This study describes the Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation’s (NWTF) experience in social performance management.
The 'SPM in Practice' series emerges from the experience of the Imp-Act Consortium Global Learning Programme on social performance management (SPM), a two-year project which seeks to gather evidence of effective SPM and understand its organisational value.
This paper describes the progress made and challenges faced by NWTF in the area of SPM. The paper observes that NWTF has a strong social focus and emphasizes the need to convert this “top-down” social focus into an explicit strategy that is internalized across the organization.
Further, the paper identifies the key elements of NWTF’s SPM system. These include:
* Client responsive product development and the use of SEEP/AIMS tool;
* Qualitative expansion by reaching out to the poorest households and the poorest regions
* Organizational policies and procedures that protect clients from unacceptable staff behavior and negligence;
* Use of the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI) that allows the organization to make changes in products or introduce additional services according to client needs.
* NWTF faces challenges in institutionalizing vision and values, costing SPM and managing information.
In conclusion, the paper lists key lessons from NWTF’s SPM:
* Committed leadership alone is not enough to ensure buy-in across the board;
* Organizational culture is crucial to ensuring good SPM;
* Mission drift can have detrimental financial implications;
* Information needs to be systematically translated into effective operational decision-making.
