well and to keep members
informed, HOWEVER, progress shouldn’t be sacrificed by the need for consensus.
Clear communication will be important for success – there’s too much jargon in the current
proposal.
Continue to include the donors in discussions about effectiveness – both to keep them engaged
but also to influence them (from a donor)
BOND will need to ensure that the programme is relevant to smaller members who have less
capacity and for whom it’s difficult to know how to engage.
Nick Roseveare closed the meeting by summarising the key messages thus;
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There’s a common problem diagnosis which has come through very clearly – organisations need
progress to be made in this area, and have an interest in its success.
The programme of work to address this is large and challenging. BOND needs to be selective in
how it prioritises the work so that it focuses on the areas that will potentially have the greatest
impact.
It’s a shared task – the BOND Secretariat cannot and will not be able to lead and progress this
without the engagement of the members. Organisations of difefreing size and focus will be
drawn to different segments of the programme and will be encouraged to participate as earlyadopters.
History suggests that the sector will struggle to achieve significant progress so long as work is
focussed at an individual agency level. It will be through working collectively (BOND WITH its
members) that success will be possible.
ENDS
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Conference Notes: Strengthening NGO Effectiveness
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Appendix 1
A note on attendance
Follow wide publication of the meeting 63 participants attended from 58 organisations. There was
not special targeting – invitations started at director level across the whole membership, and were
then extended to members of the BOND Quality Group, and those who had shown active interest
and engagement during the Inception Phase.
Of the organisations that attended five were non-members, being either donors (BIG Lottery Fund
and Gates Foundation and Nuffield Foundation), academics (CASS Business School) or networks
(CONCORD).
Of the 48 organisations attending, a breakdown reveals the following proportional sizes:
Organisation “BOND” size
A&B
Small
C&D
Medium
E, F&G
Large
As % of all BOND membership
c. 48%
c. 30%
c. 9%
As % of 48 orgs attending
c. 20%
(10)
c. 36%
(18)
c. 40%
(20)
% of 63 participants
16 %
(10)
29%
(18)
46%
(29)
There are many reasons why attendance may be skewed in this way. Available number of staff with
knowledge of the effectiveness agenda is relatively fewer in smaller organisations but relatively
greater in larger ones and therefore they are more likely to attend. Organisational attention may be
more focussed on the effectiveness agenda , and therefore the meeting would have been noticed
and have higher priority, within larger organisations as greater emphasis is placed on it by larger
funders, who may be more engaged with larger than smaller organisations. Finally, quite simply
tasks and meeting attendance (costs and time) is more difficult for organisations who only have a
total of 0-5 full-time staff, whatever the subject (A, B, C, & D category organisations, ie. 28, sent only
one delegate each to the meeting; E, F and Gs, ie. 20, sent 29 people between them to the meeting).
Nonetheless, awareness of this pattern of engagement will be important for the BOND Effectiveness
Programme to digest and understand, in order to ensure that resultant dynamics are appropriately
managed, and relatively less actively engaged members of BOND at least are kept abreast of
developments.
ENDS