Dar Es Salaam, TZ – Ensuring grants are well spent – 27 Jun 2014

Molly’s Network is continuing to ensure that donor funds are well spent by building a credible network of non-profit organisations in Tanzania.

In 2013, the organisation focused on redeveloping its assessment tools in partnership with the Good Governance Group (a corporate firm specialising in risk analysis in emerging markets). This partnership was crucial in developing new assessment tools, both to ensure coverage of all key areas, but more importantly, to develop a complex mechanism that utilises quantitative, qualitative, and intuitive information to score non-profit organizations as Assessed, High Potential or Accredited.

During the second quarter of 2014, Molly’s Network has been piloting these assessment tools with nine organization assessments, and also developing capacity building plans with five High Potential and one Accredited organsisation. They have also continued to conduct monitoring visits and transfer funds to two rural community development organizations in partnership with Better Lives.

The organization assessments follow a step process comprising short application, phone call to discuss the assessment process, two donors/partner references, visit by two assessors to the organization, and Assessment Panel review of the assessors’ report.

Assessed level means that Molly’s Network explains to the organization the list of items that it would need to improve before Molly’s Network could partner with them.

High Potential means that the organisation is almost at Accreditation level, and Molly’s Network helps it develop a capacity building plan that addresses the weaker areas highlighted in the assessment. This capacity building work is funded by the donor/partner that funded the assessment. This work includes supporting organisations as they implement their plans, and monitoring their progress on a quarterly basis.

Accredited means that the organization is promoted by Molly’s Network to their network of potential donors and partners.

Congratulations to ATD Fourth World for being a good example of an Accredited organization that can be read about at:
http://www.mollysnetwork.org/accredited/accredited-atd-fourth-world/

Well done also to Maarifa ni Ufunguo for earning the Accredited score. The organization does very important work with nursery school children in a rural, pastoralist community.

All the assessed organisations, irrespective of how they ‘scored’, said they found the process extremely valuable in helping them identify their strengths and how they can improve.  Liz Corbishley of Molly’s Network shared that “something that we found was that many local organisations were set up and run by one or two individuals, especially in the early days, and they therefore often did not have the wider experience to know how they compared to relevant standards and best practices.”

Donors/strategic partners funded the assessments, and said that the process had been extremely useful to them by helping identify how they could better support their partners, and that a key reason to work with Molly’s Network is the help with developing their partners’ capacity.  This allows the donor to focus more on ensuring the partner is meeting their program’s objectives. In addition, using an independent organisation for the capacity building enables the donor to easily separate the program funding from capacity building funding.