CHARITIES
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Accounting for International Development
Neil Jennings explains how accountants and auditors can use their skills to provide pro bono or remunerated support to a broad range of non-profit organisations around the world. Neil Jennings Founder, AfID
Neil Jennings is the founder of Accounting for International Development, supporting a broad range of non-profit organisations globally.
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ccounting for International Development (AfID) is an organisation that offers support to charities across Africa, Asia and Latin America through working with accountants to provide financial management support to over 500 not-for-profits in over 50 countries. Now ten years old, AfID started as a result of my own volunteering experience with a small Rwandan NGO set up by orphans and refugees of the 1994 genocide. It became obvious that whilst the staff had achieved amazing results with little resources, the survival of their activities hung desperately in the balance due to a lack of financial management experience and a faltering donor relationship. Volunteers had come and gone but sadly never addressing this issue and never really contributing to their long-term development and sustainability. On my return to the UK, I decided to leave my role as a director for an international accountancy recruiter and set up AfID, which started with five adventurous accountants, including Bob Gooderick, who carried out pilot assignments
in Cambodia, Tanzania and Malawi. From those humble beginnings, AfID has grown quickly over the last ten years with more charities being supported each and every year. Our volunteers providing the support are as diverse and varied as the NGOs themselves with the youngest to date being 22 years old and the oldest a spritely 78. AfID reports that as many as 25% of their volunteers have gone on to secure a rewarding full-time career in the not-for-profit sector post assignment. For our tenth anniversary, we have set ourselves the ambitious target of sending over 200 volunteers on assignments, which range in length from just two weeks up to 12 months, during the course of the year. Ten years on from when we first started, and in an era of decreasing foreign aid and rising donor scepticism, the need for sound financial management has never been so clear. With demands from NGOs continuing to rise, we are always in need of more volunteers. There is a tendency to imagine that you need to have decades of experience before being able to have any sort of lasting impact, but this simply ISSUE 109 | AIAWORLDWIDE.COM
