Grant Management in the space of CSR: Developing Strategic Partnership

For the development of strategic partnership with various NGOs o implementation

organisation, identification & validation of a partner is very important. Symposiums Pan

India opens up a platform for various NGOs & implementation organisations to come

forward & share their capacity of work, domain & their efficiency on ground to get the leads

in the process of selection of organisations for the CSR fund.

Project formulation & project implementation plan in consultation with NGO or the

organisation for the targeted beneficiaries is important aspect to be considered.

Conceptualisation & proposal development with need assessment, activity work plan,

timelines, etc. needs to be done for effective usage of the budget.

Legal & regulatory frameworks needs to be shared right in the beginning to avoid any

discrepancies in future like contracts or Memorandum of Understanding with the

organisation specifying the core values, vision & mission of HCL Foundation.

The key process involved under Grant Making are :

Project Delivery

Regular management of the grants in an efficient, transparent and accountable manner is

important in which all the compliances are met & financial management is done. For this

robust financial management system at the organisation needs to be adopted or developed.

For this independent panel of auditors can be selected to utilise their services to conduct

audits of the grants provided to various organisations. Digitisation of the process makes it

more transparent, manageable & trustworthy for the current & potential stakeholders

which can ensure all regulatory compliance and government reporting as per Companies Act
2013.

Reports & documentation of the work done plays an important role in sharing the status &

the impact of the grant given to the organisations. Helping the organisations through the

development of format or structure to measure outcomes & manage progress should be an

integral part of the grant management under CSR.

Ensure sustainability right from the beginning by involving community, NGOs and important

stakeholder in designing the planning stage of the project. Follow a participatory process to

identify the most appropriate enduring mechanism and engage partners for providing

resources to carry forward our project learnings. Sustainability of the project can be ensured

though stakeholder participation and developing a feedback mechanism in the project

There are organisations which work for NGO validation & Partnership in order to have a

transparency among the stakeholders & potential partners like CAF, India NGO Validation &

Partnerships Initiative in which third party accreditation is done. It’s like certification for a

NGO to have that can be used as their required essential criteria.