Correct donor communication, donor attrition, steps to finding funders for your grant and how to write a winning grant proposal were some of the topics that AfriChild staff were introduced to during a grants management training held recently. The training was led by Abubaker Kakule, a finance consultant, and occurred between March 18-22 2019. This training was part of ongoing staff capacity building series at the Centre.
Kakule told staff about five mistakes they should avoid while writing grants. These are: talking about problems more than solutions; addressing a specific problem with general solutions; using buzzwords/jargons; presenting budgets that don’t make sense and repeating exact phrases from the funder’s guidelines.
“Best practices in grants management require having accounting internal controls, operational procurement systems; time keeping systems, property management system and a records retention policy,” he said.
He also reviewed a few grant files and notified staff of missing documents that needed urgent addition.
Staff found the training relevant and this is what some of them had to say about it:
Dr Sheba N. Gitta: ‘The training was a good learning and it has exceeded my expectations. It’s good that we arrested some of the irregularities at this stage.
Vivian Letasi: The training was eye opening and we have acknowledged problems that we have at the Centre. We are all managers in our own capacities.
Mathew Amollo: We take somethings for granted and sometimes we are obliged to sign off because we are rushing through things. If a document that requires signing comes to me, a person has to anticipate that it will remain with me overnight to ensure that all the right procedures have been followed.
Emily Athieno: I appreciate the hands-on sessions and I will ensure to cross check all my documents before I hand them over to be signed.
