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.

Resilient Roots Initiative – A guide and how to close the Feedback Loop

Resilient Roots produced a detailed short guide outlining the methodology the initiative is following to measure accountability and track changes over time with the participating pilot project organisations. The guide also includes some key considerations for any organisation interested in setting up their own mechanisms for measuring accountability.

Furthermore, collecting feedback from the communities we work with is an important part of becoming more accountable, but for this process to be meaningful we have to “close the feedback loop”! Therefore Resilient Roots made a video with practical tips and examples for how to close the feedback loop with your constituents!

You can access the guide here and watch Resilient Root’s latest animation here.

Obstacles and Promising Techniques in Storytelling for Transparency and Accountability

The Transparency and Accountability Initiative’s (TAI’s) story behind the story report aims to help donors and practitioners in the transparency, accountability, and participation community to make use of stories to advocate their civic mission, to document and promote their work, and to examine their own impact.

The report can be found here.