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The new year comes with a fresh start and the opening of a new chapter in the books of organizations. Literally, a new year means you open a fresh page in your NGO books. There are lots of projects and programmes to focus on as you plan out the year.
Firstly you have to investigate the progress you made in the pursuits of 2022. What programs are still incomplete? Why are they incomplete? Are they a priority? Should they be written off and abandoned?
For the completed projects, did they achieve the estimated results? If not, what prevented them from achieving the 100 success? What lessons came out of those programs? What did these programs teach you about your own capacity to formulate, fundraise, plan and technically implement the projects? What can you do better and what should you strengthen?
Self-evaluation and self-reflection will reveal the areas that you missed the mark. Consequently, you’ll avoid the same pitfalls in the new year. This is a sign of growth, progress and maturity.
When planning for the new year you will have to evaluate your financial health vis-a-vis the operational costs, administration costs, recurrent expenditure, programs you intend to embark on, and the economic status of the country. For example, the government of Kenya has started levying a 16% VAT tax on digital platforms such as Zoom Video Conferencing, Quickbooks Online and others following the introduction of Value Added Tax (Digital Marketplace Supply) Regulations 2022. These are platforms that many organizations rely on heavily for their operations. Therefore, your budgets need to reflect these changes because these platforms will pass on the cost to the consumer.
Every year a country experiences different challenges. In 2020 we had COVID-19, in 2022 we had the Ukraine-Russia war, the general elections and a prolonged drought that affected millions of Kenyans and their animals. 2023 is bound to have various challenges the biggest one being financial as the new government works to steady the ship and roll back the policies of the previous regime.
To be relevant and in order to convince donors, you’ll need to tailor your interventions to tackle the problems that people are facing that year because of the changing landscape. You can’t stage Covid interventions to the scale that you stage drought interventions because Covid is not as prevalent in this country as famine, hunger and drought are.
Conclusion
Stay relevant, and be effective this year and you’ll see success in all your endeavours as an organization. Have a very successful 2023.
