Working for NGOs for more than ten years now, my interest evolved from helping NGOs with the latest possibilities of new technology, to better understand ‘the impact of impact’. I decided to focus on international NGOs, with a special interest in Program Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (PMEL or MEAL).

I found partnership with Vera Solutions, and our consulting organization became their very first implementing partner of Amp Impact, an innovative and flexible PMEL solution based on Salesforce technology. Using our core competence to make the world a better place, my colleagues and I have served several NGOs, automating their program management and monitoring and evaluation processes.

I found that there is a lot to learn, for me and for the practitioners of the NGOs. We can learn a lot from each other, so I took the initiative to organize round table events.

In an edition earlier this year, we addressed the value of using frameworks, and focussed on IATI, which is an open standards based framework, developed by NGOs with the UN at the center. IATI is embraced by many governments as mandatory part of reporting on their funded projects, which makes up a large part of the Western NGO funding.

Leo Stolk, BI Lead at Oxfam Novib, former IATI Governing Board Member, was invited to do the opening keynote. He opened about the benefits and issues to adopt IATI, both from his experience as IATI Board Member, dealing with many NGOs, as well as from his own practice at Oxfam.

Nowadays there are over 1550 organizations publishing in IATI. The IATI vision is that every actor or organization should join, not only NGOs but also governments, multilateral organizations and even private sector organizations. The common objective is better effectiveness and impact, by improving coordination amongst actors.

Linear results driven, versus network oriented co-creation
The old-fashioned way of thinking is more linear: a governance invests in a cause, an NGO implements and reports the results. The reality, however, is way more complex. NGOs work together with local organizations, with multiple donors, and other NGOs, that leads to a much more networked vision and way of working. IATI is capable to demonstrate and monitor the interdependencies and relations in such a network.

Why should an NGO use IATI?
Advocacy, and practicing what you preach, is a good driver to publish to IATI. It adds to your credibility because of the transparency provided in the IATI framework. Leo explained that Oxfam has chosen to publish to IATI and become an IATI member, because Oxfam wants to be open and transparent to all its stakeholders.

How complex and expensive is it to implement IATI properly?
The process of implementing IATI at Oxfam Novib started with the vision of its leadership. They gave the organization six months to get its act together, getting all the data from the many different programs and sources into the IATI framework. “We will publish even when not fully ready. Quality in, quality out; garbage in, garbage out. That shook up the whole organization, and within weeks after starting publishing, the quality of the data increased enormously.’’

Using Amp Impact as PMEL application
Katrina Seidel, Business Developer at Vera Solutions, also joined the round table. She explained how Amp Impact, a PMEL solution using the Salesforce platform, can manage the project information in such a way that the system is IATI ready, and IATI publications can be generated. This is not a case of simply plug and play. The IATI requirements ask for detailed data which normally are not addressed in the Program Management process.

“IATI is relatively simple for smaller organizations and often more complex for larger ones.’’ Leo explained that at Oxfam Novib they opted to automate the process of generating IATI publication files, and build an interface for SAP to publish to the IATI registry. It is complex and costly to maintain, but creates transparency throughout the organization and makes the data trustworthy. Moreover, it allows them to update the published data in IATI on a daily basis.

How can IATI help NGOs improve transparency and integrity?
NGOs have the tendency to report data that make them look good only. But that does not always reflect the real situation. And that is an integrity issue. NGOs should aim to share realistic figures and not just ‘report what the outside world wants to see’.

There is an interesting example of Nathalie Sibide, CEO OpenStreetMaps in Mali, where citizens can add feedback and comments regarding published IATI activities on their dashboard. Also see this blogpost on the helpdesk site of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Nathalie shared the dashboard recently in a webinar with the Ministry.

Want to join a discussion like this as well? On the 25th of May we are organizing another round table, click here for more information and registration.