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Course Dates: These courses are run on demand and you can register and start at any time.
Workshops: Where ten or more people are registered from a single organisation or from a single country, Fahamu can organise a local workshop (there will be additional costs for this).
Free CDROM: When you register for a taught course you will receive a free copy of our 'Introduction to human rights' CDROM.
Discounts: It may be possible to arrange a discounted price for groups of ten or more. Please contact us for details.
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The aim of this course is make financial management accessible and useful. It will be of particular interest to non-finance staff: project officers, programme managers, senior managers and board members.
The course is part of Learning for Change, an integrated collection of courses developed by Fahamu in conjunction with the University of Oxford.
Learning for Change pioneers a unique and innovative approach to learning. Using CDROMs, workshops and a learning community mediated by email, these courses will help you build capacity with minimum disruption to your own work. Each course includes practical projects that will benefit your organisation directly.
Every participant who successfully completes a course will be awarded a certificate from the University of Oxford.
Objectives
The objective of the course is to take you through the basic principles and techniques of organisational finance. Financial management is a vital part of managing operations; but we do not have to be financial experts or qualified accountants to understand and use financial management tools. Financial management is based on common sense ideas; indeed, it can even be enjoyable and rewarding.
When you have completed this course you will be able to:
- Keep accounts
- Design budgets
- Monitor budgets
- Put in place internal control mechanisms
- Manage cash flow
- Work more effectively and efficiently with donors and finance staff
- Use financial management to create strategies
- Integrate gender into financial planning.
However, you will not be expected to acquire any level of proficiency in these techniques; that will be the duty of your organisation’s financial manager.
We recommend that learners registering for this course also register for the fundraising as well as for the leadership and management courses, as they are all complementary to good management.
FINANCE FOR THE NON-FINANCIAL MANAGER
Course structure and outline
The course will be divided into four phases.
Two phases involve learning at a distance (in your organisation) from the CDROM; two involve attendance at two regional workshops.
The first eight sections are learned from the CDROM and will take you eight weeks to complete. This learning will be complemented by a tutor who will be available on-line.
1. Introduction
This section provides an overview of financial management in NGOs and introduces some key language and concepts.
2. What is financial management?
This section places financial management in the context of organisational management. It covers:
- The concept of managing
- Who is responsible for financial management
- Why financial management is important to NGOs;
- Financial management as a shared responsibility
- How to achieve good practice in financial management.
3. Who is responsible for financial management?
This deals with the various levels of financial responsibility in an organisation, including:
- Individual responsibility
- Responsibility in law
- The responsibility of trustees.
Responsibility of course also extends to staff that have authority delegated to them.
4. Why is financial management important for NGOs?
This section sets financial management in the context of the organisation and its work. We explore:
- How good financial management can help protect an organisation against unexpected events and external risks
- How it contributes to giving an organisation a competitive edge over other NGOs
- The legal and moral obligations for good financial management.
5. How do we achieve good practice in financial management?
This section looks at how keeping accounts, budgeting, internal controls and financial monitoring all contribute to good practice.
6. Advanced financial management techniques for managers
This section goes into more advanced aspects of financial management by looking at:
- How cash flows should be managed
- Working with donors and finance staff
- Strategic financial management.
7. Financial management and organisational values, including gender relations
This section relates organisational values to financial management. NGOs often run according to strong ethical and moral values – most notably, perhaps, gender equality. In this section we examine how such values influence financial management and how to organise projects to take these values into account.
8. Technician's tool-kit
This section contains additional explanations, practical techniques and procedures, policies and additional resources
Workshop
The five-day workshop will use a number of participatory methodologies to cement and enhance what has been already learnt from the CDROM.
The final balance of course content will be decided by those attending the course, according to their interests and training needs.
The core components will include the following.
- What is financial management and why is it important for NGOs?
- Roles and responsibilities - financial management as a team effort
- Which accounting records you should keep in your NGO - and why
- Structuring the accounts - understanding the power of the chart of accounts and project cost centres
- Managing and accounting for core costs (overheads) - identifying direct and indirect costs, apportioning costs between projects
- Building and using effective budgets - including project and organisational budgets; cash flow forecasts and funding grids; foreign currency and multi-year budgeting
- Monitoring and controlling budgets - preparing and using budget comparison reports
- Reporting to donors - how to access the information that donors require to meet obligations
- An overview of internal control - using common sense precautions to safeguard the organisation's assets and protect staff.
Final workshop
The final workshop is a chance to do two things: to reflect and evaluate the experience of the whole course.
Learning activity and assessment exercises
Throughout the course you will be asked to complete various exercises and assignments. These are of two types.
Learning activity
These are quick activities, usually when a subject is first introduced, which ask you to draw on your own experience to provide some instant ideas on an issue. Alternatively, learning activities may help you learn a particular skill.
Learning activities will vary in length but usually last no more than 15 minutes. They are not assessed by your tutor. Sometimes, however, you might be asked to mail your answers to your tutor and the email group (see below).
After many of the exercises, we offer you some pointers on how you should have tackled them. Several of the exercises are aimed at getting you to produce materials that will be useful in your future financial management work.
Assessment exercises
There are six assessed exercises on this CDROM.
Unlike learning activities, assessment exercises are usually evaluated to assess whether you have reached an adequate level of skill. There are no tricks in the exercises; they are simply aimed at seeing if you have acquired the skills in the previous sections. They tend to get longer as the course goes on because they build on a number of the skills you will have learned.
If you are unsure about how to tackle an assignment, contact your tutor. You will not lose marks for this.
Case studies
Case studies are important, as they will reinforce your learning by looking at real-life problems and solutions.
Project
After the end of the CDROM and during the post-workshop phase, you will undertake a major piece of (real) financial management with your organisation, which will constitute half of the total assessment and which will be carried out in the post-workshop phase.
The email group
You are not doing this course on your own, though it may sometimes feel like it. You are encouraged to communicate by email with the rest of the group doing this course. Some Learning activities are specially marked for email discussion, but feel free to communicate with the group on any other exercises. Email discussions will be copied to the tutor, but not assessed or moderated. Your tutor will not give automatic feedback unless you specifically ask for it. But he or she will give you feedback or advice on the planning and execution of assignments.
Assessments
In the pre-workshop phase you will be expected to:
- Complete the learning activity and where requested mail your answers to the email group and your tutor
- Complete and submit your answers to all six assessments.
This will constitute half of your total assessment.
In the post-workshop phase, you will complete a project at your organisation and this will constitute half of your total assessment.
Based on the above assessments, you will be awarded a certificate of completion from the University of Oxford and Fahamu.
This course was originally developed with the financial support of the European Union, the British Department for International Development, and the Canadian International Development Research Centre.
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