In order to satisfactorily advice Child Health Action (CHA) on whether to pursue the USAID/Benin programmatic opportunity, a lot of information has to be gathered and systematically analyzed to provide for an informed decision-making process. The kind of information to gather will provide an understanding of what Child Health Action is all about and how they co-operate with other organizations and entities to achieve their set objectives. This paper is, therefore, designed to critically outline the kind of information to be gathered, why the information is relevant to the quest and finally give an explanation of how the information in question will be obtained. The discussions will be structured in paragraphs that are centered on one kind of information to familiarize with, its relevance and how to obtain the information.
First and foremost, information on Child Health Action’s office structure and the number of employees will be required. This will cover the number of offices in the organization, their departmental divisions, the specific roles of each department, mainly focusing on the number of officers in each department, and their duties and responsibilities in the organization. This will provide an outline of the number of employees in the organization and their duties. It will also work to elaborate the chain of command in the organization. This information is relevant because making the application will require a number of employees diverting from their normal duties and taking up the task that is time-consuming. This will mean that the organization should have adequate employees to be able to set others aside to work on the application and still remain fully functional. This kind of information can be obtained from directly talking to the organization’s Human Resource manager. This can also be done by looking at the corporate charters that provide basic information of an organization [1] and by examining job profile documents that contain all the necessary information of the roles present in the organization and who fulfill these roles [2].
An understanding of Child Health Action’s organizational capacity is also mandatory. Organizational capacity refers to the ability of an organization to fulfill its objectives [3]. It can also be referred to as organizational performance. This captures the ability of the organization to act towards, within and actually actualize their set goals. This kind of information is of particular interest and it can provide insight on whether the organization can meet the USAID/Benin project objectives. This will help put into focus the ability of the company to satisfy the USAID project requirements. This kind of information can be acquired by sampling the organization’s project reports for complete analysis of their performance with regards to the achievement of goals. The documents can be acquired from their records department and read through to establish performance patterns that will be helpful in the final decision-making process.
Thirdly, I would like to familiarize myself with the organization’s context and relationship with stakeholders. It is the stakeholders that provide most the operating capital for non-profit organizations [4]. This kind of capital is more than 50% of the total income and includes fees for services, goods from private sources, investment income and private contributions [5]. The information on the kind of relationship between the organization and its stakeholders is relevant because a good organizational-stakeholder relationship enhances the in-flow of capital and hence more circulating funds in an organization. This will, as a result, fully drive the projects and other organizational goals. This kind of information can be obtained from one-on-one interviews with the major stakeholders of the organization. The list of major stakeholders can be acquired from the organization’s manager and their addresses and telephone numbers listed therein.
Apart from getting an insight on the source and supply of an organization’s capital, it is of importance to evaluate the organization’s financial position. It is to be remembered that the application to the USAID/Benin programmatic opportunity, apart from consuming a lot of time, it also attracts preparation and submission costs that are charged to the applicant [6]. Therefore, a clear understanding of the organization’s financial position is of importance. This is mainly to avoid too much stretching of the organization’s resources. Also, with the financial position of the organization in mind, decisions can be made on whether the organization can afford addition charges that come with applying for the opportunity. This kind of information can be acquired by carefully going through the organization’s financial records. This will help put into perspective the nature of expenditure, amount of profit and/or loss made by the organization annually. Also, external auditors could be used to help prepare an audit report that will help in determining the viability of the financial statements issued [7] which will in return determine whether they should be taken seriously and considered before drawing conclusions.
Fifthly, the kind of programmes being offered by the organization is to be taken into account. This is mainly because the USAID/Benin programme opportunity is mainly centered on compacting malaria and addressing issues concerned with family planning, mother and child health and gender-based violence (GBV) [6]. It is important to familiarize myself with the organization’s main areas of concern so as to ensure relevance of the opportunity to the goals of the organization and also to ensure that the opportunity will be beneficial to the organization in terms of propagating the organization’s objectives. This kind of information can be obtained from the activity charts made by the organization that outlines the activities to be undertaken and their specific objectives. Also, by looking at the activity charts, information on the number of ongoing projects can be deduced. This, coupled with expenditure reports, can provide insight on the amount of money required and used by the organization at the moment. This will be of importance in determining whether it will be wise or not to divert certain amounts of money to the application.
Lastly, it is of importance to analyze the degree of compliance of the organization with the necessary statutory requirements. The degree of compliance with the required statutory obligations will inform on the organization’s ability to meet demands from external entities. This will, therefore, inform on whether the organization can meet the USAID/Benin’s requirements in the execution of the opportunity were they to win the award. This kind of information can be acquired through the acquisition of all mandatory organization’s documents that are a statutory requirement. These documents include but are not limited to Non-Governmental Organization constitutions, letters of the organization, operating certificates, memoranda of agreement and board forms. A comparison of the information in the organization’s documents with those stipulated by various regulatory bodies and NGO regulation acts can be made and appropriate inferences drawn from the observed patterns.
Therefore, the decision-making process that is intended to provide concrete advice to organizations on big financial issues should be made after thorough critical analysis of the outcome of the decision. This calls for the acquisition of adequate information regarding an organization and the issue being debated upon. In the case of Child Health Action (CHA), the information of interest includes the organization’s office structures, number of employees, its organizational capacity, financial position, relationship with other stakeholders, the kind of programmes it offers and lastly, its degree of compliance to statutory requirements. This information will guide the decision-making process to ensure that the advice deduced at the end of the process is an informed decision and hence the right kind of advice that will not result in a devastating financial crisis for the organization in question.
References
[1]. Investing Answers, “Corporate Charter”. 2018 [Online]. Available: https://gooleweblight.com/i?u=https://www.investinganswers.com/financial-dictionary/businesses-corporations/corporate-charters-5548&hl=en-KE. [Accessed Mar 14, 2018]
[2]. Recruiterbox.com, “The 13 Documents you need to start your HR Department”. 2018 [Online]. Available: https://gogleweblight.com/i?u=https://recruiterbox.com/blog/the-13-documents-you-need-to-start-your-hr-department&hl=en-KE. [Accessed March 14, 2018]
[3]. B. T. Kolar. “Exploring the Dimensions of Organizational Capacity for Local Social Service Delivery Organizations Using A Multi-Method Approach”. Virginia: Virginia Technical University, 2011
[4]. S. Shanker, “Nonprofit Finance: A Practical Guide for Controllers, CFOs and Board Members”. London: Elsevier, 2010
[5]. Grantspace.org, “How are Non-Profits Funded?” 2017 [Online]. Available: https://grantspace.org/tools/knowledge-base/funding-resources/general/how-are-nonprofits-funded. [Accessed Mar 14, 2018]
[6]. USAID, “Notice of Funding Opportunity (NFO) Number: 72068018RFA00001: Integrated Health Services Activity”. Benin: USAID from American People, 2014
[7]. Accounting tools, “Audit Report”. 2017 [Online]. Available: https://gooleweblight.com/i?u=https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/2017/5/5/audit-report&hl=en-KE&tg=44&tk=16041775491043128512 . [Accessed Mar 14, 2018]
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