In month ten of a twelve-month grant, a field coordinator at a rural education trust starts reading job advertisements in the evenings. Nobody has told her the grant will end. Nobody has told her it will be renewed. The programme officer says the funder's decision is expected next quarter. She hears her husband ask a plain question at dinner: should she plan for a salary after March?
Most Indian NGOs and foundations pay people out of money that comes with an end date. The end date shapes who stays, who leaves early, and who takes the work home. This post follows that pattern from the field to the board and sets out a way to handle it.
How it shows up on the ground
- Fieldworkers and community mobilisers leave in month nine or ten, before the funding is confirmed, for a stable salary elsewhere.
- Programme officers sign the next proposal and then hope the budget line for their own post survives.
- Finance staff juggle tranche dates, utilisation certificates and unrestricted funds, with no spare pair of hands.
- Fundraisers carry the guilt of every post that ends when a pitch fails.
- The director holds a corpus or a small reserve and decides, post by post, who gets bridge funding.
The effect is felt in the village, not the head office. An anganwadi visit is missed. A self-help-group meeting loses its mobiliser. Beneficiaries learn that the face they trusted has gone.
What it costs
Each early exit takes away a relationship. In health, education and livelihood work, trust with a community is built over seasons. A replacement needs months to reach the same level. The donor sees milestones slip, and the next proposal becomes harder to write.
There is a quieter cost. People who stay start to protect themselves. They avoid the long-term idea, the harder village or the new method, because the project may not be there to finish it.
Why it keeps happening
- 1
Posts are tied to budget lines
A project sanction names roles, months and costs. When the sanction ends, the post ends, even if the work is needed for another year.
- 2
Overheads are thin
Many donors cap indirect costs, leaving little to pay for people between grants. A shared director or finance head is paid from small slices.
- 3
Proposals and hiring run on different clocks
A grant may be confirmed after the recruitment season. Offers are made on hope, not paper.
- 4
Silence feels kinder
Leaders delay the news because they do not want panic. The delay breeds rumour, which is worse.
- 5
No one owns the gap
Fundraising owns the proposal, finance owns the money and HR owns nothing in between.
A practical way to handle it
- 1
Map every post to its funding end date
List role, funder, grant start and end, and the share of salary paid from that grant. Mark the posts ending in the next nine months.
- 2
Classify each post
Is it core, tied to a project, or likely to continue? Say which in writing to the person holding it.
- 3
Set a communication calendar
Tell project staff at month six, month nine and month eleven where the renewal stands. Say what is known and what is not.
- 4
Build a small bridge pool
Ask donors where possible to allow a small unrestricted element. Keep part of the corpus for one-month or two-month gaps.
- 5
Write transfer and closure notes
Before a post ends, the holder writes a handover note on villages, partners and pending reports so the work outlives the person.
- 6
Offer a stay or finish incentive
A closing payment tied to the final report and endline survey rewards the completion of the grant, not just the presence.
The rural development NGO page shows how to plan workforce across several projects. For the role definitions that make transfers easy, see the guidance on education NGOs. The wider list of sector problems is on the NGOs and foundations overview. Our general workforce planning service helps with the mapping step.
The month-nine conversation
The most useful single meeting is held in month nine of a twelve-month project. The director, the programme officer and the finance head sit with each project employee. They share the funder's last communication, the budget line that pays the post and the chance of renewal. They ask what the person needs: time to look elsewhere, a reference, a role in the proposal, a closing payment or a transfer to another project.
Keep notes. Return to the same people at month eleven. A promise made at the first meeting and forgotten at the second does more damage than silence.
What the board and the funder can do
- Ask for multi-year funding for core posts, with a clear case on cost of turnover.
- Agree an indirect-cost share large enough to carry a finance head and a programme manager between projects.
- Request no-cost extensions early, before staff start leaving.
- Include a transition month in each budget, for handover and closure.
