Charities

Accounting for International Development

Neil Jennings Founder, AfID 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 is the founder of Accounting for International Development, supporting a broad range of non-profi t organisations globally. A 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 fi nancial 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 fi ve 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-profi t 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 fi rst started, and in an era of decreasing foreign aid and rising donor scepticism, the need for sound fi nancial 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

isn’t the case. The truth is we need accountants from all backgrounds and all levels of experience – there is something for everyone!

It’s a real privilege to look back at all that’s been achieved over the last ten years, none of which would have been possible, of course, without our wonderful volunteers. Their hard work and commitment have assisted the development, and in some cases the very survival, of so many organisations doing fantastic work in their communities.

To begin your own volunteer journey, visit www.AfID.org.uk, email info@afi d.org.uk or call +44 (0)208 741 7000.

Case study: Guatemala

The partner Based in the Guatemalan highlands, Amigos de Santa Cruz has a local staff of over 20 working to improve the lives of the indigenous people of Santa Cruz la Laguna and surrounding villages. They are entirely staffed by members of this small, rural community.

The volunteer Certifi ed public accountant Matt Gerkens was looking to do something different and more meaningful with his holiday time. His priority when looking at potential assignments options was to ensure that it was a good fi t to his proven skills and expertise built up through a 14 year career at Grant Thornton.

Matt’s familiarity managing the audits of public and private companies, both large and small, made him a strong candidate for supporting Amigos. He had also served on the board for multiple not-for-profi ts, giving him some understanding of the challenges facing developing NGOs.

The challenge Prior to Matt’s placement, Amigos had grown quite signifi cantly with an increase in income of nearly a third in the course of a year and it needed a volunteer to assess its processes and controls to ensure they were still appropriate. Both the Executive Director and the In-country Director had also identifi ed the pressing need to strengthen both their fi nancial reporting and budgeting. Without stronger fi nancial systems being put into place and a better trained staff, it was felt that Amigos might have no longer been able to sustain its numerous programmes, severely limiting its impact on local benefi ciaries.

The assignment Matt fi rst examined the internal processes around cash management to ensure they had proper policies, procedures and controls in place to prevent or detect signifi cant misappropriation of cash.

Matt then looked at areas of improvement with the administrative assistant, who is responsible for making entries into QuickBooks. This included the setting up of recurring transactions, custom reporting and accruals. The budgets were reviewed with the programme coordinators and Matt helped develop tools and templates to help in the budgeting process, training the coordinators of each programme in its use.

Key objectives achieved ● Review of overall accounting procedures, including the use of QuickBooks and expenses record keeping. ● Assistance with organisational and programme specific budgeting. ● Accounting and administrative procedures of income generating activities. ● Evaluation of reporting provided to funders.

The impact As a result of Matt’s placement, Amigos de Santa Cruz saw the beginnings of how stronger fi nancial systems, together with better trained and empowered staff, would build the capacity of the organisation and ultimately improve the lives of the indigenous people.

“This experience really allowed me to make a difference with an organisation that was in need of someone with my skill set. Being able to talk to my colleagues and clients about the experience and what I was able to accomplish has been great.”

Matt Gerkens

What happened next? Matt was Amigos’ fi rst AfID volunteer. As part of AfID’s long term programme of support, the charity has since received fi ve further fi nance volunteers from across the US, the UK and Europe. Each volunteer’s scope of work builds on the previous placement and the organisation’s ever-changing needs, from preparing for external audit to assessing the impact of new policies.