Submitted by Kirsty McLullich on 2 November, 2009 - 16:36
Vision Africa's chairman, Bob Dowty, has updated his blog. His new post ponders whether our organisation needs to change its model or whether we can continue to be successful AND grow AND keep our overheads as low as 2%. These days donors demand value for money and administration costs can be a deciding factor when people are choosing who to give money to. How do we maintain our advantage and grow?
Read Bob's thoughts at http://bit.ly/nBgTM We would welcome your feedback and suggestions.
Comments
Dear Colleagues
The phrase "donors demand value for money" ... and then link this with a low percent of the money being spent on administration is a problem ... and explains why so much of the money flowing into relief and development initiatives does not achieve anything like what it should ... nor indeed what is needed. I argue that society as a whole needs to get its resources allocated to doing things that have social value ... where performance is cost effective and cost efficient. This may well call for more admin cost than is acceptable to the donors ... but at some point donors have got to learn that it is the value adding that is the key to performance not merely this simplistic low percent of admin costs. The system of value accounting that has been developed is called Community Analytics because it has a focus on the impact on the community as a whole, and is not just about the performance of an organization.
Peter Burgess
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