Beyond Good Intentions: Governance, Strategy, and Impact in NGOs

Dr. Kenneth Hartigan-Go, MD, FICD

Fellow

Institute of Corporate Directors

My stint with corporate foundations was an eye opener. Foundations are NGOs that serve important basic services to uplift society. Sometimes they fill in gaps that government and business sector are unable to do.

Foundations with good heart intention need even more discipline in their governance of affairs. For one, they do not always have the luxury of resources to undertake their planned vision and mission. The scope of problems in society is also huge and we need to be strategic in our approach and in our programs. This is where the leadership – the board of trustees and the management need to align and invest in strategies on cost-effectiveness ways as well as have clear governance policy on dealing with issues, issues such as dilemmas.

Hence, the trustees need to be broad in their perspectives. They should not all think alike, and be able to ask basic question on the whys and the hows and exact accountabilities. Their being stewards – ensuring that they see risks in every undertaking – should be strategic.

There is a tendency to want to solve the symptoms of the problems as they are visible, palpable and headline catching, and it makes us feel good. We should be careful with this thinking – partly because we have limited resources and we will not be able to save everybody as well as not solving the root causes of the problems will not stop the recurrent symptoms. This is where strategic thinking and management is critical to every NGOs.

Being in NGO, we must not fall into the trap of being messianic. We also must do our due diligence in securing partnership strategically. Organizations do not always align. Government partnerships while looking good is not necessarily going to produce the intended outcomes. We should also not do projects that are opportunistic in nature. Often the purse strings (donors) dictate on what they want, and they may include grant givers from international and local benefactors. This is the same with partnering with business sector, if the latter’s agenda is about market shares. Trustees need to be strategic but also have to balance this with ethical principles.

One of the most common mistakes NGO make is to do activities, programs and projects and not learning from mistakes. This is because there is no monitoring, evaluation and learning programs in the organization. This is not strategic. Having a balance scorecard will help us in calibrating our actions, resources into a strategy map. As I always say, we should always do things for the sake of the outcomes and impact, and be mindful of the risk.

The boards of NGOS have obligations to raise the tide, the tide that will raise all ships.