Knowledge, Skills and Strategies
for Professionals

Essentials of NGO Management (7 days)

How to manage and lead an NGO

Courses in 2010

24-30 July, Bohol Island, Philippines: Early bird fee available until 1 May; registration and payment deadline: 29 May

Course fee and registration

Course fee includes food, accommodation and local transport. Early bird fee/full fee (more information):
- Non-OECD: USD 1260/1460
- OECD: USD 1560/1760

To register, please fill in this form and send it to us by email. For further enquiries, please contact us.

Overview

Successful NGOs provide high quality services to beneficiaries. Competition among NGOs in the delivery of services and in the acquisition of donor funding is rising. To achieve success, NGOs have to continually improve and professionalize their work, which puts more and more demands on the management and leadership of an organization.

This comprehensive introductory course provides you with core knowledge, practical skills and tools to manage and lead effectively a nonprofit organization. It includes a field assessment with NGOs on Bohol Island. All course modules are presented by specialists with international field and headquarter experience with many organisations: On day one, you first learn about the history and principal types of development cooperation and humanitarian aid, the main actors involved and their different approaches to development. You will then discuss perspectives and challenges of sustainable development. On day two, the focus is on strategic planning and what an organisation needs to develop a long-term approach towards organisational sustainability. On days three and four, you will work on Results-Based Management, which is the dominant management approach of most organisations and donors, and on the project cycle. You learn the basics of how to make a needs assessment, how to design and plan a project, and how to assess whether the project is on track and what is has achieved. This is followed by the preparation for a field visit to community projects of NGOs on Bohol Island. The purpose of this field visit is to learn how to prepare and conduct a field assessment. Bohol has a vibrant community of NGOs, cooperatives and community-based organisations, which work with the local authorities and business leaders on the implementation of numerous projects. After being briefed on the projects they are going to assess, participants work in groups to prepare and conduct a short assessment of one aspect of such a project on day five. In the morning of day six, the working groups present their findings and recommendations to the other course participants. The afternoon of day six and day seven are dedicated to fostering good communication, skillful leadership and professional human resource management - management is, in the end, "the art of getting things done through people" (Mary Parker Follet).

This course includes short lectures, many exercises, group work on case studies, a field assessment and facilitated discussions.

Click here to download the course leaflet (PDF format).

Who should attend

The course will benefit in particular:
  • Project and programme managers
  • Team leaders
  • Newcomers to the nonprofit sector
  • Consultants who carry out assignments for NGOs.
How you and your organisation will benefit - Learning Objectives

On this course, participants will be able to:
  • Become familiar with the history of development cooperation and humanitarian aid, learn about current international trends and challenges
  • Describe the principal types and instruments in international development cooperation
  • Understand the role and challenges of NGOs vis-a-vis the development concerns of the community
  • Become familiar with Results-Based Management
  • Learn the basics of project mangement: How to make a needs assessment, how to design and plan a project, and how to integrate monitoring into the project plan
  • Learn about the process of internal assessments and about the use of and main criteria for external evaluations
  • Learn how to prepare and conduct a field assessment
  • Learn how to translate findings of a field assessment into practical recommendations
  • Become familiar with the principles of good communication and negotiations
  • Learn the basics of how to develop and lead a team and how to resolve conflicts
  • Gain insight into key criteria for successful human resource management.

Course programme

Day 1 Sustainable Development: Concepts and Perspectives
  • Development cooperation and humanitarian aid: From the Second World War to today
  • Main actors: States, UN, NGOs, bilateral and multilateral organisations, business companies
  • Current trends and challenges
Interplay between various Organisations in a Development Context: The Example of the Philippines
  • Round table discussion with representatives of national, provincial and local NGOs
  • Current trends and practices
Day 2 Strategic Planning
  • Where are we now - Situational analysis
  • Where do we want to go - Vision, mission, goals
  • How do we get there - Annual planning, budgeting and financing
Day 3 Results-Based Management
  • Introduction and concept of Results-Based Management
  • Results-Based Management in programme and project planning
  • The project cycle: Needs assessment - designing and planning a project - project implemenation and monitoring - evaluation
Needs Assessments
  • Aim of an assessment
  • Process of an assessment before, during and after a field visit
Day 4 Designing and Planning a Project with Logical Framework Approach
  • Step 1: Identifying and analyzing problems, stakeholder analysis
  • Step 2: Deciding the overall strategy
  • Step 3: Defining the response: Goals, objectives, assumptions and risk analysis
  • Step 4: Project Monitoring: Defining indicators, internal and external evaluations
Preparation of a field visit: How to prepare and conduct a field assessment
  • Objectives of field visit: Assessment of a community-based project
  • Preparation of field visit and interview techniques
  • How to analyse findings and to translate findings into recommendations
Day 5 Field Assessment (Working Groups)

Interviews on a community-based project with:
  • NGOs, cooperatives, self-help organisations
  • Business leaders
  • Local government officials
How to analyse findings after a field assessment and
  • Discussion of findings
  • Preparation of recommendations
Day 6 Reporting on Field Assessment

Group presentations on:
  • Problem analysis and observations
  • Recommendations and feedback to stakeholders
Communication
  • Principles of good communication
  • Internal and external reporting
  • Introduction to successful negotiations
Day 7 Leadership Development
  • Building and leading a team
  • Conflict resolution
Human Resource Management
  • Human resources policy
  • Staffing, salaries and other benefits
  • Staff development

Individual consultation

As a participant, you can obtain an individual consultation from one of the trainers during the course.

Course venue

If there are no management courses for NGOs in your country yet, please read about our partnership approach, the benefits for partner organisations and three simple steps to organize the training courses for NGOs in your community.

NGO Management School   Switzerland  Copyright 2009: Some rights reserved