PATTIC - People’s Alliance for Trust And Transparency for CSOs
Vision: How can we make trust & transparency tools accessible to all CSOs regardless of their size, capacity & location
Please note that this is a work in progress which will evolve based on inputs from various stakeholders.
Key Stakeholders
Key Stakeholders
Examples
Finance Teams in CSOs esp Leaders
Participants of the Fin & Compliance sessions
Admin & Operations Teams in CSOs esp Managers
CA Firms, Accounting Firms
Saathi
Capacity Building Teams of Orgs, Coalitions
GRI, Climate Asia, Guidestar India, etc
Technologists
Students looking for Internships
Yaashvi
Funders with a focus on ecosystem building
RNP, Rainmatter, Co-Impact, Porticus
Govt Departments
TBD
Insights from speaking with around 35 of them directly and through partners:
OD Aspects
Description
Sub Aspects
Board and Governance
Organisation has policies and processes to build a governance structure that includes a diverse board membership with the experience and expertise to provide strategic direction and guidance to the organisation.
Composition of Board
Experience of Board
Roles and Responsibilities
Governance - Contribution
Employment - Diversity
Legal and Compliance
Organisation has the ability to follow and comply with legal and regulatory requirements and adapt to changes/amendments brought into the regulatory framework.
Obligations
Compliance
Monitoring
Organisation has techniques, processes, tools and technology designed and deployed to track progress, partnerships, and growth.
Strategy Process
Data collection-digital Infrastructure
Data Collection-process
Data protection
Donor Data
Financial Management
Organisation uses financial tools and policies to ensure proper financial tracking, authority, and control systems.
Tally/Book keeping software
Financial manual/policy exists and defines authorities and control systems
Organization has the following registers:
Salary Employees
Leaves
Assets
Petty Cash
Cheques/Payments
There are clear formats/templates for handling:
financial transactions
advances
reimbursement
payments and loans
Reconciliation with the bank accounts
Form10B
FCRA filings
Limits on cash transactions
Grant Management Cycles
Auditing on time
OD Aspects
Average Maturity Score
Financial Management
95.96%
Legal and Compliance
75.76%
Communications
63.64%
Organisation Programme Strategy
60.23%
Community
59.85%
Leadership Development
57.71%
Board and Governance
53.98%
Talent Acquisition, Talent Development, Staff wellbeing, Organisational Culture and Organisational structures
40.32%
Strategic planning, Vision Building and Mission
36.36%
Monitoring
24.24%
Learning and Evaluation
24.24%
Use of Technology
11.69%
HR processes, Policies and Procedures
11.16%
Key insights:
Board & Governance:
Board members are aware of their roles and responsibilities and take part in meetings regularly.
Their contribution to day to day affairs of the organisations are minimum.
While meetings are conducted as per the constitution, records of notices and intimation of changes to statutory authorities are lacking.
Legal & Compliance:
Most NGOs have basic legal compliances done. However, they face challenges in keeping up to date with the changing rules.
Organizations need to review and update their financial policies, especially regarding transaction limits and foreign funding.
Staff need more training to track updated rules and regulations, as well as carry on compliance work inside their own organisation.
Absence of comprehensive staff records and approval of HR policies by the board. Organizations struggle with legal compliances, such as filing returns with the Registrar of Societies and maintaining necessary payroll records.
Monitoring:
Monitoring systems in most NGOs are very basic (physical registers, xerox copies, notebooks, etc.). Some of them use excel sheets to keep track, but there is a risk of data loss as it is manually put from sources like whatsapp, messages or physical registers.
The NGOs have expressed their need of knowledge and handholding to learn about monitoring systems and emerging technologies in it.
Financial Management:
Financial management is not a critical problem at most mid sized NGOs Organizations often do not prepare detailed annual budgets for program and administrative expenses.
Smaller NGOs had Inadequate budgetary controls, lack of up-to-date and accurate accounting records, including cash books, ledgers, and salary registers.
A few NGOs needed support with GST filings as they sometimes sell their work to raise funds.
Regular internal financial reporting is often not practiced, leading to a lack of transparency and control.
There are gaps in expenditure controls, procurement policies, and segregation of financial duties.
Many organizations lack dedicated fundraising strategy or personnel, which impacts their financial sustainability.
Key Suggestions from them to tackle the above challenges
Removing language Barriers will enhance understanding and participation. Differentiate Learning: Activities will be tailored to NGOs’ skill levels
Case studies based learning on difficult topics like FCRA
Common Knowledge base of Compliances
On Demand Mentorship Support: One-on-one or small-group interactions with experts Regular Capacity Building/Update Webinars(60-90 mins each) as a platform for learning and interactive discussions
Access to shared resources/personnel for under staffed NGOs Shared Checklists and reminders
Community of Practitioners to help each other
Proposed Solution for year 1:
Mission: All Civil Society Organisations regardless of size, budget should have access to the tools & resources needed for better governance, compliance and financial operations.
Values: To be figured out with initial founding partners
