Topic 3: Financial resources required for your mission and mandate

In your quest to understand the financial landscape necessary for achieving your NGO’s mission and mandate, it’s time to embark on a journey of clarity and strategic planning. This exploration goes beyond mere numbers; it entails aligning our financial resources with the essence of our organisation’s purpose. 

By delving into the specifics of what your mission demands and our mandate entails, you gain invaluable insights into the types and magnitude of financial resources required. This introspection lays the groundwork for informed decision-making, ensuring that your financial strategies are intricately woven into the fabric of your NGOs mission-driven endeavours.

How to determine your NGO mission and Mandate

Determining your NGO’s mission and mandate is essential to its existence and purpose. The mission represents your organisation’s overarching goal or purpose, whereas the mandate specifies the specific objectives and scope of activities required to achieve that mission.

Defining your NGO’s mission entails identifying the core values and principles that guide your work and articulating the larger impact you hope to achieve. It addresses the fundamental question of why your organisation exists and what change you hope to see in the world. Your mission statement should be succinct, clear, and inspiring, acting as a guiding light for all of your actions and decisions.

Crafting a compelling mission and mandate requires thorough research, stakeholder engagement, and reflection on your organisation’s values, strengths, and unique contributions. It should reflect the needs of the communities you serve, align with the broader development priorities or issues you seek to address, and leverage your organisation’s expertise and resources effectively.

Ultimately, your mission and mandate should serve as a roadmap for your NGOs activities, guiding strategic planning, resource allocation, and evaluation of impact. It should inspire and mobilise stakeholders, attract support from donors and partners, and provide a clear direction for achieving meaningful and sustainable change in the world.

Assessing the financial resources required for your NGO’s mission and mandate is a crucial step in ensuring sustainable operations and effective impact. Here’s how you can go about it:

Financial Resources Required for your Mission and Mandate

In your quest to understand the financial landscape necessary for achieving your NGO’s mission and mandate, it’s time to embark on a journey of clarity and strategic planning. This exploration goes beyond mere numbers; it entails aligning our financial resources with the essence of our organisation’s purpose. 

By diving into the specifics of what your mission demands and our mandate entails, you gain invaluable insights into the types and magnitude of financial resources required. This introspection lays the groundwork for informed decision-making, ensuring that your financial strategies are intricately woven into the fabric of your NGOs mission-driven endeavours.

Activity

To fufill your NGO mission, you need to identify the capacity requirements of your organisation. You have to assess the type of resources, knowledge, tools and connections your organisation requires. 

Now, it’s time you estimate the costs of your NGO. Remember, estimates are fine as long as they can realistically be reasoned and later improved on. 

Download the word document and fill in your estimated cost in the last column.

Now, let’s estimate the costs in your organisation over an estimated period of time. For example, if your NGOs mission takes 15 year to complete then you will need to add a reasonable percentage of costs over this period of time. You will have to add a reasonable percentage of costs over this timespan. Costs for maintenance, repairs, upgrades and inflation are some costs that need to be planned for.

Below is a simple example of what this cost budget could look like. Give it a go and fill out the yearly estimated costs for your NGO for the next 5 years. Use the table below as a guide to come up with your own estimated costs spreadsheet. 

Your table will be submitted to your MzN trainer for review. Bear in mind, you can also draw up the estimated cost plan for a partner organisation. If you work at a multi-mandate organisation, then you can do this for your program area only.