Documentation and Sustainability of Development Organisations

Many make up their mind to start a non-profit non-governmental organization (NPNGO) with real social intention, while many other did with the intention to make money with social intention which I think is the most common purpose. The later does not mean a social entrepreneurship. Someone who doesn’t have any educational background also makes up this mind for such ideas and gets registered an organisation just by paying some ten times more than the actual charge of the registration to someone, a mediator, who does it. This is not the case of only not-so-educated peoples but even for those who have gained knowledge of social work/developmental organisations. This happens in both rural and urban across India and Bihar is not less than none, I guess. And these become uncountable number of NPNGOs in the registry and around 10 per cent of this is dormant. 

Every organisation (NPNGO) cannot escape from showing annual work report and financial report at the time of applying for any project fund to donors. For the beginner organisations are Government, because everything fake and fabricated is accepted in Government with bribe. I am not using the word ‘maintain’ in place of ‘show’ in the last line because it is not maintained/kept in mind throughout the year in such an organisation which is registered in the way mentioned above. They don’t know how to get registered an NGO by themselves, then maintaining or writing such a work report and financial report is just next to impossible. For this also they just pay out INR300 to someone who does this regularly. This has also become a way of money making for those who write such things- an end product of copy-and-paste. The person will put something, some works in which every paragraph is one project. Everything has to be done in fake because for the last couples of years they haven’t done anything voluntarily for social benefit. There are two worst things which should not be with any such organisation- they don’t know how to write/ do documentation and they don’t have the true intention do something for the benefit of society. These are the two reasons why NGOs of such kind remain as name only. Some get some governmental projects through bribe or acquaintances. Let’s assume they have got a project anyhow. This happens! Let’s see what’s next. 

The whole point I want to talk around is documentation. In rural NGOs writing down of whatever they think and do or documentation, to use the term, is the weakest point. This is not the case of only rural NGOs but many in urban also. I have seen three types of NGOs- one which has realised that documentation is the weakest point but don’t have the skills and knowledge and also understood that overcoming of which the organisation will grow very fast; second is the one which has not realised the importance of documentation, don’t have the skills of documentation and hence don’t feel required so much and thus don’t realised it as weakness; third is the one which realised the importance of documentation,  have the knowledge and skills but not used to do, may be because they do not taken it as weakness. I grossly take this as inability to realise the importance and significance of documentation and hence not the effort to overcome this challenge.  

Let’s talk little bit extensively on the significance of documentation at different stages of a project. One guy approached me to discuss that his idea of giving training to farmers for dairy farming. He is not literate but not educated. He doesn’t have knowledge and skill of documentation. Even when I know well about his weakness, I asked him to write down his ideas or concept in a piece of paper in his own language. People conceive writing down is supposed to be done in English, which is not necessary at all. I asked him to write in Hindi. I told him to write down why he wants to do, who will directly benefit from the training, what he want to achieve, what are the things that will required to conduct the training, what are the cost at each and every task, what things will tell you have achieved what you wanted to? Additionally I asked him to write down the how the training is going to be-the model/module of the training. This is a very simple and unstructured ex-ante project report. Although, this would be enough for him who don’t have knowledge and skills of documentation until the phase his project initiates on the ground.

Why I told him to write down all these is that this will definitely give us a depiction of the project. Just looking at this anyone can have an overall concept of the project. Project Managers call this, ex-ante evaluation as Work Breakdown Structure. This will enable us to see what is wrong, what is left out and what is okay. You made up small ideas for big thing, these small ideas are what you written down, otherwise you may forget. Ideas in the mind are always unstructured. It comes to structure only when you write down. Things done without structure look unauthentic and unreliable. To get ready a blueprint of the project is always best idea before execution of the task. It is said that ‘easier said than done’ so here also ‘easier thought than done’. We assume what we plan anything in a room is alright, still we get lost in the field, is something not uncommon. 

This document/write up /ex-ante report is the first phase of documentation. This is a reference for the execution of the project. Whenever we get lost in field we look back the blueprint and thus come to the track. This will be used for monitoring and mid and final evaluation/impact assessment of the project. When we use the term Monitoring, Evaluation and Impact assessment it is not to get fear at all. It differs according the size of the project. By monitoring I just want to mean how well the project is going in all aspect, and by Evaluation/Impact Assessment (the two terms are not necessary similar) I just want to mean if the project has achieved what we thought to achieve as written down in ex-ante project report (/blueprint)? I have mentioned that writing of ex-ante evaluation/planning of the project helps in writings after initiation of the ground work and importantly, what really helpful is in final project report documentation. 

Once the project has initiated the objective of documentation is to write the success stories, achievement case studies, Most Significant Change (MSC) stories. These writings are the means to showcase the success of the project. These writings will help to scale up the same project if donor satisfies the project, which is mostly based on these said writings. Not only for the same project but also these writings are definitely used to showcase the identity of the NGO. And thus plays a determining factor of getting new project either in the same sector or other. Many NGOs remain as it was because of the inability to write these stuffs. 

I have seen organisations which have done good jobs/projects in the past life of the organisation but they didn't document anything about the project(s). Now they feel repentance that they should have done it. They forgot everything now when they realised and when they need it now which they can use as effective supporting documents for funding proposals. It is axiom that written document is the only means of communication to external entities. There is no way escape from this. Some organisations may get fund without these writing from Government or other donors is because of bribe they pay or acquaintances they have in the donor agency. Telling lies is not a sustainable approach of survival of an organisation, which is quite common in many such organisations I have been talking about at the beginning. 

Once the importance of documentation is internalised with the managers/owners of the organisation they can start hunting for resources for documentation, may be cost and human resource, which I think both are the biggest challenge in small organisation. This challenge should be sorted out if you want to grow your organisation. For the small organisation I have been talking about it is a challenge to have quality staff who can do all these. Therefore, organisation can hire consultants to do this job of writing/planning, which is only one time investment. Consultant does not mean expensive highly technically expert individuals. It differs according to the need and (or) size of the organisation. By consultant I just want to mean here is the individual who will just deliver job done in a specific period of time at a mutually agreed cost (/price for the consultancy). This can be anyone who can do the job. Inviting students as interns is one good option for these things get done at minimal cost. 

I have the strong believe that once the challenge of a honest documentation is overcome your organisation will be one of the socially well accepted and socially recognised, that will (is the reasons to) attract funds in several sectors and sub-sectors and thus becomes a real change agent.