Why NGOs’ Field Work Success Stories Matter

In the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) field work (where Non-for-Profit sector organizations implement their activities), managers and leaders emphasize documentation, concise written narratives and pictorial evidences of success factors of the implemented projects or activities. “This is how people know about what we do,” they say to their employees. Field work success stories are of high demand for marketing, soliciting more funds and for realization of visions and missions of NGOs in their home offices in the donor countries. It is how NGOs account for what they solicited to their funders.

Unlike Government driven agencies such as USAID, UKAID, World Bank and UN, most NGOs are under constant pressure from multiple donors to give an evidence of how funds solicited was spent. Even though the Government driven agencies still need success stories to be told, most likely than not, their field programs are driven by country’s foreign policies. Whether the success stories tell the truth or not, g may government foreign policies driven aid will still be given since a government enjoys good relationship with the recipient country.

On the contrary, NGOs driven philanthropies have so many pressures. They accept donations from governments, big corporations and conglomerates, universities, other NGOs and from individual persons. This is a very risky business with so many to be accountable to. Moreover, there are so many other organizations competing with each other for the same funding to apply their distinctive visions and missions around the globe. Failure of one or more from securing donations is an added advantage for the other to realize its vision and missions. Basically NGOs are in a virtuous war of visions and missions with each other.

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