Japan NPO Center’s Self-Assessment Check Sheet

In 2016, the Japan NPO Center (JNPOC) launched a bilingual portal site called CSO Accountability Portal (http://cso-accountability-portal.net/en) which introduces existing practices in Asia-Pacific as well as within Japan’s non-profit sector to ensure CSO accountability – a topic not too well-known in the CSO community in Asia-Pacific. Featured in this portal as a Japanese case is a JNPOC’s own initiative, a self-assessment check sheet tool created with World Vision Japan in 2014, as part of the NPO Training and Capacity-Building Project. Estimated time required for completing the Check Sheet is 150 minutes (15 min. for simplified version). JNPOC recommends to conduct self-assessment on a regular basis, preferably every three or six months, so that the respondents can observe his/her organisation’s changes and improvements.

JNPOC, with the help of NPO support centers’ leaders nationwide, developed a workbook called “15 Management Capabilities to Improve NPOs” (6,000 copies) which showcased 15 necessary capacities and skills for running a non-profit organisation sustainably and stably.
A supplement to the workbook was the Self-Assessment Check Sheet. This compilation of indicators allow an organisation’s condition to be examined according to each of these capacities to help problem-solving in non-leadership development and to strengthen the capacities of local nonprofits so the organisation can engage in sustained and multifaceted activities.