A first-week checklist for new joiners in NGOs and foundations

Most NGOs hire in a hurry. A grant was sanctioned, the project must start in a month, and the new field coordinator arrives on a Monday with no desk, no phone number for the village volunteers and no idea which donor funds her post. By Wednesday she has asked three people where the beneficiary register lives. Her first week has already told her how the organisation runs.

The list below fits a small trust or a larger foundation. Trim or extend the lines for your own programme areas: schooling, clinics, shelter homes, watershed work or river cleanups.

• The joiner knows which project and which donor pay for the post.
• The joiner has signed the safeguarding and conduct documents.
• The joiner has met the people they will depend on in the field and in the finance office.
• The joiner can say what is expected by the end of the first month.

Name, role, project code, reporting manager: ____.
Funding source and reporting calendar shared (donor report dates, internal review dates): yes / no.
Offer terms, role description and probation or contract end date given in writing: yes / no.
Identity and address papers collected; bank details for stipend or salary entered by finance: yes / no.
Safeguarding policy, child-protection policy and code of conduct read and signed: yes / no.
Whistleblower or grievance contact explained, with name and phone number: yes / no.
Programme overview given: theory of change, target villages or wards, beneficiary groups: yes / no.
Beneficiary register, case files or MIS login shown and access granted: yes / no.
Timesheet or time allocation against grants explained: yes / no.
Expense, travel advance and reimbursement process explained with a sample voucher: yes / no.
Field visit planned with a senior colleague (date, place, purpose): ____.
Community, partner and local-government contacts introduced: yes / no.
First-aid, safe travel and emergency contacts for field days shared: yes / no.
Buddy named; check-in set for day 3 and day 5: ____.
Thirty-day goals agreed and noted: ____.

1. 1

   Line manager

   Owns the programme overview, field visit, community introductions, thirty-day goals and the day-five check-in.

2. 2

   HR desk

   Owns the papers: offer, role description, policy signatures, grievance contact, buddy allocation and the induction register.

3. 3

   Finance officer

   Owns bank entry, expense rules, voucher format, advance recovery and the grant timesheet.

4. 4

   MIS or data officer

   Owns logins for the beneficiary database, case management tool or survey app, with a short demo.

5. 5

   Buddy

   A peer for small questions, such as which auto driver knows the block office road, or who sends the field photo when a donor asks.

On day one, hand over papers, a desk and a plan. Read the conduct documents aloud with the joiner, because many field staff are more comfortable listening than reading a long English policy. On day two, walk through the project, its logframe and its donors, including what the utilisation certificate and the restricted-fund statement will ask of her. On day three, a finance session. Day four belongs at a project site beside a colleague, watching a baseline survey, a monitoring visit or a village meeting. On day five, sit down for a half-hour review.

• Programme officer. Works from the logframe and the donor budget lines. Needs the monitoring format, the monthly review dates and the partner MoU in the first week.
• Field coordinator or community mobiliser. Needs the village list, a safe-travel plan, the volunteer roster and the contact for the nearest primary health centre or school head.
• Accounts assistant. Needs the chart of accounts by project code, the donor fund-tracking sheet and the voucher approval chain, with specimen signatures.
• Fundraising and communications executive. Needs the donor database, the consent rules for photographs of children and the approved story bank.
• Counsellor or case worker. Needs the case-note format, referral directory and supervision schedule, with a debrief slot after difficult home visits.

A new joiner often reaches a hamlet by shared jeep, a two-wheeler borrowed from a volunteer or a state bus with two changes. Ask how she will travel before the first visit. Share the vehicle plan with the supervisor, record the vehicle owner and keep a daily check-in by phone until the joiner knows the route. In flood-prone blocks, add a monsoon note on roads and river crossings. Women staff on late return trips need an agreed pick-up point and a named person to call.

• Giving field staff a phone and a login but no safe-travel plan.
• Leaving the donor reporting calendar in a single person's head, so a quarterly narrative report is chased on the last night.
• Skipping the safeguarding talk because the joiner is experienced elsewhere.
• Waiting for the first month-end to explain how reimbursements work.

Related reading: our pages for trusts, societies and foundations are grouped by cause, and the child welfare onboarding page and the education NGOs page show how the pattern changes by programme. If you would like an induction pack drawn up for your trust, send a few lines through the requirements wizard.