Organisation Design for NGOs and Social Enterprises
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
What this looks like in ngos and social enterprises
The parts of organisation design that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
Structuring Around Programmes and Funding
Where the org chart follows the grants.
What this coversHide
Structuring Around Programmes and Funding
Where the org chart follows the grants.
What this coversHideSector organisations are shaped by funding as much as by design, which means the structure can drift into something nobody would have chosen - programme silos that duplicate functions and share nothing.
Programme structure
- Programme and project leadership
- Field teams and community-level staff
- Monitoring and evaluation
- Partner and community liaison
Organisational functions
- Finance, grants and donor compliance
- HR and administration
- Fundraising and communications
- Governance and board interface
- Core versus project-funded roles distinguished in the structure
- Reporting lines where staff are split across projects
- Decision rights between programme and organisational leadership
- Shared functions protected from project funding cycles
- Field to head office reporting and accountability
- Board and executive interface defined
- Succession for programme and organisational leadership
Protecting shared functions from project funding cycles is the structural choice that most determines whether an organisation can operate between grants.
The general method — what organisation design covers, the questions it answers and what an engagement produces — is the same whatever the sector, and is set out on the organisation design page. What is above is the part that differs for ngos and social enterprises.
Other HR topics for ngos and social enterprises
Where to start
Most engagements begin with a review of how this runs in your business today, then a written process and the sequence to implement it.
See all HR topics for ngos and social enterprises, or another industry.