Working With NGOs: 3 Ways to Avoid Common Mistakes

Working in Development can be very interesting and much more interesting working with organizations or institutions that share common vision with your organization. On the contrary, it could also be a lot of frustration working with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that do not have shared vision with your organization in their way of working. The question now is, why on earth will an organization work with an NGO that does not share like vision with your organization? There are different factors that could lead to it as the case may be. Some organizations that have made some common mistakes selecting implementing partners for the implementation of their project. To prevent some of these mistakes, organizations/donors need to avoid:

Conducting Assessments in a Hurry - Due to availability of funding, many times, some
donor organizations approach NGOs to come up with projects to be funded in some selected areas of intervention and within a time frame. Due to limited time and pressure to spend funds, some donor organization conduct assessment with NGOs in a hurry, to enable their projects commence quickly and completed within their own reporting timelines. There is need to conduct proper assessment with NGOs your organizations plan to work with. These assessments must be periodical as lots of things may have changed from the last assessment. 

Giving NGOs Impression that Available Funds Needs To Be Spent Quickly - When donors give NGOs impression that there are available funds that needs to be spent quickly, what happens is that, some of these NGOs implement the projects in a rush to meet the donors' reporting deadlines/requirements. To avoid situations like this, there needs to be clear project timelines which reflects clearly, time for call for proposals and projecting reporting periods. In addition, these project funds should be disbursed in good time to avoid last minute rush.

Failing to Monitor Projects At Grass Roots - When money is granted for projects, it is important that these projects are  adequately monitored by the donor organizations to the community level where the beneficiaries may be located. Sometimes, some donor organizations may be counting or saving cost that they do not bother going into the fields for first hand monitoring experience of the project in action. Monitoring the project to the grass root level would help produce good results and keep the implementing NGOs on their toes. This is also good opportunity to meet with the beneficiaries and for the beneficiaries to know the donor organization.