FCS Trains its 151 Grantees on Project Reporting

Foundation for Civil Society (FCS) grantees submit periodic reports on the progress of project interventions implemented in their various geographical and thematic areas. The reports ensure that the outcomes and results of inventions are well documented. The reports highlight the data collected and the narrative of the issues that arise during implementation. These reports inform FCS on the outcomes, results, cases (impact stories) from the ground.

From 23 to 24 January 2020, FCS capacitated 151 of its grantees implementing various projects across Tanzania on project reporting. The training was organized by the Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Learning unit with the support of the Programmes Department.

Representatives from 151 organizations attended the training, which is part of FCS efforts to provide more holistic support to grantee organizations through a more collaborative approach. FCS and grantees reflected on the implementation of interventions in line with the strategic plan and thematic program areas. The training also strengthened grantees’ skills to report compellingly on the work that has been implemented.

Secondly, the training aimed at enriching the narrative details with a view to improving annual results reports through contextualizing project outcomes with demographic information, qualitative data, and stories that can add depth and meaning to the data being reported.

During his opening remarks, FCS Programs Manager Mr. Francis Uhadi said, ‘’On behalf of our Executive Director, Francis Kiwanga, I would like to thank you for working towards attaining results during implementation of projects. Today’s training aims at taking a more collaborative approach in the development of the annual interventions report. Results of programs are captured through data or stories through your eyes. You might not see all the stories that you provide us in the annual report but I assure you that the information is part of the report. We have started receiving some of your implementation reports for the 1st quarter and the progress of the interventions in the quarter is impressive.’’

During his opening statement, Mr. Uhadi also urged grantees to report on fraudulent activities or provide information on FCS grantees. He said, ‘’If you have any issue related to fraud or corruption that involves our grantees, report these issues through whistleblower@thefoundation-tz.org. The information you send can only be accessed by the FCS President and you can be sure that a proper course of action will be followed ‘’

Justice Rutenge, FCS Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning Advisor summed up the training’s four key sessions as listed below:

1. The training involves discussing with our grantees their operating context at local levels economically, politically, technologically and socially.
2. We look at the results and outcomes of their interventions through questionnaires that we provide during the session in order to collect data and impact stories that emerged as well as to make sense of the data collected.
   We reflect on the challenges and the lessons from the grantees’ point of view.
3. We look at the theory of action and theory of change which was developed during our 2016-2020 strategic plan.

Mr. Rutenge further explained that “the theory of change is simply what FCS wants to achieve and the theory of action looks at how FCS will achieve what it set out to achieve as stated in the theory of change. Within the theory of action, we introduced the cluster system where grantees were grouped on the basis of their thematic areas. A cluster leader was selected to lead each of the thematic clusters.”

It is expected that the training would enhance cross-learning between the grantees, specifically by enabling three types of linkages, namely:
Cluster leaders who are usually at the national level and work on advocacy issues to learn from grantees working at grassroots levels;
Grantees working at grassroots levels to learn from other grantees working on the same thematic areas;
And finally grantees at grassroots levels learning from cluster leaders.
“We are evaluating this system and these linkages during the training as well,” concluded Mr. Rutenge.

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