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 1 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 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. 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). 2 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. 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; 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; 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 3 Conference Notes: Strengthening NGO Effectiveness 4 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