A leading INGO used the tool to measure the riskiness of non-profit implementing partners.

The UK based INGO works in 90+ countries cross the world. In India, they engage with local partners for poverty alleviation, education, livelihood, education and few other thematic areas through local non-profit partners. This allows them to leverage their reach and local knowledge. As non-profits are required to be compliant on source of funds, accounting and management of funds – the INGO wanted an automated tool to monitor monthly compliance. 

What gets measured gets managed

The non-profit needed a risk measurement tool that would allow for easy scoring and measurement of risk at monthly level.

• Developed a matrix to categorize non-profits based on risk profiles
• Highlighted common gaps and identify trainings needs for the partners
• Developed a compliance progression graph to monitor progress over time

The INGO was able to measure the risk, thereby identifying gaps and issues and improving the financial and operational reporting of the partner non-profits.

Paper based compliance highly inefficient

The INGO was headquartered in New Delhi, India and had a hard time monitoring the risk profile of 100+ partners spread across the country. With the compliance focus on foreign funding, proper accounting and better management of funds disbursed, it was getting tricky for the INGO to ensure compliance and timely reporting. Paper based and excel based reports were making life more difficult – with multiple versions and the slow turn around.

There were specific challenges. For one, majority of the partner non-profits did not have trained staff complete the compliance requirement correctly, without assistance. The second issue was with the right infrastructure and System in place to generate the numbers at short notice. The issues compelled the INGO to device a partner risk Assessment matrix to ensure compliance.

Better risk monitoring and assessment of progress

Partner Risk assessment allows the INGO to monitor non-complying partners, ensure the best practices are being followed and government reporting needs are fulfilled.  

The tool eliminates the need for multiple follow ups over email and phone. Since all the risk and compliance reporting needs to be done within the tool, the INGO has a single version of the truth.

The tool also eliminates the slow paper based reporting, that needs to pass from one administrative level to the other before it reaches the National HQ. This enables the INGO to compile and monitor compliance at a faster pace, meeting government deadlines with ease.

And finally, the tool enables the INGO to monitor progress of partners over time.